Dorian

by Nephi Anderson

"Don't forget what I am telling you, Dorian. Think and pray and dream about it for a time, and the Lord will open the way. Now then, we are to discuss some of Drummond's problems, were we not?"

"Yes; I shall be glad to. Are you comfortable? Shall I move your pillow?"

"I'm resting very easily, thank you. Just hand me the book. Drummond's chapter on Biogenesis interests me very much. I cannot talk very scientifically, Dorian, on these things, but I hope to talk intelligently and from the large viewpoint of the gospel. Here is a paragraph from my book which I have marked and called 'The Wall Between.' I'm sure you will remember it. Let us read it again:

"'Let us first place," he read from the book, 'vividly in our imagination the picture of the two great Kingdoms of Nature, the inorganic and the organic, as these now stand in the light of the Law of Biogenesis. What essentially is involved in saying that there is no Spontaneous Generation of Life? It is meant that the passage from the mineral world is hermetically sealed on the mineral side. This inorganic world is staked off from the living world by barriers which have never yet been crossed from within. No change of substance, no modification of environment, no chemistry, no electricity, nor any form of energy, nor any evolution can endow any single atom of the mineral world with the attribute of life. Only by bending down into this dead world of some living form can these dead atoms be gifted with the properties of vitality, without this preliminary contact with life they remain fixed in the inorganic sphere forever. It is a very mysterious Law which guards in this way the portals of the living world. And if there is one thing in Nature more worth pondering for its strangeness it is the spectacle of this vast helpless world of the dead cut off from the living by the law of Biogenesis and denied forever the possibility of resurrection within itself. So very strange a thing, indeed, is this broad line in Nature, that Science has long sought to obliterate it. Biogenesis stands in the way of some forms of Evolution with such stern persistency that the assaults upon this law for number and thoroughness have been unparalleled. But, as we have seen, it has stood the test. Nature, to the modern eye, stands broken in two. The physical laws may explain the inorganic world; the biological laws may account for inorganic. But of the point where they meet, of that living borderland between the dead and the living, Science is silent. It is as if God had placed everything in earth and in heaven in the hands of Nature, but reserved a point at the genesis of Life for His direct appearing.'

"Drummond goes on to prove by analogy that the same law which makes such a separation between the higher and the lower in the natural world holds good in the spiritual realm, and he quotes such passages as this to substantiate his argument: 'Except a man is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God'. Man must be born from above. 'The passage from the natural world to the spiritual world is hermetically sealed on the natural side.' that is, man cannot by any means make his own unaided way from the lower world to the higher. 'No mental energy, no evolution, no moral effort, no evolution of character, no progress of civilization' can alone lift life from the lower to the higher. Further, the lower can know very little about the higher, for 'the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned'. All of which means, I take it, that the higher must reach down to the lower and lift it up. Advancement in any line of progress is made possible by some directing power either seen or unseen. A man cannot simply grow better and better until in his own right he enters the kingdom of God'."

"But, Uncle Zed, are we not taught that we must work out our own salvation?" asked Dorian. "That is also scriptural."

"Yes; but wait; I shall come to that later. Let us go on with our reasoning and see how this law which Drummond points out—how it fits into the larger scheme of things as revealed to us Latter-day Saints. You remember some time ago in our talk on the law of eternal progress we established the truth that there always have been intelligences evolving from lower to higher life, which in the eternity of the past would inevitably lead to the perfection of Gods. This is plainly taught in Joseph Smith's statement that God was once a man like us, perhaps on an earth like this, working out His glorious destiny. He, then, has gone on before into higher worlds, gaining wisdom, power, and glory. Now, there is another law of the universe that no advancing man can live to himself alone. No man can grow by taking selfish thought to the process. He grows by the exercise of his faculties and powers for the benefit of others. Dorian, hand me the 'Pearl of Great price'."

Dorian found the book and handed it to the old man, who, finding the passage he wanted, continued: "Listen to this remarkable statement by the Lord: 'For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.' Just think what that means."

"What does it mean?"

"It means, my boy, that the way of progress is the way of unselfish labor. 'This is my work,' says the Lord, to labor for those who are yet on the lower rungs of the ladder, to institute laws whereby those below may climb up higher; (note I used the word climb, not float); to use His greater experience, knowledge, and power for others; to pass down to those in lower or primary stages that which they cannot get by self-effort alone. Let me say this in all reverence, they who attain to All Things do not greedily and selfishly cling to it, but pass it on to others. 'As one lamp lights another nor grows less, So kindliness enkindleth kindliness.' Yes; through great stress and sacrifice, they may do this, as witnessed in what our Father has done by endowing His Beloved Son with eternal life, and then giving Him to us. That Son was the 'Prince of Life.' He was the Resurrection and the Life.' He brought Life from the higher kingdom to a lower, its natural course through the ages. That is the only way through which it can come. And herein, to my humble way of thinking is the great error into which the modern evolutionist has fallen. He reasons that higher forms evolve from the initial and unaided movements of the lower. That is as impossible as that a man can lift himself to the skies by his boot-straps."