The St. Cloud journal., 1868-12-31

dawn, doing the worlds heavy work,
piling. up mountains to become the
source Of rivers and spreading out con-
tinents and lands for the habitation If
men and animals. If.it were not tor
these safety valves or steam pipes, the
great engine would tear the globe to
., pieces. A. il is it does rend and shake
Ii With earthquakes, which destroy
cities. The earthquake, which Is very
terrible to rs, is tho throes Of the great
engine making the dry land appear. In
tho first days Of creation tho surface Of
the earth was all water, and the breadth
of the land has been steadily increasing
ever since, by means Of earthquakes.
The storms which bury ships, destroy
dwellings, and drown men, also clear
the atmosphere so that men and ami
mails and trees can live and grow in it.
II tho air were stasnaut everything
would droop and die. Ifit were only
stirred by light breeses, all vegetable
life would be mushroom or pumpkin
like. Men and animals would be stu
pid, sickly and sluggish. There would
be no timber 6t to build ships, and no
men with enterprise to use it.
Labor is part of the civil curse or
condition incurred by the fall; but the
men and races who are compelled to Ia
Dor most arc those who govern the
world. In the Pacific Isles, where food
grows spontaneously and the climate is
SO mild people do not need houses and
clothes to protect them frsm cold,
the people are lndolent and vicious.
1t is those who live in cold northern
countries, and on soil which will not
sustain life without careful cultivation,
who rule the world, invent tho great
Improvements and preach the Gospel
to all tho people. The man who labors
With his hands, developes his own mus
Gle a. we'll As earns his own bread, and
becomes physically the superior OF the
man who has nothing to do. Sin is
the spiritual volcano, the earthquake,
the storm, the cold, the sterility which
enforces labor. It piled up the noun
tain Of Gods mercy-the magnificent
wonder Of tho Atonement-from which
low the rivers of His cleansing, re-
deeming love. Cities are overthrown
BY 1t; but it spreads out the green
paatures of xrace ia which He leadeth
us. As the mountain pine wrestles
with the storm and sends its roots
downward and its branches upward un-
I'll its fiber hardens into a consistency
fit to be used in building a palace for a
king; 80 the soul wrestles "with
wiokedness in high places" until it
5beeonss firm and strong, 6t to become
- pillar in the temple Of our God to go
no more out" By labor and prayer for
sustslanee, amid the sterility of its
surroundings, the soul is developed and
rounded out as the muscles Of a black
smiths arm are developed by welding
the sledge. Without what We call evil,
this world would be great moral and
physical dead level, tull Of mushroom
and pampkin growth 4; and that Atone
ment which is the wonder of the uni
verne, and into which "angels desire to
look" would never have had an exis-
tence.
too have thought great deal about
the nature and duration of punishment
after death. The bible gives US very
minute account Of God calling Abram
to be the founder and father Of His
peculiar people, the people whom he
educated aud led by special personal
teachings tor hundreds Of years and
We have no account that he ever told
them anything about an existence be-
Tond the grave. We have no evidence
that any Of them did exist after death,
except Moses and Elias, who appeared
on the Mouat of TRANSPORTATION, and
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of whom
the Saviour speaks as "not Of the dead
but Of the living" It is unaccounta-
bic that God should not have warned
these people if they were liable to so
tsRsible fate ~ eternal punishment.
II is believed now that the six days
Of creation were long, geological peri
DDS: At one time all tie ground was
covered by dense forests, which became
our present coal strata. This rank
vegetable growth was of species very
inferior to our present trees. The low
est order of vegetable life preceded the
higher, in grodual SUGGESTIONS. So Of
animal life. The world had reached
something of its present magnifcence
when it was 4 fit habitation for living
soul. Then Adam was made, and told
that on the day he ate of the fruit he
should surely die. I think he did
die that day; that is, that he lost the
gift Of immortality, and that it was
restored through Christ. Before His
advent . few men obtained this gift
on the credit Of the coming Atonement;
but the great mass of mankiad fell, as
the primevaI forests, to furnish light
and warmth, warning, example and en-
eoungement to the superior generations
who succeeded them.
All We know of spiritual life is what
God has taught us through its analo-
gies to the physical world. The body
has . father, and is born. God is the
Father Of our spirits, and they are
bosn.r The soul, like the body, lives
and grows and, Is developed by suste-
nance and labor. Like it, it becomes
diseased struggles with the disease, is
aided il: thus struggle by remedies
OF hindsrsd by poisops. Like it, it
triumphs and lives, or succumbs and
dies - 70 H..
The body is constantly imparting
portions Of itself for the sustenance Of
other bodies, not only as a mother
feeds hsT infant from her own life blood,
and q the vigorous nourish the weak
by imparsing heat and strength, but by
tkoa continual throwing off of waste