By the same revelation, it appears that the terms eternal and endless are used because God is eternal and endless, and not in reference to the duration of the punishment; that punishment for a limited period is eternal and endless, because God inflicts it. The Lord was condescending enough to inform the prophet that it was written "eternal damnation, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men," for the sake of his glory. Whether the Universalist, so skillfully angled for, was caught, does not appear.

In regard to the nature of the punishment, the most definite idea seems to be, that those who come short of salvation are deprived of their external bodies, separated from their friends, and imprisoned. In this condition, as "the spirits in prison," they are preached to, and have a chance to repent, and, if they do, can enter again into earthly tabernacles, and try once more for a kingdom. Every sinner, therefore, has more than one chance; he can run the gauntlet of an earthly tabernacle as many times as he chooses to repent in this infernal prison-house.

The prophet, however, was careful, in a subsequent revelation, to provide a more enduring hell for apostates. Apostacy was discovered to be the sin against the Holy Ghost which is not to be forgiven. Those who sin in this respect are "they who shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels, and the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power; yea, the only ones who shall not be redeemed in the due time of the Lord :" they shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, to reign with the devil

and his angels to eternity."

The devil and his angels

are those who voted in the minority at the election before referred to, and were cast down. Whether this appendix to the infernal regions was satisfactory to the Universalist, we have no means of knowing.

The salvation, as well as damnation, of the Saints possesses many curious features. The grossest materialism will be found to be the underlying formation on which the conglomerated stratum rests. There are three degrees of salvation, or glories, as they are sometimes called the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial, corresponding to the sun, moon, and stars. The celestial is the highest, and those who attain it are to have celestial bodies, and are the priests of the order of Melchisedek. The terrestrial is a degree lawer. It is made up of the "spirits in prison" who receive the Gospel when it is there preached to them: these have only terrestrial bodies. The telestial is the lowest of all, and is made up of those who in the first instance are cast into hell, but, after roasting a while, are finally redeemed from the devil in the last resurrection. These have telestial bodies, and occupy, as it were, the basement story of this singular theological edifice. The bodies for these degrees, though differently named, all agree in being material; that being, according to Mormon estimation, the entire composition of all things, divine, human, and infernal.

CHAPTER XIII.

DOCTRINES CONTINUED.

Doctrinal Sermons.-The Resurrection Saints to have Farms and become Gods.—Pre-existence of Spirits.—Pantheism.—Propagation of Gods.-Holy Spirit.-Angels.—Materialism.

In the summer of 1852, discourses were delivered by Orson Pratt and Brigham Young, in which some of the eccentric features of the Mormon creed, in reference to the salvation and glory of the Saints, are distinctly set forth.

They believe, it appears, that by the sin of Adam eating the fruit contrary to the divine command, the penalty of the death of the body was brought upon all men; and that, without any future redemption, the soul and the body would eternally lie in the grave. The death of Christ, however, satisfied the original sin, and by it man will have a resurrection from the grave only.

"You will be redeemed from the original sin with no works on your part whatever. Jesus had died to redeem you from it, and you are as sure to be redeemed as you live upon the face of the earth.” "If you have murdered all the days of your life, and committed all the sins the devil would prompt you to commit, you will get a resurrection-your spirit will be restored to your body; and if Jesus had not come, all of us would have slumbered in the grave." (Pratt's Sermon, Deseret News, Aug. 21, 1852.)

K

It is the general belief of Christendom that man, on the dissolution of the body, must bid a final adieu to his . earthly riches. But this forms no part of the Mormon faith. After the earth has been purified by fire, and after the resurrection, each Saint is to have a good farm:

"O ye Saints, when you sleep in the grave, don't be afraid that your agricultural pursuits are forever at an end; don't be fearful that you will never get any more landed property; but if you are Saints, be of good cheer; for when you come up in the morning of the resurrection, behold, there is a new earth," &c. "We are looking for things in their immortal state, and farmers will have great farms upon the earth when it is so changed." (Idem.)

But the sequel shows that the size of these farms depends very much upon the length of time the earth shall escape the fiery purification. If the universal conflagration should happen to be postponed for 8000 years, there will have to be close engineering to make out a decent-sized lot, leaving out of the estimation salt lakes, deserts, and cañons.

"But don't be so fast, says one; don't you know that there are only about 197,000,000 of square miles, or about 126,000,000,000 of acres upon the surface of the globe? Will these accommodate all the inhabitants after the resurrection? Yes; for, if the earth should stand 8000 years, or eighty centuries, and the population should be a thousand million in every century, that would be 80,000,000,000 of inhabitants, and we know that many centuries have passed that would not give the tenth part of this; but supposing this to be

the number, there would then be over an acre and a half for each person upon the surface of the globe." (Idem.)

The wicked, however, being excluded from the promises, gives the Saint the reasonable expectation of a good farm, even though the earth should jog on in the old way a little over the time limited. Upon the assumption that one out of a hundred is brought into the fold, each Saint "would receive over 150 acres, which would be quite enough to raise manna, and to build some habitations upon and some splendid mansions; it would be large enough to raise flax to make robes of, and to have beautiful orchards of fruit-trees; it would be large enough to have our flower-gardens, and every thing the agriculturist and the botanist want, and some to spare."

It seems, too, each man is to rise with his wives and children, and the work of generation is still to go on; and when the house gets too full, the surplus population are to be sent forth to new worlds, to be created for their especial benefit. This, however, is not to be the end of his progress; he is even to become a god, and a creator of worlds on his own hook.

"The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming gods like himself. We are created, we are born for the express purpose of growing up from the low estate of manhood, to become gods like unto our Father in heaven. The Lord has organized mankind for the express purpose of increasing in that intelligence and truth which is with God, until he is capable of creating worlds on worlds, and becoming gods." (Brigham Young, Deseret News, Oct. 2, 1852.)