Exultation

“ Before the Throne of Christ on the right hand, the Just, in humiliation and in exultation, rise through the air with their children and families; some of whom are bowing before the Book of Life, which is opened on clouds by two Angels: many groups arise in exultation ”

“ We used to meet every day in highest exultation, and part every day in deepest woe. We talked of death and elopement alternately, and treated our fathers with despairing and most exasperating dutifulness. ”

“ I declare by the exultation which I have in Christ Jesus, as having died for my offenses, and risen again for my justification, that I neither fear sufferings nor death; and am daily ready to be offered up, and feel myself continually exposed to death. But the common reading is probably to be preferred; for your glorying is the same as glorying on your account: I profess by the glorying or exultation which I have on account of your salvation, that I anticipate with pleasure the end of my earthly race.
I die daily - A form of speech for, I am continually exposed to death. ”

“ Besides, what right have you young fellows got to be prying after other men’s goods, and thrusting yourselves upon your childless elders? You look rather foolish, when you get buried first; it tickles people immensely; the more fervent your prayers for the death of your aged friend, the greater is the general exultation when you precede him. ”

“ There is another expression, in the first verse, which deserves to be remarked. How do the friends of a successful man think of the scenes in which he has borne a memorable part? They chiefly think of them [261] in connection with their own hero. And amid all the story of the Exodus, in which so little honour is given to the human actor, the one trace of personal exultation is where it is most natural and becoming; it is in the heart of his relative: “When Jethro ... heard of all that the Lord had done for Moses and for Israel.” ”

“ Till we are admitted to his presence, let us in our exile always bear him in mind: every one will behold him in heaven with so much the greater joy, and so much the more perfectly, as he shall more assiduously and more devoutly have remembered him on earth. Nor is it only in our repose, but also in the midst of our employments, that we ought to have him present to our minds, in imitation of the holy angels, who, when they are sent to attend on us, so acquit themselves of the functions of this exterior ministry as never to be drawn from their interior attention to God. ”

“ With a terrible inner consciousness of his own lamentable condition, the exile wrote: “True preaching is a salt that stirreth up persecution, and an office that no man is meet for, save he that is seasoned himself before with poverty in spirit, softness, meekness, patience, mercifulness, pureness of heart, and hunger of righteousness, and looking for persecution also; and hath his hope, comfort, and solace in the blessing only, and in no worldly theory.” ”

“ Yet sad and sorrow-laden, memories
Possess me as the vision meets my eyes.
[Pg 50] III.
My native land! still, still I think of thee;
By day and night the oft-recurring thought
Brings intermingled pain and joy to me.
And oft I curse the fortune which has brought
These days of exile and of solitude
To one who longs for peace and quietude.
IV.
My life has not been sinless, yet what sin
Have I committed that my punishment
Should be so great! An aching heart within
Still makes me sorrowful. ”

“ So the face of the exile lightens up at the throbbing of his heart, when, in some foreign land, he suddenly and unexpectedly hears the sound of his own language. So his eyes light up, and his heart beats faster, and even amidst the very longing of his soul after home, the desire after that home is appeased by these its most hallowed associations. ”

“ Very many of the missionary's heaviest burdens are summed up in the one word whose height and breadth and length and depth none knows so well as he—that word 'exile.' It is not merely a physical exile from home and country and all their interests; it is not only an intellectual exile from all that would feed and stimulate the mind; it is yet more—a spiritual exile from the guidance, the instruction, the correction, from the support, the fellowship, the communion of the saints and the church at home. ”

“ It is far from my intention to add to your distress by upbraiding you with the errors of your past life; none of us can recall the past; but, for the consolation of human nature, we possess, with the divine aid, over the future an unlimited and absolute control: to this latter point I am particularly desirous of directing your attention.
The word exile, or banishment, sounds harshly on the ear, and must ever convey to the heart the most acute feeling of anguish. Our native land, containing the scenes of youthful amusements and innocent pleasures, abandoned perhaps for ever! ”

“ When we look for the causes of sudden and progressive religious exaltation we often discover that it is nothing else than compensation for disappointed love. I refer here to true and fervid exaltation, identified with the whole inner consciousness, and not to the religion of habit which the average man scarcely remembers in his daily life, and only observes on Sunday in the form of a conventional promenade, or a contribution to the church. ”

“ Here was that comfort, which could never fail, offered to the most desolate, and heaven itself, as a fatherland, to the exile. Here the great gate not only rolled back the noise of the world, but, to show that mercy is ever better than vengeance, stayed the hand of the law, and blunted the sword of the pursuer. ”

“ I shall lose nothing through death. Magnify your calling in this Church, and I will warrant you an exaltation just as good and as great as you can ask for.
I might notice many more items pertaining to this matter; but the Elders going round telling the sisters they must be sealed to them, or they cannot get an exaltation, particularly has wounded my feelings. How ignorant such men are! This to me is like a shadow. To talk about it is sheer nonsense. Let every man and woman magnify their calling in the kingdom of God, and he will take care that we have our exaltation. ”

“ After exile on earth I hope to enjoy the possession of Thee in our eternal Fatherland, but I have no wish to amass merits for Heaven, I will work for Thy Love alone, my sole aim being to give Thee pleasure, to console Thy Sacred Heart, and to save souls who will love Thee for ever. ”

“ Are you ready to accept these humiliating conditions, and to be branded as traitors and cowards?’
“‘Never,’ we answered; ‘never! Rather proscription, ruin and death.’
“‘My friends,’ he added, ‘exile is ruin; it is despair, it is desolation. Pause a while and reflect, before forming your resolve.’
“Not one of us flinched, and without hesitancy, we all cried out: ‘Rather than disown our mother country and become apostates, let exile, let ruin, let death, be our lot.’
“‘Your answer is noble and generous, my good friends, and your resolve is sublime,’ said he; ‘then let exile be our [Pg 57] lot. ”

“ What a change from the days of the Roman Fathers, when religion circled round one’s own hearth, and exile was practically excommunication! The mother-land is no longer a mother but a mistress, to be visited only for pleasure, and every other land is only another odalisque, devoid of sanctities, ministress to appetites. The Magnificent Ones of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance at least stayed at home and minded their serfs and their business: our modern Magnificent Ones go abroad, make new serfs everywhere, and mind only their pleasures. ”

“ An exile, and strongly impressed with the feeling that the majority of his countrymen regarded him with sentiments of aversion such as his own heart could experience towards none, he sheltered himself from such disgusting and painful thoughts in the calm retreats of poetry, and built up a world of his own—with the more pleasure, since he hoped to induce some one or two to believe that the earth might become such, did mankind themselves consent. ”

“ You and I will not be saved in the presence of God with an exaltation like that which is held out to us simply because we are called Latter-day Saints, or because we have complied with a certain form of religion, or even because we have gone into sacred places and received holy ordinances whereby we might be washed and cleansed and made anew and anointed unto righteousness. We shall not be brought up into the presence of our Father to abide there and participate in his glory simply because of these things. ”

“ Who shall count the faces that the exile has known, the voices that have been familiar in his ear, the hands that have pressed his? In every land and in every city, he has met and talked with a score, with scores, with hundreds of men and women all leading the more or less mysterious and uncertain life which has become his own by necessity or by choice. ”

“ It is true that I have been shorn of my honours and privileges, that I live in exile as a prisoner and that the vile insulters of fallen majesty compass me about. I who once dwelt in splendour and issued my commands to the legions of the faithful am treated with contumely by a filthy pack of time-servers, and have nothing that I can call my own except, for the moment, the air that I breathe. ”

“ Can it be hoped that anything should ever bend thee? that thou shouldst ever be reformed? that thou shouldst dream of any flight? that thou shouldst contemplate any exile? Would, would indeed that the immortal Gods might give thee such a purpose! And yet I perceive, if astounded by my voice thou shouldst bend thy spirit to go into voluntary exile, how vast a storm of odium would hang over me, if not at this present time, when the memory of thy villanies is recent, at least from the passions of posterity. ”

“ I preached a short sermon here, yesterday, with regard to exaltation. I spoke but a few minutes, and brother Pratt brought up the same subject. It is all connected with the great Gospel sermon; for we can but notice parts of it, when we undertake to speak to the people.
It is all connected with the exaltation of man, showing how he becomes exalted to be a king and a Priest—yea, even a God, like his Father in heaven. ”

“ To-morrow, if the Lord will, the the jubilant song, with its thrice welcome melody, will greet the ears of a poor captive exile, the prison doors give way, and he be permitted once more to breathe the air of freedom in a land where he is not annoyed by the sight of the star and crescent, the turban and the covered face—all of which are an abomination in my sight. ”

“ Oh, weep for the living, who linger to bear The renegade's shame, or the exile's despair. One look, one last look, to our cots and our towers, To the rows of our vines, and the beds of our flowers, To the church where the bones of our fathers decayed, Where we fondly had deemed that our own would be laid. ”

“ No doubt some at least of the rejoicing multitude had learned what the captivity was meant to teach, and had come to bless God, both for the long years of exile, which had burned away much dross, and for the incomplete work of restoration, surrounded though they were with foes, and little as was their strength to fight. The trustful heart finds occasion for unmingled praise in the most mingled cup of joy and sorrow. ”

“ Neither do I speak to gain your prayers, for a lingering, living death within these walls will be a penance fit to cleanse my soul of every sin. I speak not for myself, but for one whom I have wronged though he never did me wrong; one who, if living, is now an exile under the ban of the King. ”

“ Unhappily, some of these incidents prove but too clearly, how soon many of these exiles 'for conscience sake' forgot to practice those principles of religious liberty and toleration, for the preservation and enjoyment of which they had themselves abandoned home and kindred, and the church of their forefathers; and they tend to lessen the feelings of respect and admiration with which their piety, and their disinterested spirit, must necessarily inspire us. ”

“ Her, whose ashes will be cast to the winds! Her, who, deprived of the holy Eucharist at the moment of death, and loaded down with the decree of excommunication, is about to be cast into the bottom of hell for all eternity! ”

“ The mountains of our home stand round about us, and we know it. How can we rest longer on these shores of exile? Exile is for those whose hearts are estranged from Thee. Our hearts are won back to Thee, Deliverer and King. ”

“ Nature records her protest in the most unmistakable language of instinct, and only the repeated and continued disregard of that protest at last begets the abnormal craving of that poison-thirst which clerical blasphemers ascribe to the promptings of our natural appetites. They might as well make us believe in a natural passion for dungeon air, because the prisoners of the Holy Inquisition at last lost their love of liberty and came to prefer the stench of their subterranean [60] black-holes to the breezes of the free mountains. ”

“ You cannot give any person their exaltation, unless they know what evil is, what sin, sorrow, and misery are, for no person could comprehend, appreciate, and enjoy an exaltation upon any other principle. The devil with one third part of the spirits of our Father's Kingdom got here before us, and we tarried there with our friends, until the time came for us to come to the earth and take tabernacles; but those spirits that revolted were forbidden ever to have tabernacles of their own. You can now comprehend how it is that they are always trying to get possession of the bodies of human beings ”

“ The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.
II.
If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free!
If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die. ”

“ But after the Exile, the greater scrupulousness of the religious life, and its absorption in ritual, laid extraordinary emphasis upon the daily offering, which increased to a most painful degree of anxiety as the centuries went on. ”