First and noblest of this great family was Jesus Christ, who was the elder brother, in spirit, of the whole human race. These constituted a world-family of pre-existing souls.
Brightest among these spirits, and nearest in the circle to our Father and Mother in heaven (the Father being Adam), were Seth, Enoch, Noah and Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus Christ—indeed that glorious cohort of men and women, whose lives have left immortal records in the world's history. Among these the Mormon faith would rank Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and their compeers.
In that primeval spirit-state, these were also associated with a divine sisterhood. One can easily imagine the inspired authoress of the hymn on pre-existence, to have been a bright angel among this sister throng. Her hymn is as a memory of that primeval life, and her invocation is as the soul's yearning for the Father and Mother in whose courts she was reared, and near whose side her spirit was nurtured.
These are the sons and daughters of Adam—the Ancient of Days—the Father and God of the whole human family. These are the sons and daughters of Michael, who is Adam, the father of the spirits of all our race.
These are the sons and daughters of Eve, the Mother of a world.
What a practical Unitarianism is this! The Christ is not dragged from his heavenly estate, to be mere mortal, but mortals are lifted up to his celestial plane. He is still the God-Man; but he is one among many brethren who are also God-Men.
Moreover, Jesus is one of a grand order of Saviours. Every world has its distinctive Saviour, and every dispensation its Christ.
There is a glorious Masonic scheme among the Gods. The everlasting orders come down to us with their mystic and official names. The heavens and the earths have a grand leveling; not by pulling down celestial spheres, but by the lifting up of mortal spheres.
Perchance the skeptic and the strict scientist who measures by the cold logic of facts, but rises not to the logic of ideas, might not accept this literal pre-existing view, yet it must be confessed that it is a lifting up of the idealities of man's origin. Man is the offspring of the Gods. This is the supreme conception which gives to religion its very soul. Unless man's divinity comes in somewhere, religion is the wretchedest humbug that ever deluded mortals.
Priestcraft, indeed, then, from the beginning to the end—from the Alpha to the Omega of theologic craft, there is nothing divine.