“Then there is some further confusion:  Christian philosophers have tried to personify this ‘soul of the universe,’ for God, they say, thinks and feels and knows.  They try to get a personality without form or bounds or dimentions, but it all ends in vagueness and confusion.  As for me, and I think I am not so different from other men,—­for me to be able to think of God, I must have some image of Him.  I cannot think of love or good, or power or glory in the abstract.  These must be expressed to me by symbols at least as eminating from, or inherent in, or exercised by some person.  Love cannot exist alone:  there must be one who loves and one who is being loved.  God is love.  That means to me that a person, a beautiful, glorified, allwise, benevolent being exercises that divine principle which is shed forth on you and me.

“Now, if the world would only leave all this metaphysical meandering and come back to the simple truth, what a clearing of mists there would be!  All their philosophies would have a solid basis if they would only accept the truth revealed anew to us through the Prophet Joseph Smith that God is one of a race, the foremost and first, if you wish it, but still one of a race of beings who inhabit the universe; that we humans are His children, begotten of Him in the pre-mortal world in His image; that we are on the upward path through eternity, following Him who has gone before and has marked out the way; that if we follow, we shall eventually arrive at the point where He now is.  Ignorance of these things is what I understand to be ignorance of God.”

“In England I lost my wife and two children.  The gospel came to me shortly after, I am sure, to comfort me in the depths of my despair.  Not one church on earth that I knew of, Catholic or Protestant, would hold out any hope of my ever being reunited with wife and children as such.  There is no family life in heaven, they teach.  At that time I went about listening to the preachers, and I delved into books.  I made extensive copyings in my note books.  I have them yet, and some day when you are interested I will show them to you.”

“I am interested now,” said Dorian.

“But I’m not going to talk to you longer on this theme, even though it is Sunday and time for sermonizing.  I’m going to meeting, where you also ought to go.  You are not attending as regularly as you should.”

“No, but I’ve been very busy.”

“No excuse that.  There is danger in remaining away too long from the established sources of spiritual inspiration and uplift, especially when one is reading Ingersol and Tom Paine.  I have no fault to find with your ambition to get ahead in the world, but with it ’remember thy creator in the days of thy youth.’  Are you neglecting your mother?”

“No; I think not, Uncle Zed; but what do you mean about mother?”

“You are all she has.  Are you making her days happy by your personal care and presence.  Are you giving of yourself to her?”