Dorian

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Un­cle Zed's ill­ness did not prove fa­tal, though it was se­ri­ous enough. In a few days he was up and about again, slow­ly, qui­et­ly pro­vid­ing for his sim­ple needs. How­ev­er, it was plain­ly ev­ident that he had near­ly come to the end of his earth­ly pil­grim­age.

Af­ter the most press­ing fall work had been dis­posed of, Do­ri­an spent as much of his spare time as pos­si­ble with the old man, who seemed to like the com­pa­ny of the younger man bet­ter than any­one else in the vil­lage; and Do­ri­an, for his part, took de­light in vis­it­ing with him, in help­ing him with the heav­iest of his not heavy chores. Es­pe­cial­ly, was it pleas­ant dur­ing the length­en­ing evening with a small fire and the lamp new­ly trimmed. Un­cle Zed re­clined in his easy chair, while Do­ri­an sat by the ta­ble with books and pa­pers. Their con­ver­sa­tions ranged from flow­er gar­dens to dry-​farms, and from ag­nos­ti­cism to the high­est de­grees of the ce­les­tial glo­ry. And how they both rev­eled in books and their con­tents on the oc­ca­sions when they were alone and un­ham­pered by the un­sym­pa­thet­ic minds of oth­ers.

“As you see, Do­ri­an,” said Un­cle Zed on one such Sun­day evening, “my col­lec­tion of books is not large, but they are such that I can read and read again.”

“Where is your 'Drum­mond's Nat­ural Law'?” asked Do­ri­an.

Un­cle Zed looked about. “I was read­ing it this morn­ing. There it is on the win­dow.” Do­ri­an fetched him the vol­ume.

“When I read Drum­mond's work,” con­tin­ued the old man, “I feel keen­er than ev­er my lack of sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge. I have al­ways had a de­sire to delve in­to na­ture's laws through the doors of botany, zo­ol­ogy, min­er­al­ogy, chem­istry, and all the oth­er sci­ences. I have ob­tained a smat­ter­ing on­ly through my read­ing. I re­al­ize that the great ocean of truth is yet be­fore me who am now an old man and can nev­er hope in this life to ex­plore much fur­ther.”

“But how is it, Un­cle Zed,” en­quired Do­ri­an, “that so many sci­en­tists have such lit­tle faith?”

“'The let­ter kil­leth, but the Spir­it giveth life,' The Spir­it has taught us Do­ri­an, that this world is God's world, and that the laws which gov­ern here and now are the same eter­nal laws which have al­ways been in op­er­ation; that we have come to this world of el­ement to get in touch with earth­ly forms of mat­ter, and be­come ac­quaint­ed with the laws which gov­ern them. Drum­mond has at­tempt­ed to prove that the laws which pre­vail in the tem­po­ral world about us al­so hold good in the spir­itu­al world, and he has made out a very good case, I think; but nei­ther Drum­mond nor any­body else not en­dowed by the gift of the Holy Ghost, can reach the sim­ple ul­ti­mate truth. That's why I have been look­ing for some young man in the Church who could and would make it his life's mis­sion and work to learn the truths of sci­ence and har­mo­nize them where nec­es­sary with the re­vealed truth--in fact, to com­plete what Hen­ry Drum­mond has so well be­gun.” The old man paused, then look­ing steadi­ly at Do­ri­an, said: “That's what I ex­pect you to do.”

“I? Oh, do you think I could?”

“Yes; it would not be easy, but with your apt­ness and your trend of mind, and your abil­ity to study long and hard, you could, with the as­sis­tance of the Spir­it of God, ac­com­plish won­ders by the time you are as old as I.”

The young man mild­ly protest­ed, al­though the vi­sion of what might be thrilled his be­ing.

“Don't for­get what I am telling you, Do­ri­an. Think and pray and dream about it for a time, and the Lord will open the way. Now then, we are to dis­cuss some of Drum­mond's prob­lems, were we not?”

“Yes; I shall be glad to. Are you com­fort­able? Shall I move your pil­low?”

"I'm rest­ing very eas­ily, thank you. Just hand me the book. Drum­mond's chap­ter on Bio­gen­esis in­ter­ests me very much. I can­not talk very sci­en­tif­ical­ly, Do­ri­an, on these things, but I hope to talk in­tel­li­gent­ly and from the large view­point of the gospel. Here is a para­graph from my book which I have marked and called 'The Wall Be­tween.' I'm sure you will re­mem­ber it. Let us read it again:

“'Let us first place,” he read from the book, 'vivid­ly in our imag­ina­tion the pic­ture of the two great King­doms of Na­ture, the in­or­gan­ic and the or­gan­ic, as these now stand in the light of the Law of Bio­gen­esis. What es­sen­tial­ly is in­volved in say­ing that there is no Spon­ta­neous Gen­er­ation of Life? It is meant that the pas­sage from the min­er­al world is her­met­ical­ly sealed on the min­er­al side. This in­or­gan­ic world is staked off from the liv­ing world by bar­ri­ers which have nev­er yet been crossed from with­in. No change of sub­stance, no mod­ifi­ca­tion of en­vi­ron­ment, no chem­istry, no elec­tric­ity, nor any form of en­er­gy, nor any evo­lu­tion can en­dow any sin­gle atom of the min­er­al world with the at­tribute of life. On­ly by bend­ing down in­to this dead world of some liv­ing form can these dead atoms be gift­ed with the prop­er­ties of vi­tal­ity, with­out this pre­lim­inary con­tact with life they re­main fixed in the in­or­gan­ic sphere for­ev­er. It is a very mys­te­ri­ous Law which guards in this way the por­tals of the liv­ing world. And if there is one thing in Na­ture more worth pon­der­ing for its strangeness it is the spec­ta­cle of this vast help­less world of the dead cut off from the liv­ing by the law of Bio­gen­esis and de­nied for­ev­er the pos­si­bil­ity of res­ur­rec­tion with­in it­self. So very strange a thing, in­deed, is this broad line in Na­ture, that Sci­ence has long sought to oblit­er­ate it. Bio­gen­esis stands in the way of some forms of Evo­lu­tion with such stern per­sis­ten­cy that the as­saults up­on this law for num­ber and thor­ough­ness have been un­par­al­leled. But, as we have seen, it has stood the test. Na­ture, to the mod­ern eye, stands bro­ken in two. The phys­ical laws may ex­plain the in­or­gan­ic world; the bi­olog­ical laws may ac­count for in­or­gan­ic. But of the point where they meet, of that liv­ing bor­der­land be­tween the dead and the liv­ing, Sci­ence is silent. It is as if God had placed ev­ery­thing in earth and in heav­en in the hands of Na­ture, but re­served a point at the gen­esis of Life for His di­rect ap­pear­ing.'

“Drum­mond goes on to prove by anal­ogy that the same law which makes such a sep­ara­tion be­tween the high­er and the low­er in the nat­ural world holds good in the spir­itu­al realm, and he quotes such pas­sages as this to sub­stan­ti­ate his ar­gu­ment: 'Ex­cept a man is born again, he can­not en­ter the king­dom of God'. Man must be born from above. 'The pas­sage from the nat­ural world to the spir­itu­al world is her­met­ical­ly sealed on the nat­ural side.' that is, man can­not by any means make his own un­aid­ed way from the low­er world to the high­er. 'No men­tal en­er­gy, no evo­lu­tion, no moral ef­fort, no evo­lu­tion of char­ac­ter, no progress of civ­iliza­tion' can alone lift life from the low­er to the high­er. Fur­ther, the low­er can know very lit­tle about the high­er, for 'the nat­ural man re­ceiveth not the things of the Spir­it of God; for they are fool­ish­ness to him; nei­ther can he know them, be­cause they are spir­itu­al­ly dis­cerned'. All of which means, I take it, that the high­er must reach down to the low­er and lift it up. Ad­vance­ment in any line of progress is made pos­si­ble by some di­rect­ing pow­er ei­ther seen or un­seen. A man can­not sim­ply grow bet­ter and bet­ter un­til in his own right he en­ters the king­dom of God'.”

“But, Un­cle Zed, are we not taught that we must work out our own sal­va­tion?” asked Do­ri­an. “That is al­so scrip­tural.”

“Yes; but wait; I shall come to that lat­er. Let us go on with our rea­son­ing and see how this law which Drum­mond points out--how it fits in­to the larg­er scheme of things as re­vealed to us Lat­ter-​day Saints. You re­mem­ber some time ago in our talk on the law of eter­nal progress we es­tab­lished the truth that there al­ways have been in­tel­li­gences evolv­ing from low­er to high­er life, which in the eter­ni­ty of the past would in­evitably lead to the per­fec­tion of Gods. This is plain­ly taught in Joseph Smith's state­ment that God was once a man like us, per­haps on an earth like this, work­ing out His glo­ri­ous des­tiny. He, then, has gone on be­fore in­to high­er worlds, gain­ing wis­dom, pow­er, and glo­ry. Now, there is an­oth­er law of the uni­verse that no ad­vanc­ing man can live to him­self alone. No man can grow by tak­ing self­ish thought to the pro­cess. He grows by the ex­er­cise of his fac­ul­ties and pow­ers for the ben­efit of oth­ers. Do­ri­an, hand me the 'Pearl of Great price'.”

Do­ri­an found the book and hand­ed it to the old man, who, find­ing the pas­sage he want­ed, con­tin­ued: “Lis­ten to this re­mark­able state­ment by the Lord: 'For be­hold, this is my work and my glo­ry--to bring to pass the im­mor­tal­ity and eter­nal life of man.' Just think what that means.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means, my boy, that the way of progress is the way of un­selfish la­bor. 'This is my work,' says the Lord, to la­bor for those who are yet on the low­er rungs of the lad­der, to in­sti­tute laws where­by those be­low may climb up high­er; (note I used the word climb, not float); to use His greater ex­pe­ri­ence, knowl­edge, and pow­er for oth­ers; to pass down to those in low­er or pri­ma­ry stages that which they can­not get by self-​ef­fort alone. Let me say this in all rev­er­ence, they who at­tain to All Things do not greed­ily and self­ish­ly cling to it, but pass it on to oth­ers. 'As one lamp lights an­oth­er nor grows less, So kind­li­ness enkindleth kind­li­ness.' Yes; through great stress and sac­ri­fice, they may do this, as wit­nessed in what our Fa­ther has done by en­dow­ing His Beloved Son with eter­nal life, and then giv­ing Him to us. That Son was the 'Prince of Life.' He was the Res­ur­rec­tion and the Life.' He brought Life from the high­er king­dom to a low­er, its nat­ural course through the ages. That is the on­ly way through which it can come. And here­in, to my hum­ble way of think­ing is the great er­ror in­to which the mod­ern evo­lu­tion­ist has fall­en. He rea­sons that high­er forms evolve from the ini­tial and un­aid­ed move­ments of the low­er. That is as im­pos­si­ble as that a man can lift him­self to the skies by his boot-​straps.”

Do­ri­an smiled at the il­lus­tra­tion.

“Now, my boy, I want to make an ap­pli­ca­tion of these di­vine truths to us here and now. I'm not go­ing to live here much longer.”

“Un­cle Zed!”

“Now, wait; it's a good thing that you nor any­body else can pre­vent me from pass­ing on. I've want­ed to live long enough to get rid of the fear of death. I have reached that point now, and so I am ready at any time, thank the Lord.”

Un­cle Zed was beau­ti­ful to look up­on in the clear white­ness of his per­son and the peace­ful con­di­tion of his spir­it. The young lis­ten­er was deeply im­pressed by what he was hear­ing. (He nev­er for­got that par­tic­ular Sun­day af­ter­noon).

“You asked me about work­ing out our own sal­va­tion,” con­tin­ued Un­cle Zed. "Let me an­swer you on that. There are three prin­ci­ples in the law of progress, all of them im­por­tant: First, there must be an ex­er­cise of the will by the can­di­date for pro­gres­sion. He must be will­ing to ad­vance and have a de­sire to act for him­self. That is the prin­ci­ple of free agen­cy. Sec­ond, he must be will­ing to re­ceive help from a high­er source; that is, he must place him­self in a con­di­tion to re­ceive life and light from the source of life and light. Third, he must be un­selfish, will­ing, ea­ger to share all good with oth­ers. The lack of any of these will prove a se­ri­ous hin­drance. We see this ev­ery­where in the world.

“Com­ing back now to the ap­pli­ca­tion I men­tioned. If it is God's work and glo­ry to la­bor for those be­low Him, why should not we, His sons and daugh­ters, fol­low His ex­am­ple as far as pos­si­ble in our sphere of ac­tion? If we are ev­er to be­come like Him we must fol­low in His steps and do the things which He has done. Our work, al­so must be to help along the road to sal­va­tion those who are low­er down, those who are more ig­no­rant and are weak­er than we.”

“Which, Un­cle Zed, you have been do­ing all your life.”

“Just try­ing a lit­tle, just a lit­tle.”

“And this will be as it al­ready has been, your glo­ry. I see that plain­ly.”

“Why shouldn't it be ev­ery­body's work and glo­ry! What a beau­ti­ful world this would be if this were the case!”

“Yes, tru­ly.”

“And see, Do­ri­an, how this prin­ci­ple ties to­geth­er the race from the be­gin­ning to the end, com­par­ative­ly speak­ing. Yes, in this way will men and fam­ilies and races and worlds be linked to­geth­er in chains of love, which can­not be bro­ken, worlds with­out end.”

The old man's voice be­came sweet and low. Then there was si­lence for a few min­utes. The clock struck ten.

“I must be go­ing,” said Do­ri­an. “I am keep­ing you out of bed.”

“You'll come again?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Come soon, my boy. I have so much to tell you. I can talk so freely to you, some­thing I can­not do to all who come here, bless their hearts. But you, my boy--”

He reached out his hand, and Do­ri­an took it lov­ing­ly. There were tears in the old man's eyes.

“I'll not for­get you,” said Do­ri­an, “I'll come soon and of­ten.”

“Then, good night.”

“Good night,” the oth­er replied from the door as he stepped out in­to the night. The cool breeze swept over mead­ow and field. The world was open and big, and the young man's heart ex­pand­ed to it. What a com­fort to feel that the Pow­er which rules the world and all the af­fairs of men is un­fail­ing in its op­er­ations! What a joy to re­al­ize that he had a lov­ing Fa­ther to whom he could go for aid! And then al­so, what a tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­ity was on him be­cause of the knowl­edge he al­ready had and be­cause of his God-​giv­en agen­cy to act for him­self. Sure­ly, he would need light from on High to help him to choose the right!

Sure­ly, he would.