--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Madsen, C. A. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 4 number: 9 published: 1901-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'C. A. Madsen, "Dispensation of Abraham," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 9 (July 1901): 656–657.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0409unse 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: improvementera0409unse start_page: 656 end_page: 657 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1901-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0409unse publication_year: 1901 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 1901, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Dispensation of Abraham DISPENSATION OF ABRAHAM. BY BISHOP C. A. MADSEN. What do our profane historians know about the dispensation of Abraham? Can any inference be drawn from between the lines of profane history, indicating the existence of a gospel dispensation in the days of the great patriarch Abraham? Of course, to rightly judge the inferences, just qualifications must be brought into requisition, dealing with both sacred and pro- fane conceptions. Who, for instance, was the architect of the great pyramid at Gizeh, "an altar to God in the midst of Egypt," containing unparal- leled hints on untrodden grounds in astronomic science? And who built the Egyptian Thebes? Who were the masters of the unequaled architecture in the old cities, on the east bank of the Red Sea? Where did the classic culture originate? How did it come to pass that all this grandure and advanced civilization accumulated and concentrated around the inheritance of Abraham? Do things produce only in their own likeness? Or can the greater grow out of the lesser? Can profane history produce the chronology of the esthetic, ethic, and religious spheres; oris it limited within the first two and necessarily silent on the third? DISPENSATION OF ABRAHAM. 657 The profane sphere may define itself as being "without tem. pie"; but can it explain truly how it came to be in that condition? or can a profane sphere define and understand itself, through what it has lost? Would it be a vain effort to endeavor to explain to a profane world how it degenerated into its present sphere? Or, would it be acceptable vicarious work to lead it out of such orbit, and, if possible, return it into a sacred sphere? The classic, esthetic cultus was partly appreciated, preserved, imitated, admired, and almost worshiped, by a profane world. So also was its ethic sister, the Roman law, not alone tolerated, but fully accepted: its philosophy of morals was taken entirely from the Mosaic ten commandments, and made the foundation for all law-giving up to this day. But, could the undoubted forerunner — the religious sphere, existing through celestial communion, and always dependent upon the revelations of Jesus Christ, unknown to the two former, ever be handled understandingly, by a profane world or its historians? Vain efforts might be made to understand it, unlimited argu- ment be indulged in, but without reaching a true culmination; because being cut off from revelation, or having had itself cut off therefrom, a profane world does not and can not know its own sphere from the standpoint of sacred conditions. Hence, we find that profane history is of necessity, and un- conciously, silent on the divine dispensation of the great patri- arch. True interpretations of the more or less unknown sacred signs, often found scattered, like strangers, between the lines of profane history, ostracized from the house of their kindred, are nevertheless, frequently reached by searchlights of truth unknown to the world.