To illustrate his contention that man can never rise to the quality of divinity, Mr. Van Der Donckt indulges in comparisons between man and God; and, to emphasize that contrast, challenges well-known men of science to the exercise of creative powers, contrasts the frequent collisions upon our railroads with the order, regularity, and safety of the movements among the planetary systems where never a collision occurs; and then indulges in such folly as this:

They (astronomers) can indeed predict transits and eclipses; but suppose astronomers from New Zealand, on their way to America to observe this fall's moon eclipse, meet with an accident in mid-ocean, would they at once send this wireless telegram to the United States' stargazers assembled say at Lick Observatory: "Belated by leak. Please retard eclipse two hours that we may not miss it." As well might all the telescope men in the world combined, attempt to fetch down the rings of Saturn for the construction of a royal race track, as pretend to control movements of the heavenly bodies.

The gentleman also points out how precarious are the powers of man:

The helpless babe of yesterday may indeed rival Mozart, Haydn, and Paderewski, but tomorrow he may rise with lame hands and pierced ear-drums; and millions of worshipers of the shattered idol are powerless to restore it to the musical world.

This part of the gentleman's argument sinks far below the general high level of his Reply, and is unworthy of his intelligence. I have already pointed out, that Latter-day Saints do not teach that man in his present state and condition is a God. On the contrary, they admit man's narrowness, weakness, imperfections and limitations; and also recognize the great gulf stretching between man in his present state and that dignity of divinity to which somewhere and sometime in the eternities it is within his province and power to attain. Mr. Van Der Donckt's comparisons, therefore, between God and man, in the latter's present condition, are not in point, for the reason that the Latter-day Saints do not claim that man is now a Deity, only as he may be thought potentially one. Taking the highest type of man to start with, consider him as raised from the dead and hence immortal; give him Gods for guides, teachers, and companions, with the universe for the field of his operations, then let Mr. V. or anyone else, say what man's attainments will be one thousand millions of years hence; and that period, let it be remembered, long as it may seem to man's petty methods of computing duration, is but as a moment in the existence of an immortal being. Let Mr. Van Der Donckt institute his comparisons from that point of man's career, instead of from the present point of man's weakness and mortality, and then say if ultimately divinity seems so unattainable as now. If he shall say he is unable to institute his comparisons at the point proposed, because what man will then be is unknown, I shall agree with him; but let him acknowledge, as perforce he must, that man will be immeasurably advanced beyond what he is now; also let him admit the injustice he does our doctrine by insisting upon making his comparisons between God and man as the latter now stands, under the effects of the fall, and in his humiliation and weakness.

After indulging in the aforesaid comparisons, Mr.V. further remarks:

I fear Mr. B. H. Roberts will be inclined to think God jealous because he gives man no show for comparison with him. This would certainly be a less blunder of the Utah man, ("I will not give my glory to another"—Isaiah 42:8) than his contention, which is a mere echo of Satan's promise in Paradise: "You shall be as Gods." (Genesis 3:5.)

To which I answer, not so; the contention of the "Utah man" is not the echo of Satan's promise, "ye shall be as Gods." On the contrary, the "Utah man's" contention is bottomed on the august and sure word of God, uttered in Eden, when he said of the man Adam—"Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil" (Genesis 3:22)—a passage which the Reverend gentleman seems to have overlooked.

OF THE UNITY OF GOD.

There remains to be considered the Unity of God.