Belief and Testimony of Isabella E. Pratt Robison
Written Jan. 1, 1892
My belief is that God is an individual, personal being, with body, parts, and passions; that man is in His image and possesses his attributes; that he is our Father in Heaven, the creator of our spirits; that He prepared or organized this earth, that when it was finished the Great Architect and Builder sent Adam and Eve to be the great progenitors of the race; that the penalty which we have to pay for Adam’s transgression is mortality and death of our bodies; that we, his descendants have for all these centuries been following Adam’s example, to beget mortals, which is all in the great and wise plan. It ushers us into a place of experience where we have to make a constant struggle to get means to clothe and feed us and where we have to content with the lusts and appetites of the flesh and prove what future we are worthy of.
That we have to be accountable for our own sins and not for Adams transgression; that if we seek for good that God helps and blesses us; that prayers are wafted to His ears and intelligence brought to us by a means to us invisible but by natural cause; and that it is no more impossible for Him to see and hear all of His children than for Edison to find a way to receive two telegraph messages at once or to discover a means to converse with and see people a long way off.
That Jesus is the real and only Son of God in the flesh, and that if He was not begotten as all children are, that the intelligence and power of God of the universe could, if He wished, find another method as easy as Jesus could find a quicker and easier, and yet just as natural way, to bring bread from the elements and change water into wine, as to do it by the well known but slower process.
That Jesus is our elder Brother, and that He is our mediator with God; that to Him is given the keys of the resurrection and the life; that when our spirit clothed again with a body that it will be an immortal body and in it we will be judged for our time and action here and will be placed in the condition and circumstances which we merit, and in which we are capable of progressing.
The nearer we walk in the footsteps of Jesus, the greater will be our reward. Man could not be happy or appreciate that for which he is totally unprepared any more than can a child in the chart class progress or be contented if shoved along far beyond the limits of its understanding. Our Father in Heaven will do the best He can for all of us, but he will not place us in advance of what we earn, merit, or stand worthy of, because that would only retard our advancement. If we wish to move in the highest circles we must not sleep on our rights but find the true way and walk therein.
Let us look briefly at the life of Christ: Born in a manger, fleeing from those who sought His life, astonishing the learned doctors when but 12 years old with His wisdom, baptized
at 30 years which was as soon as the Jews would allow that ordinance to be administered. Jesus said, “Only by the water and by the spirit can ye enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Then did He go from city to city, healing the sick, casting out devil, comforting the mourners. He was poor and despised, spit upon and crucified. A crown of thorns upon His head. They also in mockery proclaimed Him and wrote to that effect above His head – “King of the Jews”. Which is all the truth for is He not King of the whole world.
Copied from “Brick” Pomeroy’s Golden Thought Diary Journal, 1892. A number of other articles I’m not going to copy are from that same Journal, written in Mother’s handwriting. (Carrie P.R. Despain)
[transcribed by Maurine Colgrove, Jan. 2007, History & Genealogy of the Franklin Alonzo Robison Family, written & compiled by Carrie Robison Despain and Melba Despain Garner, 1960]