"Our spirits are entangled in these bodies—held captive as it were for a season. They are like the poor Saints, who are for a time obliged to dwell in miserable mud shanties that are mouldering away, and require much patching and care to keep them from mingling with mother earth before the time. They feel miserable in these old decaying tabernacles, and long for the day when they can leave them to fall and take possession of a good new house.
"It seems natural for me to desire to be clothed upon with immortality and eternal life, and leave this mortal flesh; but I desire to stick to it as long as I can be a comfort to my sisters, brethren, wives and children. Independent of this consideration I would not turn my hand over to live five minutes. What else could give birth to a single desire to live in this tabernacle, which is more or less shattered by the merciless storms which have beat upon it, to say nothing of the ravages made upon it by the tooth of time? While I cling to it I must of necessity suffer many pains, rheumatism, head-ache, jaw-ache and heart-ache; sometimes in one part of my body and sometimes in another. It is all right; it is so ordained that we may not cling with too great a tenacity to mortal flesh, but be willing to pass through the vail and meet with Joseph, and Hyrum, and Willard, and Bishop Whitney and thousands of others in the world of spirits.
"Are they all together as we are to-day? I believe all Israel have to be gathered; and to accomplish this the Elders, both in this and the world of spirits, will go forth to preach to the spirits in prison. Where? Down in hell. I appeal to the Elders who have been from this place to preach the Gospel to the world, if it was not like going from heaven to hell. It is a world of sorrow, pain, death and misery, and you cannot make anything else of it."
Here is something on death and the after life:
"As for death, I do not trouble myself much about it. When the time comes for me to depart from this life and go into what we call eternity, to pass through the vail, it is simply to leave the body to rest awhile, and blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for their sleep shall be sweet unto them. Death is merely a sleep of the body, and all the fear I have concerning it is what arises from my conditions. I was taught in my youth that after death I had to go directly into the bowels of hell, and go down, down, down, because there was no bottom to it. I am not troubled about any such thing as that, for I never expect to see any worse hell than I have seen in this world. And those who do not the works of righteousness, and are not worthy to be gathered with the spirits of the Saints, will go into precisely such society, in the world of spirits, as they are now in.
"The spirits of the Saints will be gathered in one, that is, of all who are worthy; and those who are not just, will be left where they will be scourged, tormented and afflicted, until they can bring their spirits into subjection and be like clay in the hands of the potter, that the potter may have power to mould and fashion them into any kind of vessel, as he is directed by the Master Potter."
In another sermon, he thus enlarges upon his favorite theme of "the clay in the hands of the potter:"[A]
[Footnote A: Heber's exposition of this theme was highly approved by the Prophet Joseph, who declared it to be the true interpretation.]
"The potter tried to bring a lump of clay into subjection, and he worked and tugged at it, but the clay was rebellious and would not submit to the will of the potter, and marred in his hands. Then of course he had to cut it from the wheel and throw it into the mill to be ground over, in order that it might become passive; after which he takes it again and makes of it a vessel unto honor, out of the same lump that was dishonored. * * There may ten thousand millions of men go to hell, because they dishonor themselves and will not be subject, and after that they will be taken and made vessels unto honor, if they will become obedient. * * Can you find any fault with that?"
He gives the following wise hint on one of the causes of apostasy: