Oratory, Poesy and Prophecy

ORATORY, POESY AND PROPHECY By Orson F. Whitney V Poesy is another name for prophecy. Poetry of the highest order is essentially prophetic, infinitely suggestive, pointing to the future, and symbolizing things to come. Anything is poetic that stands for something greater than itself. "Fair are the flowers and the children, But their subtle suggestion is fairer; Rare is the rose-burst of dawn. But the secret that clasps it is rarer. "Great are the symbols of being, But that which is symboled is greater; Vast the create and beheld, But vaster the inward creator." Man is poetic, in that he symbolizes his Maker, the Being in whose image he was created. "What is man but a symbol of God," asks Carlyle, and is overwhelmingly answered by Joseph Smith, who affirms: "God himself is an Exalted Man." The same thought, in the poetic mind of Lorenzo Snow, Joseph Smith's disciple, gave birth to the sublime couplet: As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be. Carlyle tells us that the ancient word "Vates" meant both prophet and poet, and he maintains that they are fundamentally the same, "in this most important respect especially, that they have pene- trated, both of them, into the sacred mystery of the universe; — what Goethe calls the open secret * * * open to all, seen by almost none." Poesy in the highest degree is the power to see into and interpret that "sacred mystery." God has built hi"! world, or his systems of worlds, upon symbols, the lesser suggest_.<g and leading up to the greater, pointing the mind from earth to heaven, from man to God, from time to eternity. The poetic faculty recognizes this symbolism. Poesy holds the key to its interpretation. The greatest poet that has ever lived was not Shakespeare. It was Jesus Christ. Not because he wrote verses — for we have no record of his having written any; not because of his parables, so precious; nor his sermons and sayings, so wonderful, so unparalleled. But because he saw deepest into the mystery of life, into the divine symbolism of the universe — his> own creation. The greatest poem in existence is the Gospel of Christ. Adam's offering of the sacrificial lamb, in the similitude of the Lamb of God,

85 8 IMPROVEMENT ERA who was to take away the sins of the world; the Hebrew Passover, with its wealth of prophetic symbolism, also pointing to the Lamb of God, the Great Deliverer of whom Moses, meekest of men, was typical; the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, in which the broken bread and poured wine or water represent the body and blood of the world's Redeemer; the ordinance of baptism, instituted in the likeness of his burial and resurrection; all these are poems — poems in action and in form, parts of the great Gospel Poem, whose author is God, even the Son of God. History scintillates with poetic symbolism. Abraham offering Isaac; Joseph's humiliation and elevation in Egypt; Moses delivering Israel; — it is not difficult to determine what these events signified, if one has the poetic instinct to guide him. The Father's gift of his Only Begotten Son, for the redemption of a fallen world; the Savior's descent below, that he might rise above all things; his deliverance of the human race from the bondage of sin and death; all are fore- shadowed by those historical happenings. How could history "repeat itself," but for this symbolism in human lives and events? Is it not because men symbolize men, that we say of one: He was the Caesar,' Shakespeare, or Napoleon of his time. Is it not because men symbolize principles, that we say of another: His name is a synonym for this vice or that virtue? And i* it not because events symbolize events, that we say of this or that disaster or exploit: "It was a Waterloo," or "A Roland for an Oliver?" Men and women personify nations and peoples. Jacob is Israel; Esau, Edom; Japheth, the Gentiles. Columbia and Britannia — feminine myths* — stand for the two foremost nations of modern times. Even the Church of Christ is symbolized by a woman. Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the great Image — a man, with head of gold, breast and arms of silver, loins of brass, legs of iron, feet part of iron and part of clay — described the mightiest empires of history and foreshadowed their fate. The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, putting an end to the Hebrew commonwealth, typified the downfall of worldly wickedness — Babylon. The rebuilding of Jerusalem — an event yet future — and the restoration of Israel — now begun — symbolize the resurrection of the race, and the glory and exaltation of the earth and its righteous in- habitants. The neglect of poets and the persecution of prophets by their contemporaries, with their subsequent acceptance by posterity, find a wondrous and complete fulfilment in the deification of the once despised Nazarene. It is this universal symbolism that makes poetry of history — history, which is also prophecy. The fate of men fortells the fate of nations; the destiny of empires foreshadows the destiny of worlds. All are governed by divine laws, and they grow, increase, decline and

ORATORY, POESY AND PROPHECY 859 fall, by obedience or disobedience to those laws. The knowledge of the lesser leads to the knowledge of the greater, and the key to the mysteries of time unlocks the door to the mysteries of Eternity. It is written that the Lord God "revealeth his secret to his servants the prophets." Yes, and he reveals some things to his servants the poets and philosophers. What did he tell thee, Plato? "All things are in a scale, and begin where we will, ascend and ascend. All things are symbolical; and what we call results are beginnings." Was not the same truth given to Abraham? — "If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them." The God who said to Moses, "All things have their likeness, and are made to bear record of me," inspired Goethe to teach that things temporal are types of things spiritual. The Universe, composed of things great and small, the smaller symbolizing the greater, is one vast poem. Filled with types and foreshadowings, the seen and heard bearing witness of the unseen and unheard, it is a mighty prophecy, ever fulfilling and awaiting further fulfilment. To read this poem, to interpret this prophecy, requires a poet of the highest order, and when we have a poet of the highest order, we have a Prophet of the Most High, one standing next to God. and best able, therefore, to comprehend him and make known his purposes. The Book of Life is. "a book with seven seals," and until he who "hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof," rends the veil, all others "see in part." Seeing in part, what do we behold? That there is an endless symbolism, all things visible, audible, or in any manner appreciable, typifying greater things, toward which, along the lines of eternal progress, all things are advancing. That man is a symbol of God. as the child is a symbol of the parent, capable by growth and development, by the thorough educa- tion of his mental, physical, moral and spiritual powers, of becoming what he symbolizes, blossoming from the human into the divine. That Earth symbolizes Heaven, though affording by its conditions a contrast to Heaven; through which contrast and its conditions man's spirit secures the education to which it aspires; whereupon the contrast disappears, and Earth, also educated, becomes Heaven. That Time, with all its ages, is a chain, a climax, an ascending scale of dispensations, one merging into another and all into one, lik? rills and rivers mingling with the ocean. That the past symbolized the present; was preparatory to and productive of the present; and that the present, also symbolical, sows the seed of and foreshadows the future. That Time, with its centuries, is typical of Eternity with its aeons, those centuries being typified in turn by years, months, weeks, days and the more minute subdivisions of eternal duration.

860 IMPROVEMENT ERA i That men and nations from the beginning have carved out the way for other men and nations; that human lives and human events, like sections of machinery turned by the enginery of Omnipotence, have fitted into and impelled each other, under the controlling, guiding master Mind and Hand that doeth all things well. Through all these changes and vicissitudes, whether of Time or of Eternity, man's deathless intelligence passes, reaping where and what it hath sown, and advancing by experience from height to height of knowledge, power, glory and dominion. This is "the open secret — open to all, seen by almost none." No man in modern times, whether poet, philosopher or scientist, has dived so deeply into the mystery of life as did the Prophet Joseph Smith. He was not a Homer, nor a Shakespeare, nor a Milton. He did not build rhymes, make verses — though he might have done, had he cared to cultivate and acquire the art. But he possessed the deep poetic insight, the power to comprehend and interpret the vast mystical ground-work of creation and existence — a power inherent in prophecy and seership, those rare gifts with which he was so eminently endowed. This was what made him a poet. And no man or woman, not a poet in the same sense and to a greater or less degree, will ever be able to understand Joseph Smith or fully appreciate his sublime mission. He was a prophet; consequently a poet; and would have been, had he never spoken or written a line of verse or prose. A gold mine is a gold mine, whether or not the precious ore has been brought to the surface. Mining does not create the metal. The inward truth is more than the outward expression. Conception is greater than birth. Whatever may be said or thought by others, I re-affirm my positive conviction that the mind which could grasp such splendid and exalted principles as are set forth in the writings and sayings of Joseph Smith, and utter them in a manner so powerful, was the mind of a prophet-poet, than whom none mightier, save the very Son of God, ever struck the harp of divine truth and made it vibrant with the music of the spheres. What poem did he produce? He produced the great poem mis- called "Mormonism," the mightiest epic, though unexpressed in verse, ever conceived and brought forth by the mind, of man. Its* other and truer title is the Everlasting Gospel, now in its latter-day restoration. Joseph Smith was not its author. He was only the amanuensis — as is every true poet — a revelatcr to men of what God revealg to him. Christ himself is the Author of this great Gospel Poem, which, sounded as a prophecy in pre-existent spheres, echoed and re-echoed down the ages by the sacred bards' of Israel, finds its fullest human expression in the heaven-inspired song sung by the Prophet of the Last Dispensation.