tween good and evil communicants, and here is his testimony concerning them:

Expert Testimony.-"When a messenger comes, saying he has a message from God, offer him your hand, and request him to shake hands with you.

"If he be an angel, he will do so, and you will feel his hand." [An angel is a resurrected being, with a body as tangible as man's.]

"If he be the spirit of a just man made perfect, he will come in his glory; for that is the only way he can

appear.

"Ask him to shake hands with you, but he will not move, because it is contrary to the order of heaven for a just man to deceive; but he will still deliver his message.

"If it be the Devil as an angel of light, when you ask him to shake hands, he will offer you his hand, and you will not feel anything [he also being without a body]. You may therefore detect him."h

In another place, the Prophet says: "Wicked spirits have their bounds, limits and laws, by which they are governed; and it is very evident that they possess a power that none but those who have the Priesthood can control." To his declaration that “a man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge,” he adds that if men do not get knowledge, including the knowledge of how to control evil spirits, the latter will have more power than the former, and thus be able to dominate them. This is precisely the condition of "the spirits in prison." They are dominated by a power which they cannot control. They are in Hell, and Satan sways the scepter over his own dominion.

h, D. & C. 129:4-8.

i, Hist. Ch. Vol. 4, p. 576.

Seek Knowledge Aright.-To those in quest of spiritual light, this word of counsel: Seek it only in the Lord's appointed way. Follow the advice of the Apostle James and the example of Joseph the Prophet. Never go upon the Devil's ground. Keep away from all deceptive influence. One may believe in hypnotism, without being a hypnotist, without surrendering one's will to the will of the person exercising that power-a very dangerous power when wielded by an unprincipled possessor. In like manner, one may believe spiritualism real, without becoming a spiritualist, without attending "seances," without consulting "mediums," without putting trust in planchettes, ouija boards, automatic pencils, false impersonations, or in any way encouraging the advances of designing spirits, who thus gain an ascendancy over their victims, leading them into mazes of delusion, and often into depths of despair. Go not after them; and if they come to you, put them to the test. "Try the spirits." If they speak not according to revealed truth, if they conform not to divine standards, “it is because there is no light in them."

The Great Return.-Yes, the dead, or the departed, do return. They are no more dead than we are. Nay, not so much. The Savior's reappearance after death to his amazed and incredulous disciples-what was that but a return, a real return, from the realm of the departed, where, in the interim between his crucifixion and resurrection, he "preached to the spirits in prison?" Moreover, the ascended Lord promised another return, or his angel promised it for him, when the "men of Galilee" stood

j, James 1:5; Hist. Ch. Vol. 1, pp. 4, 5.

k, 1 John 4:1.

1, Isa. 8:20.

"gazing up into heaven," after "a cloud" had "received him out of their sight." That glorious return is nigh. All the signs so indicate. May the kingly Traveler from heaven to earth meet a royal welcome when he appears!

m, Acts 1:9-11.

ARTICLE FORTY.

The Goal Eternal.

Dante and the Divine Comedy. In the thirteenth century a great Italian poet, the immortal Dante, produced a wonderful work, "La Divina Comedia”—in English, "The Divine Comedy." In one part of the poem the author represents himself as passing through Hades. In the first circle of the infernal depths, a region called “Limbo” -described by a footnote in my copy of the work as a place "containing the souls of unbaptized children and of those virtuous men and women who lived before the birth of our Savior"-he comes upon such characters as Homer, Virgil, Plato and others of their class, and the spirit guide who is conducting him through "the realms of shade," says:

-Inquirest thou not what spirits

Are these, which thou beholdest? Ere thou pass
Farther, I would thou know, that these of sin
Were blameless; and if aught they merited
It profits not, since baptism was not theirs,
The portal to thy faith. If they before

The Gospel lived, they served not God aright;
And among such am I.

For these defects

And for no other evil, we are lost;

Only so far afflicted, that we live

Desiring without hope.a

And this was all that thirteenth century theology could say for worthies of that stamp-the best and bright

a, Hades or Hell, Canto 4, lines 29-39.

est spirits of their times. Blameless, and yet in hell, "desiring without hope," simply because they had lived on earth when the Gospel was not on earth, and had not been baptized! Whether or not, as some think, it was the intent of the poet to covertly satirize such teachings, is immaterial at the present time. It is sufficient that he had such teachings to satirize.

Truth's Restoration Imperative. If any reader of mine wishes to know why Joseph Smith and "Mormonism" came into the world, he need look no further to find one of the cardinal reasons. It is furnished in those lines from Dante's masterpiece, setting forth the orthodox tenet and teaching of the Christian Church regarding the spirits of the good who depart this life without undergoing the baptismal ordinance. This, and that other man-made doctrine, that half the world was pre-destined to be saved, and the other half to be damned, regardless of any good or evil done by them-little children being included in both classes-were widely preached in Christendom at the time of the advent of "Mormonism." It was imperative that a prophet should arise, that the pure primitive faith should be restored, and God's word go forth once more on its mission of justice and mercy.

"According to Their Works."-Whatever Christian theology may have taught, or whatever it may teach, in support of such doctrines, the fact remains that the Gospel of Christ does not, and never did dispose of men's precious souls in that unrighteous, unreasonable, unscriptural manner. It does not prejudge, nor save nor damn, regardless of men's deserts. Rewarding all according to their works," it gives to every creature, living

b, Rev. 20:12.