Sublimest Things are always the simplest. This is preeminently true of the Gospel—the simple, sublime Story of God. A child can comprehend it; and at the same time it is capable of taxing to the limit the powers of the highest human intellect. It is the profoundest system of philosophy that the world has ever known. All true principles of science are parts of it, broken-off fragments of this grand Rock of Ages—or, to change the figure, pools caught in the hollows and clefts of Time, when the great flood of Truth, during one or more of its earthly visitations, swept by on its way back to the Eternal Ocean. All that is precious and exalting in religion springs from this ancient source of divine wisdom and intelligence. Who knows not this, knows not the Gospel.
Why Man-Made Systems Endure.—Every form of faith that has benefited its believers, must have possessed at some time a portion of Divine Truth. That is what perpetuated it—not the errors associated therewith. These are as cobwebs and dust, the accumulated rubbish of false tradition, in which the jewel was wholly or in part hidden. Every creed, Christian or Pagan, that has proved a real blessing to its votaries, is as a cistern holding within it waters once wholesome and pure, waters that fell originally from Heaven in one of those grand spiritual showers called dispensations of the Gospel, when the flood-gates of Eternity were lifted, that the world might be refreshed.
God's Word Apportioned.—The Book of Mormon throws light upon this theme. A Nephite prophet says:
"Oh, that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people; . . . .
"But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me. . . . .
"I know that he granteth unto men according to their desires, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men according to their wills; whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.
"Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires; whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.
"Now seeing that I know these things, why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called?
"Why should I desire that I were an angel, that I could speak unto all the ends of the earth?
"For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word; yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have."[[4]]