--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - H. W. Naisbitt collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 4 number: 1 published: 1900-11 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'H. W. Naisbitt, "Cogitation," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 1 (November 1900): 25–28.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0401unse 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: improvementera0401unse start_page: 25 end_page: 28 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-11) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0401unse 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. --- # Cogitation COGITATION. BY ELDER HENRY W. NAISBITT. The power of reflection is one of those mysteries which per- tain to man; in connection with memory, it is an uncomprehended miracle. By it men live again the past, they reproduce thoughts and experiences, they "chew the cud," so to speak, of personal as- sociation and action, particularly the richer, better, more enno- bling part of life. Few willingly rehearse mentally the disagreeable; folly is allowed oblivion; men bury, if possible, all that offends self- love and self-respect. It is a species of negative repentance, at least, a fleeing from self, a spiritual resolve against weakness, and a testimony of that divine influence which was expressed in the phrase as used by David. Doubtless the Psalmist's thought when he said, "while I was musing the fire burned," was something different from that of the disciples whenthey queried, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way?" The former cogitations were the product of unpleasant things, the latter of that which made glad the soul of man; moody human nature lapses into the former, in- spired human nature soars into higher regions, and purifies this strange phenomenon of the living soul. The unwritten history of the individual soul is often its richest part; it is as often unwritten as unexpressed; to the searcher of hearts alone is it confessed, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, see if there be any wicked ways in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Sacred to a man and secret to the world, are the innermost recesses of his heart; "the secret of God" which is upon the tabernacle in youth, as Job 26 IMPROVEMENT ERA . says, is ruthlessly torn from self by self in the experiences of life, and reflection, cogitation deepens the humiliation of human nature, as a rule. Just as far as experience goes, man ceases to be "a sealed book" to himself; things declared impossible by self-love, become as easy as to that ancient one Hazael, before whom Elisha wept as he saw, in vision, what he should do whenking over Israel, "What! is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing ?" The sequel not only demonstrated the prophetic vision, but it proved that Hazael had failed to realize the possibilities that were en- shrined within himself; time, circumstances, opportunity, prove in unison that "the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked;" few they are, indeed, who accept the Phara- saic verdict, "I thank thee that I am not as other men, not evenas this poor Publican" yet the latter "went down to his house justi- fied," while the former was condemned. The dense veil of self-suf- ficiency, of experimental self-interrogation, had not dawnedhere as it did on Paul when he had to confess, "The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do." These sternfacts of human nature we hide in self-complacency, as if the same fact was not patent to every thinking soul; and admitted too in the devotion of tens of thousands when in church, but denied with bitterness in society, in social life, in public life, where virtue is vehemently asserted, and perfection is claimed. This subtlety of hypocrisy never deceives the professor, the skeleton is ever in his closet, and consciousness is only cherished as the damning sense of sin is pressed home by the inspiration of the divine Spirit. If cogitation was forever limited to personal review, and conclusion, would not many an earnest soul despair- ingly ask, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? It is not the design of the Author of life, that man should brood over personal condemnation any more than that he should lapse into indifference and apathy, so thought begets thought; cogitation becomes discontented with the present life, even when its experiences are multifarious, and then steal into the soul quer- ies in regard to a hidden-forgotten past; there are longings un- utterable, and in the semblance of dreams the awakening one feels the silent monitions of a nonunderstandable something which COGITATION. 27 gradually reaches out further and further into this possible past; "thoughts that burn" come unbidden and unsought, until by and by, as the dews from heaven, there comes the morning gleam of an as- sured revelation, "Man is because he has been;" and when this key- note of pre-existence is touched, there comes drifting thought upon thought, a revealing as tangible as the experiences of the present, yet divested perchance of the clouds of darkness and unsatisfied hours of the present, for if these had been, they have become obliterated, as the disagreeables ofthis probation are brushed aside in favor of the pleasant, the right, the true! The one so moved is on the threshold of solution. Life's enigma dissolves in spirit dreams; glimpse after glimpse, line upon line, the truths of pre-existent life are made plain; cogitation has broken to the soul the, as yet, indistinct, perchance, secret of the Lord! Memory asserts its wonderful sway, and wonder stupefied only asks, How could darkness, gross darkness, exercise power enough amid the transitory, to blind the mental and spiritual vision to the natural, the inevitable past, instead of brooding upon the disturb- ing fantasies of the present? forgetting, ignoring or overlooking that divine order which blends into one that trinity of being, the past, the present and the future; for surely that key which unlocks the former, can touch and move the wards of the "yet to be," and so make of existence a beautiful and a rounded whole. Supplementary to this greater light, is the revelation of a cer- tain future. Manis not only what he is, because he has been, but he will be because he is; the radiance and glow of both past and pres- ent, when understood and comprehended by unmistakable spiritual illumination, peers beyond life's present mists and shadows as the trained eyes of the eagle gaze upon the sun. But the atmosphere of inspirational thought becomes clearer as the soul rises higher and higher into the divine conception of eternal life. On the lines of illimitable progress, the soaring soul is able to grasp the preg- nant saying of the Divine Man who prayed that his disciples might be one with him, as he and the Father were one, and, as the Psalmist wrote, "I said, Ye are Gods unto whom the word of God come;" further, if "Life and immortality are brought to light by the Gospel," the Author and Revealer thereof surely promised eternal life unto all those who obeyed him, for in his thoughtful yet sad, 28 IMPROVEMENT ERA. inspirational prayer to the Father he cried, "Now, O Father! glo- * * rify thou me with the glory which I had with * * * thee before the world was. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they * * * may be one, as we are. Neither pray I for them alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through * * * their word. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one."- John xvii. What a world of pathos, of promise, of suggestion, of des- tiny! Surely this means the culmination of divine intent and power! How, if the disciples understood all that was implied at this supreme moment, just before the hour of sacrifice, must their hearts have burned, as on a later occasion? If this wondrous revelation fell on uncomprehending ears, how must they have felt when that mighty Spirit descended which was "to bring all things to their remembrance and show them things to come?" So in life's complexity there is yet order; to the finite it may appear chaotic , yet there is perfect design; individual man observes the tangled skein, divine intelligence ties, connects the seemingly rav- elled ends; human ignorance stands amazed at the harmony of the higher philosophy, the glory of heavenly purpose, and the absolute certainty of its fulfillment. "Now," was said to the believer, "are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, and shall see him as he is!" That sublime truth half revealed toPaul, was more fully grasped by that greater prophet, Joseph Smith. His vision, as the leader of the last and greatest dispensation, was undoubtedly more clear, for he claimed, "As God is, so man may become." "It doth not yet appear," said Paul, "It is revealed," said the latter voice, and every enlightened soul under the same influence of inspirational power, says humbly, "Why, of course, 'like begets like, " and though the paths of progress may be "long and tedious," obedience to law is the same as the giver thereof, "yesterday, today and forever." Is human nature, weak, erring, sinful, insignificant, worthy of such a destiny ? As the lengthened vista of possibilities extend, as