The Old-New World.—America, according to Joseph Smith, is the Old World—not the New[[20]]. The primeval Garden was in the part now called Jackson County. Our First Parents, after their expulsion from Eden, dwelt in the place where this altar stood. The Lord named it Adam-ondi-Ahman, "because it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet."[[21]]
All this by the power of seership—all this and more; for many other instances might be given. But these will suffice to show the nature of this rare and precious gift, and the manner of its exercise by the mighty Seer and Prophet holding the keys of this Gospel dispensation.
Footnotes
[1]. Mosiah 8:15.
[2]. Such men as Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher, and Count Leo Tolstoi, the Russian writer, are sometimes referred to as "seers;" it being thought by those who so designate them, that the power to think profoundly and express wise and intelligent opinions, especially on the future, constitutes seership. It is in this sense that the term "vision" is so much used. But a great thinker is not necessarily a seer; though a seer is apt to be a great thinker. Joseph Smith was both; not so Ralph Waldo Emerson; not so Count Tolstoi. They were great philosophers, but there is nothing in the life-work of either to indicate that he possessed the power of a seer.
[3]. Moses 1:11. Moses further declares that he could look upon Satan "in the natural man," but, says he: "I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me and I was strengthened before him."
[4]. D. and C. 67:11.
[5]. 1 Cor. 2:9-14.
[6]. John 1:18.
[7]. David Whitmer's "Address to all True Believers in Christ." p. 12; and Martin Harris' Statement to Edward Stevenson, Millennial Star, Vol. 44, pp. 86, 87.