Читать книгу The Women of Mormondom - Edward W. Tullidge - Страница 6

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THE OPENING OF A SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION TO AMERICA—WOMAN'S EXALTATION—THE LIGHT OF THE LATTER DAYS.

Joseph Smith opened to America a great spiritual dispensation. It was such the Mormon sisterhood received.

A latter-day prophet! A gospel of miracles! Angels visiting the earth again! Pentecosts in the nineteenth century! This was Mormonism.

These themes were peculiarly fascinating to those earnest apostolic women whom we shall introduce to the reader.

Ever must such themes be potent with woman. She has a divine mission always, both to manifest spiritual gifts and to perpetuate spiritual dispensations.

Woman is child of faith. Indeed she is faith. Man is reason. His mood is skepticism. Left alone to his apostleship, spiritual missions die, though revealed by a cohort of archangels. Men are too apt to lock again the heavens which the angels have opened, and convert priesthood into priestcraft. It is woman who is the chief architect of a spiritual church.

Joseph Smith was a prophet and seer because his mother was a prophetess and seeress. Lucy Smith gave birth to the prophetic genius which has wrought out its manifestations so marvelously in the age. Brigham Young, who is a society-builder, also received his rare endowments from his mother. Though differing from Joseph, Brigham has a potent inspiration.

Thus we trace the Mormon genius to these mothers. They gave birth to the great spiritual dispensation which is destined to incarnate a new and universal Christian church.

Until the faith of Latter-day Saints invoked one, there was no Holy Ghost in the world such as the saints of former days would have recognized. Respectable divines, indeed, had long given out that revelation was done away, because no longer needed. The canon of scripture was said to be full. The voice of prophesy was no more to be heard to the end of time.

But the Mormon prophet invoked the Holy Ghost of the ancient Hebrews, and burst the sealed heavens. The Holy Ghost came, and His apostles published the news abroad.

The initial text of Mormonism was precisely that which formed the basis of Peter's colossal sermon on the day of Pentecost:

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall dream dreams;

"And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit; and they shall prophesy."

Here was a magic gospel for the age! And how greatly was woman in its divine programme!

No sooner was the application made than the prophesy was discovered to be pregnant with its own fulfillment. The experience of the former-day saints became the experience of the "latter-day saints." It was claimed, too, that the supreme fulfillment was reserved for this crowning dispensation. These were emphatically the "last days." It was in the "last days" that God would pour out His spirit upon "all flesh." The manifestation of Pentecost was but the foreshadowing of the power of God, to be universally displayed to his glory, and the regeneration of the nations in the "dispensation of the fullness of times."

This gospel of a new dispensation came to America by the administration of angels. But let it not be thought that Joseph Smith alone saw angels. Multitudes received angelic administrations in the early days of the Church; thousands spoke in tongues and prophesied; and visions, dreams and miracles were daily manifestations among the disciples.

The sisters were quite as familiar with angelic visitors as the apostles. They were in fact the best "mediums" of this spiritual work. They were the "cloud of witnesses." Their Pentecosts of spiritual gifts were of frequent occurrence.

The sisters were also apostolic in a priestly sense. They partook of the priesthood equally with the men. They too "held the keys of the administration of angels." Who can doubt it, when faith is the greatest of all keys to unlock the gates of heaven? But "the Church" herself acknowledged woman's key. There was no Mormon St. Peter in this new dispensation to arrogate supremacy over woman, on his solitary pontifical throne. The "Order of Celestial Marriage," not of celestial celibacy, was about to be revealed to the Church.

Woman also soon became high priestess and prophetess. She was this officially. The constitution of the Church acknowledged her divine mission to administer for the regeneration of the race. The genius of a patriarchal priesthood naturally made her the apostolic help-meet for man. If you saw her not in the pulpit teaching the congregation, yet was she to be found in the temple, administering for the living and the dead! Even in the holy of holies she was met. As a high priestess she blessed with the laying on of hands! As a prophetess she oracled in holy places! As an endowment giver she was a Mason, of the Hebraic order, whose Grand Master is the God of Israel and whose anointer is the Holy Ghost.

She held the keys of the administration of angels and of the working of miracles and of the "sealings" pertaining to "the heavens and the earth." Never before was woman so much as she is in this Mormon dispensation!

The supreme spiritual character of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (its proper name), is well typed in the hymn so often sung by the saints at their "testimony meetings," and sometimes in their temples. Here is its theme:

"The spirit of God like a fire is burning,

The latter-day glory begins to come forth,

The visions and blessings of old are returning,

The angels are coming to visit the earth.

Chorus—We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven— Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb! Let glory to them in the highest be given, Henceforth and forever—amen and amen.

The Lord is extending the saints' understanding,

Restoring their judges and all as at first;

The knowledge and power of God are expanding;

The vail o'er the earth is beginning to burst.

Chorus—We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven!" etc.

What a strange theme this, forty-seven years ago, before the age of our modern spiritual mediums, when the angels visited only the Latter-day Saints! In that day it would seem the angels only dared to come by stealth, so unpopular was their coming. But the way was opened for the angels. What wonder that they have since come in hosts good and bad, and made their advent popular? Millions testify to their advent now; and "modern spiritualism," though of "another source," is a proof of Mormonism more astonishing than prophecy herself.

Yet is all this not more remarkable than the promise which Joseph Smith made to the world in proclaiming his mission. It was the identical promise of Christ: "These signs shall follow them that believe!" These signs meant nothing short of all that extraordinary experience familiar to the Hebrew people and the early-day saints. We have no record that ever this sweeping promise was made before by any one but Jesus Christ. Yet Joseph Smith, filled with a divine assurance, dared to re-affirm it and apply the promise to all nations wherever the gospel of his mission should be preached. The most wonderful of tests is this. But the test was fulfilled. The signs followed all, and everywhere. Even apostates witness to this much.

There is nothing in modern spiritualism nearly so marvelous as was Mormonism in its rise and progress in America and Great Britain. It has indeed made stir enough in the world. But it had to break the way for coming ages. Revelation was at first a very new and strange theme after the more than Egyptian darkness in which the Christian nations had been for fifty generations. It was the light set upon the hill now; but the darkness comprehended it not. Yet was a spiritual dispensation opened again to the world. Once more was the lost key found. Mormonism was the key; and it was Joseph and his God-fearing disciples who unlocked the heavens. That fact the world will acknowledge in the coming times.