--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Nelson, N. L. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 3 number: 3 published: 1900-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'N. L. Nelson, "Gospel Studies—V. The Reality and Significance of Heaven and Hell," *Improvement Era* 3, no. 3 (January 1900): 198–207.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera33unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera33unse start_page: 198 end_page: 207 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera33unse publication_year: 1900 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1900, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Gospel Studies—V. The Reality and Significance of Heaven and Hell GOSPEL STUDIES. v. THE REALITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF HEAVEN AND HELL. BY PROFESSOR N. L. NELSON, OF THE BRIGHAM YOUNG ACADEMY, PROVO. [In studying the following article, the young reader is cautioned that Professor Nelson is presenting old truths in a new way, and that in so doing, he places great stress upon self-effort, seemingly to the neglect of the mercy of God, without which all our work is as nothing. Let it be remembered that the words of Christ are true: "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." That we are immediately rewarded or punished for our acts in this life, and that such reward or punishment is all that we will obtain throughout eternity, an assertion that requires all the stress of is modification that the author has placed upon it by employing the word "potentially." In the day of judgment, the righteous will undoubtedly awake to find to their credit many mercies that never were realized to them in this life—many blessings and glories that they had never dreamed of in this probation, while the wicked will, perhaps, discover that their evil actionshave separated them further from the presence of God than they had ever comprehended in this world. The farmer who sows is not immediately rewarded, yet that act is the cause of his future harvest; he could not reap without sowing. By that act he is potentially—i. e. not positively but in possibility— — GOSPEL STUDIES. 199 or small, depends much rewarded; but what that reward shall be, great further comply with the laws of nature in cultivatupon how he shall degree upon the God of ing his crop, and undoubtedly, in a greater the elements, giveth the harvests who in tempering the earth and are as the seed and the labor 01 the increase. So all our acts in this life but in the end, the reward is realized through the mercy husbandman; righteously according to the and justice of Him who judgeth all men deeds done in the bodv. Editors.] and My next proposition is trite through constant repetition, for introducing it seems so much like a truism that my only reason is that it needs enforcing. It is this: immediately raises us Every thought, word, and act of our lives toward Heaven or lowers us toward Hell. This is true not only of Heaven and Hell when considered as considered as places or associa- states of the soul, but also when beginnings of both Heaven and tions; for there are large external Hell right here in earth-life. cases. Let the first be that of a man Take two typical of sin. What, we whom the Gospel has rescued from the depths within him on the day he entered the may ask, had taken place you he was a changed man A waters of baptism? He will tell and indistinct perhaps, had been new ideal of righteousness, crude of which created within him. This was the inner kingdom of God In other words it is the 20-21). Christ speaks in Luke (17: of the soul. True to the law beginning of Heaven as a state he finds no more pleasure in old discussed in a previous article, that shall correspond associations. He is seeking environments Baptism is the first real step with the new state of his soul. women of like ideals gives toward them. Communion with men and his ideal him ecstatic joy. Day by day as his knowledge increases, make his life conform thereto. becomes clearer, and he seeks to more completely realiz- Soon hebegins to long for Zion as a place state. Let us suppose that thus, ing outwardly his spiritual as in the in the conception as well precept upon precept, he grows highest associations of outward realizationof Heaven until the righteousness on earth are his to enjoy. of his ascent? Paul What have been the rounds in the ladder righteousness of God (i. e., the harmony answers the question. The ; 200 IMPROVEMENT ERA. of the universe) has been made known to him from faith to faith. Ideals successively more perfect were given by the Spirit of Truth, just as each in turn was. wrought out in conduct and association. Each step was accompanied by joy above and pain and unrest beneath: joy in the new-found inner Heaven; unrest till its corresponding outer associations were formed. Such is the history of a little part of the road to Heaven; the rest of the way, even to the highest glory, does not differ in kind— only in degree! Consider next an opposite case— that of Sidney Rigdon will do. Here was a man resembling in many respects the previous example in the degree of the Heaven-spirit and Heaven-associa- tion to which he attained. But when his day of trial came he fell. How far he fell, and whether at this day he is falling or rising, the Father of all knows. Sufficient for my purpose that a man who had the glories of the Celestial Kingdom opened to his vision, who conversed with heavenly beings, and who saw and heard things unutterable and unlawful to utter— sufficient for my purpose that such a man fell. What is the inner history of his fall? Just as in the first example light entered the mind creating successively a more per- fect ideal, so now with Elder Rigdon's first sin, darkness entered, obscuring his ideal and lowering the tone of his soul's Heaven. For what is sin but treason to our ideals; i. e., a refusal to conform in conduct to the righteousness of God which has been revealed to us?* In the first case there was joy above and unrest below. In the second, these feelings are reversed. The moment our inner Heaven becomes lower than our outer, we feel an unrest above. Our environments bore ^ us. We can't stand to be so good." We distrust our associates, or sneer at them as hypocrites which latter judgment is a reflex from our own hearts: we should be hypocrites did we act as we lately acted and as our associates are acting. There is no remaining in such a state; we must either * The reader will see, by a little thought, that this definition is merely a new statement of the expression; "Sin is the transgression of the law/' The "righteousness of God"— what is it but "law"? "Transgression"— but proving traitor to the heavenly ideal revealed to us? GOSPEL STUDIES. 201 or pass repent, i. e., restore the brightness of our inner Heaven, below where our associations correspond with our ideals. Sidney Rigdon chose not to repent. It was inevitable there- must sink successively to lower levels. Every sin fore that he environments would lower his ideal, and the unrest caused by compel him to change his associations to match. Nor above would of perdition. is thereany resting place in this downward scale short which begins At any stage above the last, however, repentance— righteousness— may start by a change of attitude toward God and the soul heavenward again. the law that But we need not take extreme cases to illustrate Heaven or sinks toward Hell by every thought, man rises toward word, and deed of his life. Let the reader appeal rather to his is an unbroken own experience. Happy indeed is he whose life of angels he whose inner ascent; woeful and deserving the pity unbroken descent. If any and outer life succeed each other in an the instinct to thought can rouse in man the missionary spirit, rescue, it must be this latter. life is zig-zag, now For most of us, however, the course of feel bored with the upward, now downward. Do you sometimes tempted to break the thought of family worship? Are you the Saints? Be sure that Sabbath day or refuse communion with lowered, and your impulse is to the tone of your inner Heaven is find associations to correspond. Most of us remember such times perhaps tendencies mercifully checked in our lives-downward Father. Conversely do you through the chastening hand of our you would willingly have remember a time on your mission when the hand of a Latter-day Saint walked a hundred miles to grasp That was strong evidence and partake with him of the Sacrament? more exalted than your outer. Why that your inner Heaven was don't you feel so now? . of the sum total of Blessed is he who daily takes stock to pray is harmony within him. His inclination or disinclination the account of his standing; but no doubt the best single ledger companions and associations he books he has appetite for, the the drink that passes his lips, chooses, the kind of food and are signs o in his mind all thoughts and suggestions that arise solvency or insolvency. Perhaps the best general his spiritual 202 IMPROVEMENT ERA. way to determine the direction he is going, is to consider day by day whether his joys or his pleasures predominate in life. The distinction between these two ideas is so rich in food for instruction that I reserve it for a future paper. By way of a hasty conclusion of this topic, it may be said that his life will be safely upward who strikes a trial balance every night; for we cannot well conceive in the same man a wisdom that would enable him to discover daily how he stands, and a folly that would keep him from heeding the lessons taught thereby. It is the man who drifts that is in danger. My next proposition may seem startling to some readers of the Era, but it ought not, for it is merely the truth of the last proposition put into a new form. It is this: We are rewarded or punished instantly for what we think, say, or do; potentially there is no other reward or punishment throughout eternity* Scarcely a Sunday passes that we do not hear advanced the old sectarian doctrine of laying up treasures in Heaven, in the sense oj storing something afar off in time and space, the joy and glory of which we shall come into possession of by and by. So, too, Hell is painted only as a distant doom the punishment of *I use the word "potentially" here to forestall an obvious objection. Rewards and punishments as conscious realizations may be put off till the day of judgment. But even this will rarely be the case, save in part. Which of us does not begin to feel Heaven or Hell, at least in part, as soon as the act is done which brightens or darkens our souls? This qualification of the proposition is discussed further on. My purpose in this pointed statement is to bring before the reader the neglected truth that our thoughts, words, and deeds, daily and hourly pass judgment on our souls. Suppose the summons: "This night shall thy soul be — required of thee," to be brought to you or me, and we should have to stand before the bar of God; would not our reward or punishment be there potentially in our own souls? Furthermore, was it not there and at least partially realized during life? But whether realized or unrealized until the judgment day, the fact remains, our rewards and punishments do actually begin, increase, decrease, and otherwise vary, as instantaneous effects of our thoughts, words and deeds. Future rewards and punishments are only awakenings; potentially we are already damned or blessed. GOSPEL STUDIES. 203 which may be escaped for a time, but which will eventually overtake the sinner. The evil of this partially true, partially false conception lies in the fact that it lulls effort here and now. The rich man who gives a million to charity mistakes the laudations given him on earth for a foretaste of what will be his reward in Heaven where ; as the only "treasure" he lays up by it is in the extent to which his soul is enriched by the act of giving, which perhaps could not equal that of the widow who gave her two mites. Indeed, if vanity or worldly fame were in whole or in part the motive for the gift, the average of his soul's Heaven would be lowered, and therefore by so much he would actually be laying up his treasure in Hell. The habit of transferring our rewards and punishments to remote points in time and space, as one might convey earthly our treasures to a bank, results in turning our eyes away from daily lives—where they should ever be, watching the process of Heaven-making and Hell-making, as it goes on within us daily afar off, and hourly— and setting them upon creations of the fancy where, like spiritual misers, we tell over the treasures we have laid up to await our arrival; swelling our glories and exaltations, hindrance than the thrones and dominions, with no other let or ability of our speculative powers to soar and spread out; neglect- alone can give ing in the meanwhile the conquest of self, which us any degree of Heaven whatever. How many Latter-day Saint s <4 in being "good" there are whose only preparation for Heaven is the ordinances of the Temple; forgetting that and receiving furnish oppor- ordinances do not confer exaltation—they merely tunity to gain exaltation. ushering in the With what an accelerated pace we shall aid in artificial conception shall Millennium, when the last vestige of this place thereof the true be weeded out of our thinking; when in shall be fully realized; which significance of Heaven and Hell significance I take to be this: There are no "treasures" in Heaven in his soul, no punishments for any man apart from those "laid up" within his own bosom; the in Hell save the discords accumulated for him will be the sum total only harmonies that will ever exist his soul; the only glories those of those to which he daily attunes 204 IMPROVEMENT ERA. which make bright his spirit —the glories of intelligence daily and hourly achieved.* As before observed, we are in the very midst of Heaven's processes. Whoever forgets that earth-life is an integral part of — Heaven-life that Heaven is potential and may to a large extent — become dynamic in our every-day associations will wake up at some distant point in time, at which he is now fondly though idly gazing, and find that his Heaven remains vet to be begun. For it is a truth that we make our own Heaven— God furnishing the oppor- tunity (ordinances, Priesthood, endowments,) and the guide, (the Spirit of truth). Heaven-making is in fact the only legitimate business of life; and Hell-making is nothing else than Heaven- making neglected. Whatever other books there may be out of which we shall be judged, certain it is that the Book of Life— as its name would indicate—is the record which each individual soul is daily record- ing in itself; and so absolute is this record that, as Christ said, we shall even have to account for every idle word we utter. In one particular this simile of a book out of which judgment is to be made, is at fault; for with such a record judgment can be rendered at best only at intervals; whereas in the life-record each of us is making, judgment is instantaneous: every thought, word or deed instantly conditions the sum-total of the Heaven or harmony within us, as surely and effectually as a pebble cast into a pond changes the shoreline. And this is the essential essence of a man's Heaven or Hell— the harmony or discord which reigns at any moment within his own soul. For Heaven secured within him, he begins to live in Heaven, even though his externals be Hell. The more discordant his environments, the more narrowly circumscribed perhaps will be his Heaven— the more hedged in will be his soul-life; but small *Let it not be supposed, because I thus emphasize, self -effort, that I do not take the mercy of God into account. God's merciful ' guidance through the medium of the Spirit of Truth is the very source of the Heaven ideals, conforming to which constitutes "laying up treasures in Heaven." Furthermore, the conforming thereto is possible only as God, by the same means, gives us courage and fortitude. GOSPEL STUDIES. 205 bosom will be celestial light— though it be, the light within his differing in no respect from the light which shines from the within him will be celestial warmththrone of God; the warmth that which he wonld feel should he differing in no respect from grasp the hand of angels. . Heaven-life within him is Nor is it to be understood that the soul's light does not shine out circumscribed in the sense that his It is only that the medium about and his soul's warmth radiate. so, as the light and warmth; as truly him is unfitted to perceive and sunlight with its thousand hues tints, that the glories of were there no eye to see them; or to would be but black darkness art scripture, "The light shineth in luTit in the language of only as he comprehendeth it not." It is ness and the darkness take th where harmony begins to man moves into environments he finds sympathy and companionship-that nlace of discord, that and diffu- an atmosphere for refraction h s Ught and warmth find within tan, the joy of Heaven 7ol He may have Heaven and without him rest till he find Heaven also but he will never be at of a mans therefore, that I say the "essential essence" No" are discord within him-they Heaven or Hell is the harmony or external for Heaven and Hell as noTIhe all of his future states; imperfectly realised here-the tares and the realities are tat from t! Lw toLther the tares get any pleasure Whether SKI ZfSLt I f„Sd to themselves, may will have their pain be doubted; but increased by being there can be no suffers from Question that the wheat ^g^T^ tM— £* *„ L and that its inner life will bliss till they b.i remove -t expand to £«£££*, and ' punish . judgm ent-what «.*£«*£££ or^, have been since the moment that.*. th, ught, , word, «*- ^ ^^ they grew, took place substantially true-and the shaping in our tares. 1 . of our Iives-viz- taow of no we ^ «»y are P1J sigm ficant in * — 206 IMPROVEMENT ERA. instantly for what we think, say, or do; potentially there is no other reward or punishment throughout eternity. But there is another aspect of Heaven and Hell equally significant in the shaping of our lives for eternity. It is an aspect which has been foreshadowed many times in this discussion, but which I now desire to state definitely, viz: At the judgment day a man will receive that degree of external Heaven which corresponds with the Heaven he has accumulated within him; a higher or a lower degree would be in the nature of Hell (or discord) to him, by just so much as the difference between the status of his soul and his new environments; so, too, for him whose life has been negative, the degree of Hell to which he is doomed will correspond with the want of harmony in his life; a lower or a higher Hell, or any degree of Heaven, would be punishment both unjust and unmerciful.* This proposition, so self-evident when stated as it is here, is far from being realized by many Latter-day Saints. "Lord, forgive us our sins, and when we have finished this life, save us in the Celestial glory," is a very familiar petition. If the prayer means, "Help us day by day to put our lives in harmony with thy laws so that in a million years or so we may find our outer Heaven in the Celestial glory" — have no objection to make.f But I I * "In fine, so great had been my iniquities, that the very thoughts of coming into the presence of my God, did rack my soul with inexpressible horror. Oh, thought I, that I could be banished and become extinct both body and soul, that I might not be brought to stand in the presence of my God" Alma 36: 14-15. Is not this a true picture of how a soul would feel if placed in glory for which his inner life unfitted him? Would not the degree of his suffering correspond to the extent of the difference between the status of his soul and the nature of his environment ? 1 1 say a "million years or so," but I confess that it is really impossible to make a clear judgment on this point. A million years seems a short time for so great a work, if intelligence comes to us as slowly as it comes on earth; but it is probable that we shall conform to the laws of God in a much accelerated ratio, as our eyes are opened to the real meaning of salvation and exaltation. GOSPEL STUDIES. 207 sectarian leap from suspect these good people desire to make a beings perfect as God earth conditions into associations which only and angels can endure. be answered! Think what would happen should their prayers their imperfections on every side. Inexorable Truth would buffet of which they have never learned law, to a thousand expressions to conform, would crush them to agonized helplessness. "God dwells in everlasting burnings." No man can behold his glory comparison by which the Prophet and live. Fire was the only realize the gap between us and His could make us even faintly were they perfection. Less awful would be most men's suffering placed in the abode of the damned-less awful because their the discord of Hell than the perfect inner life would still be nearer either place would entail an harmony of Heaven. But going to justice can ever permit to happen. agony which neither mercy nor give us bliss. We' shall go to that Heaven which is fitted to we are! No sooner are we done Foolish children that still wonderful lamp than we begin to think believing in Aladdin and his give credence to marvels concern- ourselves wise, and straightway impossible than anything recorded in ing Heaven and Hell more Entertainments. Consider for a moment what the Arabian Nights segregation should this eternal judg- would be the nature of the Saints now living, with just one ment be passed on the Latter-day A few day's notice. How many would go to a Celestial glory J higher associations-to an doubt pass to a very few-would no inner perfect than The Church today-their external Heaven more they have an purer, more exalted than any outer life Hf be ng consigned to But many would be oppor un" y to conform to. since the they have here on earth associations less perfect than requirements made of "deals today are far below the external a Heaven not differing would be hem For'the most of us, there now striving to which we are mnch from the Church organization pnrer sin- h life would fc Tconform. The Joys of the new for the wheat. But as tares would no longer be growing with the to work out he standard of truth, the opportunities est-"ne overcome se f- sacrifices by which we Heten-ideals within us, the higher or for if they were much fheTewould be much the same;