ORSON SPENCER.
LETTER XIII.
MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS ON RESTITUTION.
Liverpool, November 30, 1847.
Reverend and Dear Sir,—A question has sometimes been asked concerning infants—with what bodies will they come forth? Will they be raised in the stature of manhood or adult size? We believe not; but as they fall, so will they rise again—the size of their stature when they rise, will be the same as when they fell asleep in death. Little children are the subjects and residents of the kingdom of heaven. Their angels do always behold the presence of our Father in heaven.
It is not the size of a person's stature that constitutes any certain mark of the measure of one's capacity, either to exercise power or enjoy felicity. Jesus possessed all power in a mere stature of human size. Still, nothing is fully perfect till it has attained the measure of the grand Designer, and accomplished the end of its creation. Hence it may, with some probability, be inferred, that children will mature and come to their full stature after the resurrection; this, however, is more a matter of opinion than of any direct revelation that has come to my knowledge.
It will, of course, from what has been said, be discovered that the righteous will enjoy a happy recognition of each other in every endearing relation that is common to mankind in their present mortal state. Their familiarity will be that of perfect innocence and felicity. Children, in the millennium, or after the first resurrection, will need the same paternal care, tutorage, and guidance, which is required by them now. In the absence of their proper parents they will, doubtless, receive adopted parents, or an equivalent guardianship of the angels of God. Such is the established order of progressive intelligence, through the medium of living teachers, that all the redeemed of heaven and earth, are under the special guardianship of the ministering authorities of God.
Oh, how happy and blessed are those parents and children—husbands and wives—who shall meet in the palaces of the just, and recognize each other after so long an absence! Unspeakably joyful that day and hour when friends, that have been long separated, shall again strike hands together, and celebrate their re-union in the courts above. To die is gain, because the righteous are exalted and introduced to higher orders of intelligence. New fields of discovery and enjoyment are constantly opening, to intensify their interest and swell their bosoms with the liveliest emotions. They may and do remember their righteous friends that are left behind, for a little season, with kind desires, and cannot advance in knowledge and glory very advantageously without them; still it is the knowledge which they possess of superlative glories ahead, that principally occupy their minds. Truths and keys, explanatory of the boundless and skilful works of God, and facilitating their progress towards dominion and power, and blessing, and salvation, are continually warming up their hearts and inciting them to onward deeds. The valiant and faithful that have fought a good fight and kept the faith, are hailed with delight and thanksgivings on their reception to the heavenly courts, and most cordially welcomed to the embrace of the great and venerable progenitor of our race.
Thrice happy are those who keep their present estate, and secure an imperishable inheritance on this planetary portion of their interminable existence; and equally deplorable, on the other hand, the condition of those who, filled with the delusive spirit of anti-revelation, keep not their present estate, and prefer the darkness of no revelation, in their day; because they have changed the ordinances, and transgressed the laws, and broken the everlasting covenant.