Elias: An Epic of the Ages

by Orson F. Whitney

CANTO FOUR

1—Title: **Night and the Wilderness.** This part of the poem is an allegory of the Christian or Meridian Dispensation, following the death of Jesus and his forerunner; portraying the mission of the Comforter, and showing the departure from the primitive Faith, after the passing of the apostolic Twelve, one of whom—the Church having gone into the Wilderness—remains to testify of things to come. The "Night" is the spiritual night that followed the setting of the Sun of Righteousness—a night lit by Moon and Stars, with lesser lights twinkling through the Dark Ages and onward into modern times. The "Wilderness" is the world invisible. (D. and C. 88:66.)

2—688. **An Eagle's Wings.** The Roman Empire, emblemized by the Eagle, dominated the then known world.

3—696. **Peace to Flow.** "(I) The immense field covered by the conquests of Alexander gave to the civilized world a unity of language, without which it would have been, humanly speaking, impossible for the earliest preachers to have made known the good tidings in every land which they traversed. (II) The rise of the Roman Empire created a political unity which reflected in every direction the doctrines of the new faith. (III) The dispersion of the Jews prepared vast multitudes of Greeks and Romans for the unity of a pure morality and a monotheistic faith. The Gospel emanated from the capital of Judea; it was preached in the tongue of Athens; it was diffused through the empire of Rome; the feet of its earliest missionaries traversed the solid structure of undeviating roads by which the Roman legionaries—'those massive hammers of the whole earth'—had made straight in the desert a highway for our God. Semite and Aryan had been unconscious instruments in the hands of God for the spread of a religion which, in its first beginnings, both alike detested and despised. The letters of Hebrew and Greek and Latin inscribed above the cross were the prophetic and unconscious testimony of three of the world's noblest languages to the undying claims of Him who suffered to obliterate the animosities of the nations which spoke them, and to unite them all together in the one great Family of God."—Dean Farrar, in "The Life and Work of St. Paul," abridged edition, Book II, pp. 61, 62.

4—706. **She-Wolf's Might.** The She-Wolf, traditionally the nurse of Romulus and Remus, who founded Rome, was also an emblem of that world-conquering power, which, though eventually it persecuted the Christians, at first protected them from their Jewish oppressors. Judah's emblem was the Lion. As for the remaining figure in the allusion, it is written that the Saviour said to his disciples: "I send you forth as lambs among wolves."

5—707. **Iron-Limbed.** The phrases "iron-limbed," "brazen-loin," "silver-breasted," "golden Babylon," characterize respectively the Roman, Graeco-Macedonian, Medo-Persian, and Babylonian empires, which, in reverse order, ruled successively the ancient world. Beginning with Babylon, the "head of gold," these four universal powers figure in the Prophet Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2).

6—713. **Asian Kin.** Alexander the Great extended his conquests as far eastward as India, whose native inhabitants claim kinship with European peoples through a common Aryan ancestry. If this claim be true, then the Hindoos, like the Europeans, are descended from Japheth, the eldest son of Noah, and consequently are "Gentiles"—a word springing from "Gentilis," meaning "of a nation," that is, a nation not of Israel.

7—718. **Kurush.** Cyrus, founder of the Medo-Persian empire.

8—730. **Lofty Vineyards.** D. and C. 88:51-61.

9—731. **Spirit Moon and Speaking Stars.** The Holy Ghost and the Apostolic Twelve.

10—732. **The Woman Wonderful.** The Church of Christ, represented by a Woman (Revelation 12), and referred to in other places as the Bride, the Lamb's Wife.

11—736. **Glory's Symboling.** Sun, moon and stars, symbolizing celestial, terrestrial, and telestial glories. (D. and C. 76:96-98.)

12—742. **Vicegerent.** The Comforter, concerning whom Jesus said, "It is needful that I go, or He will not come unto you." In other words, the greater Light had to depart, before the lesser could shine in its fulness.

13—743. **The Unembodied One.** Says Joseph the Seer: "The Father has a body of flesh and bones, as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit." (D. and C. 130:22.)

14—748. **After and Ere.** God and Christ, the Father and the Son, by the power of the Holy Ghost created all things, and by that power will raise all from the dead.

15—756. **Prophet Still Pleading.** The Spirit of Prophecy, typified by John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness.

16—774. **Those Fluent Stars.** The Twelve Apostles, oracles of God and crown of the Church of Christ. (Rev. 12:1.)

17—781. **Save Haply One.** John the Beloved. (John 21:20-23; D. and C. 7 and 77.)

18—789. **Leading the Lost.** It is believed that John the Revelator will lead the Lost Tribes from "The Land of the North." (D. and C. 77:14; Rev. 10:8-11.)

19—806. **The Man-Child.** The Man-Child of the Apocalypse (Rev. 12:5) represents the Priesthood—divine authority—which was taken from the Earth, with the fulness of the Gospel, after the passing of the Apostles.

20—815. **Japheth Sways.** Gentile domination over Israel, particularly in those nations where the Jews have been and are still oppressed.

21—820. **Antaeus-Like.** Antaeus was a fabled giant, vanquished by Hercules. Each time that Hercules threw him the giant gained fresh strength from coming in contact with the ground.

22—822. **Conquering His Dust-Adoring Conqueror.** The modern Jew is said to hold the purse-strings of the world.

23—831. **That Gentile Hosts Might See.** Saul of Tarsus, afterwards Paul the Apostle, persecuted the Church of Christ before his conversion (Acts 9:1-19). Thus was typified the spiritual blindness of Israel, which caused the Gospel to be carried to the Gentiles. Paul, the principal agent for their illumination, declares: "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." (Rom. 11:25.)

24—832. **Martyred, Immolate.** Israel's dispersion, like Adam's fall and Christ's crucifixion, was part of a mighty plan for the promotion of the human race. Adam fell that mortal man might be. Christ died to burst the bands of death and make the fall effectual unto the higher ends ordained. The children of Israel were scattered over the world, in order that the Gospel might make its way more readily among all peoples. The history of Israel is the history of a martyred nation, suffering for the welfare of other nations, whatever may be said of the transgressions of the chosen people, which occasioned and justified the calamities that came upon them.

25—841. **From 'Neath the Yoke.** The future redemption of the Negro race.

26—843. **See and Hear His Risen Lord.** The House of Israel is privileged to receive the personal ministrations of the Saviour, while the Gentiles are ministered to by the Holy Ghost. (III Nephi 15:23.)

27—847. **In the Mire.** Beginning of the Christian departure from the true Faith.

28—850. **The Heaven-Lit Torch.** The Light of the Gospel, enjoyed by the primitive Christians, though compelled to hide from their Roman persecutors and worship God on mountain tops and in the catacombs.

29—852. **Incense * * * Diana's Shrine.** Diana was a deity worshiped by the Romans. "Incense"—metaphorically the vain philosophies, traditions and customs, adopted by the false Church that came up in the place of the true Church and paganized itself in order to be popular with the world.

30—855. **Shearing Compromise.** The result, spiritually, of the enthronement of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, A. D. 324.

31—861. **East from West.** The pseudo Church, as well as the Empire of the Caesars, divided itself into East and West, with Constantinople and Rome as the capital cities.

32—874. **She Was Wont.** "She" stands for the true Church of Christ.

33—880. **Crimson Courtesan.** The Scarlet Woman described by John the Revelator (Rev. 17).

34—900. **Till the Judgment Sits.** A reference to Daniel 7:21-27.

35—902. **Glory Lift the Gloom.** Messiah's second coming.

36—903. **The Moonlike One.** The Holy Spirit, ruling the Night of Ages, after the Light of the World has departed.

37—908. **Impelling to All Action.** The impelling power of the Spirit of God is interestingly set forth in I Nephi 13:10-19. See also Lowell's poems "Columbus" and "A Glance Behind the Curtain."

38—951. **Wayward Son of Deity.** Napoleon and other conquerors type the class of characters here described.

39—973. **Some Said Jeremias.** When the Saviour inquired, "Whom do men say that I am?" Peter answered "Some say Thou art Elias, and some say Jeremias." Elias and Jeremias are Greek forms of the Hebrew names Elijah and Jeremiah. Joseph Smith, however, drew a distinction between the spirit of Elias and the spirit of Elijah. (Compendium, pp. 281-283.)

40—983. **Mirror and Model of Humanity.** "God created man in his own image." (Gen. 1:27.)

41—997. **Incomprehensible.** So modern Christians contend respecting Deity. It is true only in part. God's unrevealed infinite fulness is of course incomprehensible to the finite mind. But what He has revealed concerning Himself is not incomprehensible. Else why did He reveal it?

42—1008. **Each as a Star.** The Jewish or Mosaic Dispensation shed light that prepared the world for a greater—the Christian Dispensation; which, in its turn, made ready for one greater still—the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. This is the significance of "Elias." (Compendium, p. 281.)

43—1020. **A Weapon for the Right.** Such writers as Voltaire, Paine, and Ingersoll, subserve the cause of Christ by shattering false traditions, erroneously supposed by many to be true teachings of the Saviour and his Apostles.

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