(Ecc. 10:7). Even the God of heaven, the mighty Prince of Peace, walked unknown, unhonored, by his own servants, in the dust of his own footstool.

Degrees of Greatness.-There are degrees of greatness in heaven as upon earth, choice spirits and choicer. But all God's servants are noble. No position in the Church of Christ is insignificant. David was right in saying: "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." It is greater, infinitely greater, to hold the humblest office in the priesthood, than to reign, an alien from God, over all the kingdoms of the world.

Israel's Pre-existence. In view of what the prophets have spoken, are we not justified in believing that the house of Israel was chosen in the heavens for the mission it had to perform, and is still performing, upon the earth? What other inference can be drawn from these words of Moses:

"Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations:

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"When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. -(Deut. 32:7-8.)

The period here mentioned, when the sons of Adam were separated, and the nations received their inheritance, evidently antedated by many generations the times of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Those events were probably much earlier, and certainly no later, than the days of Japheth, Shem, and Ham. by whose families the nations were "divided in the earth after the flood" (Gen. 10:32). It looks very much as if Moses, when he wrote those words, had in mind, not a temporal Israel, unborn at the early period indicated, but a spiritual Israel, according to whose numbers, known in the heavens before they had taken bodies upon the earth, the boundaries of "the people" were determined.

CHAPTER II.

Israel's Mission.

Privileges and Requirements.-It was intended that the children of Israel should have "room to dwell;" and it was of the utmost consequence that they should have. They were to be the oracles of God, the custodians and dispensers of heavenly wisdom. Upon them devolved the high duty of keeping alive on faith's altar the fire of divine truth. They were not to worship idols, as did the heathen nations around them, but were to worship the true God, the invisible Jehovah, "walking by faith," where others, less worthy, "walked by sight," believing only when they could see. The children of Israel were not to intermarry with other nations, lest they might worship their gods, practice their vices, and pollute the noble lineage through which was to come, in due time, the Savior of the world. The Lamb of God, when he came, was "without spot or blemish," physically as well as spiritually; a condition partly due, no doubt, to the choice parentage and ancestry that had been provided for him.

Christ the Seed of Abraham.-This brings us again to the divine promise given to Abraham: "In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Undoubtedly that promise was fulfiled in the coming of the Son of God as the Redeemer and Savior. In the body he was a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and in more ways than one he has been a blessing to all nations.

The Gem and Its Setting.-In treating this great theme, however, it is not enough to consider that such a personage as Jesus of Nazareth lived and labored and died. We must not separate the gem from its setting. We must not isolate the central fact of the Savior's personal ministry from the related facts that went before and followed after. Christ came to save the world; but the house of Israel prepared the way for his coming, gave him a proper lineage through which to come, and after his crucifixion carried on the work he had inaugurated.

This is especially true of the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, and others bearing the Priesthood; but it is also true, in a general way, of the whole house of Israel.

The Salt of the Earth.—While there is but one Savior in a universal sense, and in the sense of the atonement and the resurrection, that Savior has many assistants, sent to play subordinate parts in the great drama of salvation. Did not Jesus tell his disciples that they were "the salt of the earth”—the saving or preserving element among men? And did he not warn them against allowing "the salt" to "lose its savor"-its power to save and preserve? For how could they save others, if their own feet were not firmly planted upon the Rock of Salvation?

Followers of the Lamb.-John of Patmos saw a Lamb standing upon the Mount Zion, “and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads" (Rev. 14:1). And he heard a voice from heaven saying, "These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." Then they follow him in the work of salvation, not only in this world, but also in the spirit world, where he ministered while his body was lying in the tomb.

Who are these 144,000? They are not the whole house of Israel, which numbers millions; but they are "of all the tribes of the children of Israel," twelve thousand of every tribe. The Prophet Joseph says: They "are high priests, ordained unto the holy order of God, to administer the Everlasting Gospel ; for they are they who are ordained out of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, by the angels to whom is given power over the nations of the earth, to bring as many as will come to the Church of the First Born" (D. and C. 77:11). They are not the entire army of the Lord, but might well be termed the flower of that army, the body-guard of the great Captain of Salvation.

Keystone and Arch.-Christ is the keystone of an arch, and that arch is, or is in, the house of Israel; a circlet of gold upon the forearm of Omnipotence, a setting of satellite gems, from the midst of which the supreme jewel, the Signet of Salvation, sends forth its lustre.

Overruling Providence.-Under Jesus Christ, the Savior, the great house of which he is the spiritual head also has a mission of salvation. And, strangely enough, the children of Israel have accomplished that mission, not only when obedient to God, but while disobedient and suffering the consequent calamities that came upon them. A notable instance of the power of overruling Providence, bringing order out of chaos, light out of darkness, success and victory from seeming failure and defeat.

Calamity and Compensation.-The compensations of calamity—a theme treated philosophically by Ralph Waldo Emerson, in one of his noblest essays-are apparent in some of the mightiest events of human history. For instance, to Adam it was said: "The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." He ate, and death came into the world; a terrible calamity, but not without its compensation; for the fall of man proved to be the means of peopling the earth, according to a divine plan, ordained before the creation of the world. Christ's martyrdom, the preordained means of man's salvation, was an overwhelming calamity to his terror-stricken disciples, who were disconsolate until they looked upon it in its true light, acknowledging God's hand in the awful tragedy. Even so, Israel's dispersion, that dire calamity under which the chosen people have suffered for ages, and from which they are just beginning to emerge, has been overruled for good, and made the means of fulfiling the Lord's purpose and promise in the blessing of all nations.

Moses Predicts the Dispersion.-Prophecies of this calamity were made as early as the time of Moses, fifteen hundred years before the coming of the Savior. The twelve tribes, the most notable of whom were Judah and Joseph-the latter represented in Ephraim and Manasseh-had been in Egypt for several centuries when Moses led them out of bondage and brought them to the borders of Canaan, the land which the Lord had given to their forefathers when he promised to make of them "a great nation." The leader of Israel told his people, who were about to possess themselves of the land of Canaan, that so long as they served Jehovah and kept his com

mandments, they should be prospered and remain an independent nation; but if they forsook Jehovah and served other gods. He would scatter them among all people, from one end of the earth even unto the other.-(Deut. 28:64.)

A Martyred Nation. They were commanded, as Adam and Eve had been, not to do a certain thing, and a punishment was to come upon them if they disobeyed; and yet it must have been foreseen, as in the case of our first parents, that they would disobey, and the transgression was overruled for good. The dispersion of Israel, like the fall of Adam, like the crucifixion of Christ, seems to have been part of a mighty plan for the progress and salvation of the human race. Adam fell that

man might be; Christ died to burst the bands of death; and Israel was scattered among all nations, that the gospel of the Redeemer, which was to follow, might make its way more readily among those nations. As in the fall, as in the crucifixion, and in every instance where some great service has been rendered to humanity, there was sacrifice, suffering, martyrdom, in order that blessings might come. The history of the house. of Israel is the history of a martyred nation, suffering for the good of other nations-whatever may be said of transgressions that justified God in bringing upon his chosen people the calamities that were doubtless among the "offenses" that "must needs come."

A Decadent Empire. Joshua, succeeding Moses as the leader of Israel, conquered the land of Canaan and divided it among the twelve tribes. Then followed the reigns of the Judges, during which period Israel began to depart from God, and to invite, by rebellious conduct, the national calamity that had been predicted. The glories of the monarchy founded by