B. H. Roberts

“ As matters now stand, the usually accepted Christian doctrine on the matter of man's origin is that God of his free-will created of nothing the spirits and bodies of men. That they are as he would have them, since in his act of creation he could have had them different if he had so minded. Then why should he—being infinitely wise and powerful and good, for so the creeds represent him—why should he create by mere act of volition beings such as men are, not only capable of, but prone to, moral evil? ”

“ One cannot stop thinking even if he would, so long as he is awake and conscious. What we call the mind will think about something, but we usually allow it to drift aimlessly in its thought. It is earned away hither and thither by every passing object, noise, or word that suggests an idea; or else we allow it to be driven to and fro in the realm of our imagination by every passing fancy. No effort is made to control it. We think of everything in general and nothing in particular. What is needed in our intellectual development is mind-control. ”

“ Hence, the nations which have swarmed our earth. In after years, when Paradise was lost by sin; when man was driven from the face of his heavenly Father, to toil, and droop, and die; when heaven was veiled from view, and, with few exceptions, man was no longer counted worthy to retain the knowledge of his heavenly origin; then darkness veiled the past and future from the heathen mind; man neither knew himself, from whence he came, nor whither he was bound. At length a Moses came, who knew his God, and would fain have led mankind to know Him too, and see Him face to face. ”

“ As the prophet in another place in this remarkable chapter says—referring to the general desolation of the earth and its inhabitants—"When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning of grapes when the vintage is done. They shall lift up their voices, they shall sing for the majesty of the Lord, they shall cry aloud from the sea. From which it is to be understood that there will be a few even in those disastrous times, whose righteousness will call down the favor of God. ”

“ It is of greater antiquity than the earth itself, then. Older than the hills, or the mountains, or the sea. Is it not older than the stars, since it comes of the love of God, also the Christ love for man; answered by the love of man for God, and or Christ, and or fellow man? In all worlds and in all world-systems does not the same Gospel prevail? Is not eternal law maintained by its constant and eternal vindication, what some call the maintenance of Justice? Does not violation of law involve intelligences in suffering in all worlds? ”

“ There may be occasions when a speaker is justified in announcing his divisions and subdivisions, but such cases are exceptions. Hearers do not care how a discourse is constructed, so it comes to them warm and pulsating with life. To give the plan of a speech before the speech itself is contrary to the order of nature. We are not required first to look upon a grisly skeleton before we can see a graceful, living body. There is a skeleton inside each body, but during life it is well hidden, and there is no reason that the speaker should anticipate the work of the tomb. ”

“ The coming forth of such a government, the founding of such a kingdom, is in harmony with all the hopes of all the saints, and the predictions of all the prophets who have touched upon the subject. It is the actual reign of Christ on earth with His Saints, in fulfillment of the hopes held out to them in every dispensation of the Gospel. It is to be the burden of the song of the redeemed out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, that Christ has made them unto their God kings and priests—"and we shall reign on the earth." ”

“ The time has come for the restoration of the Gospel; for the re-establishment of his church; for the ushering in of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times in which he has promised to gather together in one all things in Christ, "both which are in heaven, and which are on earth." A reign of peace, a reign of righteousness is about to be inaugurated—the Millennium which the scriptures promised—long looked for by earth's troubled children—despaired of—given up—is about to be realized! The remnant of Israel is to be gathered to Zion; Jerusalem is to be established, no more to be thrown down ”

“ What truth do these Christian critics hold to be the most important truth to mankind? Would it not be the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of the world, the one who is to bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel? ”

“ I am God; I made the world, and men before they were in the flesh. And He also said unto him: If thou wilt turn unto me, and hearken unto my voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions, and be baptized even in water in the name of mine Only Begotten Son who is full of grace and truth which is Jesus Christ, the only name which shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come unto the children of men, ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, asking all things in His name and whatsoever ye shall ask, it shall be given you. ”

“ Clearly all this prophecy of Isaiah's has not yet been fulfilled; for the earth, however much it may have been defiled under the inhabitants thereof, has not yet been burned, and but few men left. That is a judgment that still hangs over the world; and will come upon it as sure as the Lord has spoken the word; and that, too, because men have transgressed the laws; because they have changed the ordinances; because they have broken—not the covenant made with Moses, or with Abraham—but because they have broken the everlasting covenant; of which covenant the blood of Christ is the sign and seal. ”

“ All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot destroy a pin's head. We may smash that pin's head, dissolve it in acid, burn it in the electric furnace, employ, in a word, every annihilating agency, and yet that pin's head persists in being. Again, it is as uncreatable as it is indestructible. In other words, we cannot create something out of nothing. The material must be furnished for every existent article. The sum of matter in the universe is 'X' pounds,—and, while it may be carried through a myriad forms, when all is said and done, it is just-'X' pounds. ”

“ No man in all the world was so pre-eminent as to be justified in proclaiming the divine acceptance of one church in preference to another, or God's rejection of them all. Divine wisdom alone was sufficient to pass judgment upon such a question; and there is peculiar force in the circumstance that the announcement which Joseph Smith makes with reference to this subject is not formulated by him nor by any other man, but is given to him of God. God has been the judge of apostate Christendom, Joseph Smith but His messenger, to herald that judgment to the world. ”

“ Paul is himself the best painter. His speeches and letters convey to us, as we read them, the truest impressions of those qualities which helped to make him The Great Apostle. We perceive the warmth and ardor of his nature, his deeply affectionate disposition, the tenderness of his sense of honor, the courtesy and personal dignity of his bearing, his perfect fearlessness, his heroic endurance; we perceive the rare combination of subtlety, tenacity and versatility in his intellect ”

“ As the virtue of courage could not exist without the evil of danger, and as the virtue of sympathy could not exist without the evil of suffering, so no other virtue could exist without its corresponding evil. In a world without evil—if such a world be really conceivable, all men would have perfect health, perfect intelligence, and perfect morals. No one could gain or impart information, each one's cup of knowledge being full. The temperature would stand forever at seventy degrees, both heat and cold being evil. There could be no progress, since progress is the overcoming of evil. ”

“ Death was symbolized in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—in the day thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die—hence the Tree of Death. Death we learn from other scriptures than Genesis, is both temporal and spiritual. What is here called temporal death is physical death, separation of spirit and body, the dust returning to the earth whence it came; but the spirit, being as we have seen a thing immortal, survives in conscious life and goes to the world of spirits. ”

“ History confirms what reason and a knowledge of human nature suggests; for the history of the Church after the elevation of proscribed Christianity to the dignity of the state religion of the Roman empire, is but the melancholy history of unholy ambition, jealousies, strifes, contentions, murders, and wars between rival bishops and their adherents on the one hand; and equally unholy struggles for worldly advantages with kings and rulers of this world on the other. ”

“ A virtue that is colorless, never quite sure of itself, always more or less uncertain, because untried. Such a virtue—if mere absence of vice may be called virtue—would be unproductive of that "joy" the attainment of which is set forth in the Book of Mormon as the purpose of man's existence; for in the context it is written, "They [Adam and Eve] would have remained in a state of 'innocence,' having no joy, for they know no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin." ”

“ How the Infinite and the Finite, in any form of antagonism or other relation, can exist together; how infinite power can co-exist with finite activity;'how infinite wisdom can co-exist with finite contingency; how infinite goodness can co-exist with finite evil; how the Infinite can exist in any manner without exhausting the universe of reality;—this is the riddle which Infinite Wisdom alone can solve, the problem whose very conception belongs only to that Universal Knowledge which fills and embraces the Universe of Being. ”

“ The Nature of Intelligencies: There is in that complex thing we call man, an intelligent entity, uncreated, self existent, indestructible, He—for that entity is a person; because, as we shall see, he is possessed of powers that go with personality only, hence that entity is "he," not "it,"—he is eternal as God is; co-existent, in fact, with God; of the same kind of substance or essence with deity, though confessedly inferior in degree of intelligence and power to God. One must needs think that the name of this eternal entity—what God calls him—conveys to the mind some idea of his nature. ”

“ If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness, there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness, there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not, there is no God, and if there is no God, we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon: wherefore, all things must have vanished away. ”

“ But when a firm and clear plan is prearranged, there is no more danger of saying what we do not intend, or of running into endless digressions, than if every word was written. Indeed, there is no better way of guarding against undue discursiveness in a written speech than by arranging such a plan before beginning to write. But it may be urged that this laborious preparation—this careful placing of every thought—will require as much time as to write in full. It may at first. The mind needs to be drilled into the work, and it will be of great value even as a mental discipline. ”

“ Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate" (Psalms 127:3-5) . And when the Lord would give his highest blessing to Abraham, his friend, for his supreme act of obedience, he could but say: "In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." (Genesis, xxii, 17-18.) ”

“ Male and female, they come, with blessings on their heads, and a voice is heard again, "Be fruitful and multiply." Earth, its mineral, vegetable and animal wealth, its Paradise prepared, down comes from yonder world on high a son of God, with his beloved spouse. ”