--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Talmage, James Edward collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 6 published: 1918-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "James E. Talmage, “Mortality, a Boon—Man Is Immortal,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 6 (April 1918): 473–476." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2106unse 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: improvementera2106unse start_page: 473 end_page: 476 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2106unse publication_year: 1918 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 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Mortality, a Boon—Man Is Immortal Mortality, a Boon — Man is Immortal By James E. Talmage, of the Council of the Twelve I — Earth Life an Advancement In the first chapter of Genesis we find an impressive sum- mary of the creative processes whereby the earth was made ready for human occupancy. Then, in the fourth and fifth verses of the second chapter we read that all the great developments of earlier record, including the creation of man, had been effected before a single plant had sprung from the soil, and while yet "there was not a man to till the ground." Two states of exist- ence or distinct creations are plainly indicated — the first, a spir- itual and the later an earthly embodiment. Through the latter-day prophet, Joseph Smith, a more com- prehensive account of creative events, as originally revealed to Moses, has been given us. Thus in the section corresponding a« to subject with Gen. 2:5, we read: "For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually before they were naturally upon the face of the earth." (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 3:5). Furthermore, following the record of the creation of man in the flesh, it is written: "Nevertheless, all things were before created; but spiritually were they created and made according to my word." (par. 7). Man in his mortal state, therefore, is the union of a pre- existent spirit with a body composed of earthly elements. This union of spirit and body marks progress from the unembodied to the embodied condition, and is an inestimable advancement in the soul's onward course. As already shown, the penalty in- curred by proud Lucifer and his rebel hordes for their attempt to thwart the divine purpose in the matter of man's agency, was the doom of being denied bodies of flesh. Mortal birth is a boon to which only those spirits who kept their first estate are eligible. (See Jude 6). Expressive of the awful state of the utterly unregenerate among men, of those who have sunk to such depths in sin as to become "sons of perdition," the Lord has applied the extreme malediction, that for such it were better 474 IMPROVEMENT ERA never to have been born. (See Matt. 26:24; Doctrine and Cove- nants 76:32.) The blessedness of advancement to the mortal state lies in the possibilities of achievement therein. Mortality is the prepar- atory school for eternity. Its curriculum is comprehensive and exacting. In its laboratories we pupils meet the experiences that test and try to conclusive demonstration the individual effect of precept and profession. For the founding and main- tenance of this school the earth was created. In Genesis the great truth is evidenced by the placing of man upon the earth as the crowning work of creation; and in Scripture written by Abraham and given anew to the world through a latter-day prophet, the sublimity of the divine intent is plainly set forth: "Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads forever and ever." (Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3:22-26). The great Preceptor among men is Jesus the Christ, the Redeemer and Savior, through whom the gospel of salvation has been introduced, by compliance with which any and every soul may be saved. His mission is the carrying out of the Father's plan, the purpose of which is thus expressed in the Father's words: "For behold, this is my work and my glory — to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 1:39). One may reasonably inquire: If birth be advancement, is not death retrogression? The decisive answer is No. Satan's power over the body, as manifested in death, is but temporary. Through the redemption wrought by Jesus Christ, every soul shall be resurrected, with spirit and body reunited, even as Christ literally died, and then appeared "the firstborn from the dead" (Col. 1:18), His spirit retabernacled in the body of flesh and bones. In the eternal union of spirit and body lie the pos- sibilities of salvation and exaltation. Again do the illuminating beams of later revelations banish obscurity: MORALITY, A BOON 475 "For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receiveth a fulness of joy." (Doctrine and Covenants 93:33). // — Successive Stages of Existence There are four states, conditions, or stages in the advance- ment of the individual soul, specified in Sacred Writ. These are (1) the unembodied, (2) the embodied, (3) the disembodied, and (4) the resurrected state. In other words, (1) every one of us lived in an antemortal existence as an individual spirit; (2) we are now in the advanced or mortal stage of progress; (3) we shall live in a disembodied state after death, which is but a separation of spirit and body; (4) and in due time each of us, whether righteous or sinful, shall be resurrected from the dead with spirit and body reunited and never again to be separated. As to the certainty of the antemortal state, commonly spoken of as preexistence, the Scriptures are explicit. Our Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly averred that He had lived before He was born in flesh (see John 6:62; 8:58; 16:28; 17:5); and as with Him so with the spirits of all who have become or yet shall become mortal. We were severally brought into being, as spirits, in that pre- existent condition, literally the children of the Supreme Being whom Jesus Christ worshiped and addressed as Father. Do we not read that the Eternal Father is "the God of the spirits of all flesh" (Numb. 16:22; 27:16), and more specifically that He is "the Father of spirits"? (Heb. 12:9). In the light of these Scriptures it is plainly true that the spirits of mankind were there begotten and born into what we call the preexistent or antemortal condition. The primeval spirit birth is expressively described by Abra- ham, to whom the facts were revealed, as a process of organiza- tion, and the spirits so advanced are designated as intelligences: "Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones." (Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3:22). The human mind finds difficulty in apprehending the actu- ality of infinite or eternal process, either from the present on- ward to and beyond what we call in a relative sense perfection, on, on, without end; or backward through receding stages that had no beginning. But who will affirm that things beyond hu- man comprehension cannot be? In the antemortal eternities we developed with individual differences and varied capacities. So far as we can peer into 476 IMPROVEMENT ERA the past by the aid of revealed light, we see that there was always gradation of intelligence, and consequently of ability, among the spirits,. precisely as such differences exist among us while we are mortal. "That all men are created equal" is true in the sense in which that telling epigram was written into the scriptures of the Nation as a self-evident truth; for such laws as men enact in righteousness provide for the protection of individual rights on a basis of equality, and recognize no discriminating respect of persons. But if applied as meaning that all men are born with equal capacities, or even inherent abilities in like measure for each, the aphorism becomes absurd and manifestly false. Every spirit born in the flesh is an individual character, and brings to the body prepared for its tenancy a nature all its own. The tendencies, likes and dislikes, in short the whole dis- position of the spirit may be intensified or changed by the course of mortal life, and the spirit may advance or retrograde while allied with its mortal tabernacle. Students of the so-called science with a newly coined name, Eugenics, are prone to em- phasize the facts of heredity to the exclusion of preexistent traits and attributes of the individual spirit as factors in the determination of character. The spirit lived as an organized intelligence before it be- came the embodied child of human parents; and its preexistent individualism will be of effect in its period of earth-life. Even though the manifestations of primeval personality be largely smothered under the tendencies due to bodily and prenatal in- fluence, it is there, and makes its mark. This is in analogy with the recognized laws of physical operation — every force acting upon a body produces its definite effect whether it acts alone or with other and even opposing forces. The genesis of every soul lies back in the eternity past, be- yond the horizon of our full comprehension, and what we call a beginning is as truly a consummation and an ending, just as mortal birth is at once the inauguration of earth-life and the termination of the stage of antemortal existence. The facts are thus set forth in the revealed word of God : "// there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed be- fore, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal." (Abraham 3:18). To every stage of development, as to every human life, there is beginning and end; but each stage is a definite fraction of eternal process, which is without beginning or end. Man is of eternal nature and divine lineage.