Tabernacle.
Sunday, a.m., Elder Orson Pratt spoke of the agricultural and manufacturing interests of the people in this Territory; said that notwithstanding those were important matters we must not neglect to devote a proper share of our time and attention to the interests we have in the future state of man; reasoned on the nature of man’s occupation in the eternal worlds, the importance of preparing for the society of the just, the influence men’s actions here will have on them in a future existence. He then took up the traditions of the ancients relative to a middle state in the spirit world, set forth in plainness the doctrine of the gospel on the subject, showed that the gospel was the only plan by which the human family ever were or could be exalted into the presence of God, that if Adam, Abel, or any other being had been exalted to the celestial kingdom it had been by the gospel, that the law of Moses and the law of circumcision never could save men and women in the kingdom of God; argued that the Israelites were all baptized in the cloud and in the sea; dwelt at some length on the glories of the sun, moon and stars, the vast differences in their magnitude and splendor, and compared them to the resurrection of the dead; referred to the revelation given through the Prophet Joseph on Celestial Marriage, its origin, object, utility and design; stated that four fifths of the nations practiced polygamy, gave the history of the rise of monogamy and proved it be sectarian in its origin as it is sectarian in its continuance.
[Deseret News, May 11, 1859]
[transcribed and proofread by David Grow, Aug. 2006]