Our bodies gifts from God — Spirit and body combined constitute the soul of man

I am very grateful for the opportunity of adding my testimony to the many strong testimonies to which we have listened during this conference. As I listened to the opening address, I heard echoing through the alcoves of my mind, what I have since heard in song and quotation: "We thank Thee, O God for a Prophet ;" and many times during the course of subsequent addresses I have said in my heart, "I thank Thee, O God, for prophets in Israel, who are not afraid to speak out and tell the people the needs of the hour, and preach unto them the doctrines of the day, and call attention to the things of present moment and importance." I was heartily in accord with the instruction given in that first address as indeed I have been with all the instructions given, but I have in mind particularly that relating to the neglect which we oft-times manifest in regard to spiritual things. We have been warned against giving too much attention to things of this world, to the neglect of the things that are of greater worth. On the other hand, we have heard much concerning practical duties, practical affairs, temporal religion if you please ; and we have been, by implication, warned against' devoting ourselves exclusively to that other worldliness which is quite as dangerous as extreme worldliness. ¶

We have been told, as many of us know, and knew before, that this life is a necessary part in the course of progression designed by our Father. We have been taught, again, to look upon these bodies of ours as gifts from God. We Latter-day Saints do not regard the body as something to be condemned, something to be abhorred, and something to be subdued in the sense in which that expression is oft-times heard in the world. We regard as the sign of our royal birthright, that we have bodies upon the earth. We recognize the fact that those who kept not their first estate, in the primeval existence, were denied that inestimable blessing, the taking of mortal bodies. We believe that these bodies are to be well cared for, that they are to be looked upon as something belonging to the Lord, and that each may be made, in very truth, the temple of the Holy Ghost, the place into which the Spirit of God shall enter and where He shall delight to dwell, if He shall find there cleanliness and order and purity and uprightness of thought and conduct. ¶

It is peculiar to the theology of the Latter-day Saints that we regard the body as an essential part of the soul. Read your dictionaries, ¶

the lexicons, and encyclopedias, and you will find that nowhere, outside of the Church of Jesus Christ, is the solemn and eternal truth taught that the soul of man is the body and the spirit combined. It is quite the rule to regard the soul as that incorporeal part of men, that immortal part which existed before the body was framed and which shall continue to exist after that body has gone to decay; nevertheless, that is not the soul; that is only a part of the soul ; that is the spirit-man, the form in which every individual of us, and every individual human being, existed before called to take tabernacle in the flesh. It has been declared in the solemn word of revelation, that the spirit and the body constitute the soul of man; and, therefore, we should look upon this body as something that shall endure in the resurrected state, beyond the grave, something to be kept pure and holy. Be not afraid of soiling its hands ; be not afraid of scars that may come to it if won in earnest effort, or in honest fight, but beware of scars that disfigure, that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone, that have befallen you in unworthy undertakings ; beware of the wounds' of battles in which you have been fighting on the wrong side. ¶

I read that when our first parents were placed in the place provided for them, that at their creation, at the creation of the first man, his body was prepared ; then God, the God of life, breathed into him the breath of life, and then and not before did man become a living soul. It was the advancement from the spirit state to the soul state that marked the great gift of God unto man, namely, life here upon the earth, an existence that shall' prepare us for the life that lies beyond the grave. The resurrection of the body, the resurrection from the dead, is the redemption of the soul ; and as Christ was the first to break the bonds of death and to take up His body, the body that had been slain, from which the spirit had temporarily departed, as by. Him and through Him came the resurrection, by Him and through Him came the redemption of the soul, and hence He won for Himself the title that belongs to none other, on earth or in heaven, the Redeemer of mankind. ¶

We have heard much in regard to the duties we owe to these bodies in keeping from them the things that are hurtful, the things that are degrading, the things that poison the tissues, the things that break down the very organism that God has created. Time has not permitted those who have spoken before me to dwell at length, any more than it permits me to dwell at length on that important revelation of God unto man, of God unto Israel in these the last days, by which man may be wise — the Word of Wisdom. This, like other revelations that have come in the present dispensation, is not wholly new. It is as old as the human race. The principle of the Word of Wisdom was revealed unto Adam. All the essentials of the Word of Wisdom were made known unto him in his immortal state, before he had taken into his body those things that made of it a thing of earth. He was warned against that very practice. He was not told to treat his body as something to be tortured. He was not told to look upon it as the fakirs of India have come to look upon it, or profess to look upon it, as a thing to be utterly contemned, but he was told that he ¶

must not take into that body certain things which were there at hand. He was warned that, if he did, his body would lose the power which it then held of living for ever, and that he would become subject to death. It was pointed out to him, as it has been pointed out to you, that there are many good fruits to be plucked, to be eaten, to be enjoyed. We believe in enjoying good food. We think that these good things are given us of God. We believe in getting all the enjoyment out of eating that we can ; and, therefore, we should avoid gluttony, and we should avoid extremes in all our habits of eating ; and as was told unto Adam, so is it told unto us, "Touch not these things; for in the day that thou cloest it thy life shall be shortened and thou shalt die." ¶

Here, let me say, that therein consisted the fall — the eating of things unfit, the taking into the body of the things that made of that body a thing of earth ; and I take this occasion to raise my voice against the false interpretation of scripture, which in some instances has been adopted by certain people, and is current in their minds, and is referred to in a hushed and half-secret way, that the fall of man consisted in some offense against the laws of chastity and of virtue. Such a doctrine is an abomination. What right have we to turn the scriptures from their proper sense and meaning? What right have we to declare that God meant not what He said? The fall was a natural process, resulting through the incorporation into the bodies of our first parents of the things that came from food unfit, through the violation of the command of God regarding what they should eat. Don't go around whispering that the fall consisted in the mother of the race losing her chastity and her virtue. It is not true ; the human race is not born of fornication. These bodies that are given unto us are given in the way that God has provided. Let it not be said that the patriarch of the race, who stood with the gods before he came here upon the earth, and his equally royal consort, were guilty of any such foul offense. The adoption of that belief has led many to excuse departures from the path of chastity and the path of virtue, by saying that it is the sin of the race, it is as old as Adam. It was not introduced by Adam. It was not committed by Eve. It was the introduction of the devil and came in order that he might sow the seeds of early death in the bodies of men and women, that the race should degenerate as it has degenerated whenever the laws of virtue and of chastity have been transgressed. ¶

Our first parents were pure and noble, and when we pass behind the veil we shall perhaps learn something of their high estate, more than we know now. But be it known that they were pure ; they were noble. It is true that they disobeyed the law of God, in eating things they were told not to eat; but who amongst you can rise up and condemn? I listened not long ago to a lesson conducted as a model lesson, in a Sunday School class ; it had to deal with the fall of man. The one who was appointed to pass criticism thereon, expressed his hearty approval of the lesson as it had been rendered, and particularly complimented the teacher on having been able to conduct a lesson "on such a delicate subject as that, with a mixed class of young boys and voting girls, and not offend !" What is there delicate about the fall of ¶

man? The sexual element does not enter into the subject. The fall consisted in disobedience of the commands as to what things were fit for the body, and we have been falling in the same way ever since; and you have been warned about it by authoritative voices here in the several sessions of this conference. If you would live to the full measure of your days, as God intended you to, then live according to the command of God in all these things. Ye may eat of the fruits of all these good trees ; you may partake to the full, within the limits of wisdom and propriety, but of that tree of the knowledge of terrible evil you ought not to partake. Oh, if you do, you will get experience that you otherwise would not get ; you will know more about evil, and by contrast can perhaps estimate, in a different way, the good ; but, nevertheless, you will find that you have purchased that knowledge at very great price. We are to be judged by what we know, as much and as well as by what we do not know. For, do you remember, after they, our first parents, had undertaken to set up their own judgment above the judgment of the God who made them and who prepared the place for their abode, and who gave them commandment, they had knowledge that they did not possess before, and when next they were called by the voice of God, they hid themselves ; for they had awakened to the fact that there was something vile about them, something unseemingly, something unclean, and they hid themselves ; and mark you the words with which their guilt was brought home. When Adam declared that he had heard the voice of God calling him, and he had ¶

hidden himself because he had become aware of the fact that he was naked, the question was : "Who told thee that thou wast naked ?" Where did Adam and Eve get that knowledge? Not by keeping the commandments of God, but by violation thereof. So I sometimes say when I find young men and young women showing by unguarded words or actions, that they know things they ought not to know, who told you that? Where have you been? What have you been doing? The time has not come for you to learn those things yet; and you never would have learned them at this stage of your advancement, and in this way, if you had not transgressed the laws of God. ¶

What has been said concerning our duties to our bodies in this life and the strict attention we should give to spiritual things, tells us of the life that is to come and of the relation between this life and that. We hear much nowadays as to the speculative ideas of men concerning the condition beyond the grave ; but the admission that there is an individual existence beyond the grave, is a declaration that there must have been an individual, intelligent creation before we came here in the flesh. Life beyond the grave postulates a pre-existent state to which reference was made yesterday. While the world admits the pre-existence of Christ and points to Him as one who before mortal birth shared with His Father in the honors of the godhead and in the powers of the Creator, they deny to the souls that are now upon the earth, and those that had lived as mortals, a pre-existent condition. I want to read to you one scripture bearing upon that subject and I read to you from the Book of Abraham, ¶

a scripture with which some of our people are better acquainted today than they were a year ago, because of the futile attempts that have been made to discredit it. By the failures that have resulted in these attempts, the strength of the faith of our people has been increased. The great patriarch says : "Now, the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was, and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones ; and God saw these souls that they were good, and He stood in the midst of them and He said, 'These I will make my rulers ;' for He stood among those that were spirits, and He saw that they were good, and He said unto me, Abraham, 'Thou are one of them ; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.' " Read the rest of that scripture for yourselves. ¶

I am happy to see that the saving principles proclaimed by the prophets of this dispensation are spreading through the world, in spite of all attempts to the contrary. If the morning papers have correctly reported a lecture delivered in this city last night, there is in our midst a scholar from London who has proclaimed not only that the scriptures prove that there is and must of necessity be an intelligent individual existence beyond the grave, but that in that state there will be opportunity for repentance and for progression. Now, that is a "Mormon" doctrine which never had been broached in the modern religious world until the voice of the Prophet Joseph Smith was heard. Sectarian ministers now tell us that no longer are the scriptures to be twisted ; that by the figure which says, "Where the tree falleth there shall it be," we are not longer to understand that a man who dies can never progress. Learned divines and theologians are lifting their voices today in declaration of the fact that God has provided a means by which His sons and daughters may progress and advance through the eternities that are to come. I read further that it was declared : That there is to be a resurrection of the just as distinct from the resurrection of the unjust. Another doctrine which in the way now presented was at one time peculiar to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But, because there is hope of repentance beyond the veil, procrastinate not the day of your repentance ; for, as the Prophet Alma has pointed out, you may find that the gift of repentance will be withheld from you there for a long, long time on account of your unworthiness. For repentance is a gift from God, and when man forfeits it he loses the power to repent ; he can't turn away from his sins with a contrite heart and with a desire to forsake them, once and for ever. O, Latter-day Saints, ye men and women of Israel, listen unto the voices of those who speak to you under the inspiration of the power of God, and heed them; for by hearing we are condemned, if we follow not in the path that is pointed out to us as the path of our duty. ¶

You have heard but little in the way of new doctrine in this conference, perchance, all the more reason you should be diligent in not forgetting again, as we have forgotten from time to time the things that are most needed. We make the excuse — that is one of our weaknesses, to make excuses — we make the excuse that our memories are at fault. Our memories are all right ; altogether too good to suit some of us. We would like to forget things ¶

that we cannot. Memory is the library of the mind, in which we find stored away the valuable as well as the worthless things that have come to us. Recollection is the librarian, and he is very often sluggish and sleepy, often neglectful of his duty ; he doesn't know where to put his hand on the book or the document we need, just when we need it. We have had our recollections aroused in this conference, and I pray that we may ever remember the things that are most needed, the things of greatest worth; and that you and I and all of us may progress with the work of God, for it shall progress no matter what man shall do or how he may attempt to hinder its advancement. May the blessings of Israel's God be with Israel, in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶