Fire and the Holy Ghost.--God "dwells in eternal fire" ("Joseph Smith's Teachings," p. 82), where no mortal could approach him unconsumed. But mortals may receive the Holy Ghost with safety. Again: the inhabitants of the telestial world receive the Holy Spirit through the ministrations of the terrestrial; "but where God and Christ dwell they cannot come, worlds without end." By her fiery baptism, earth will be consumed; her mortal elements will melt with fervent heat, and the purified remains, immortal and in a state of resurrection, will be converted into a celestial sphere, a glorified abode for the righteous. Baptism Symbolizes Birth.--Every resurrection is a birth, and every birth implies a previous burial. No seed germinates till it dies, or appears to die, and is buried. The farmer plants that there may be a springing forth of new life from the germ of the old. Every seed sown in the likeness of Christ's death shall be in the likeness of his resurrection; that is, if it be a good seed, properly buried in good ground. Every birth, I say, implies a previous burial. This is true of time in its relations to eternity. Coming into this life involves departure out of a previous life, and burial in this life implies birth into the next. The sun, setting upon the western hemisphere, rises upon the eastern; and sets upon the eastern to rise upon the western. The setting and rising of the sun; sleep followed by waking; winter with its icy fetters and shroud of snow, succeeded by spring in garments of green, with its bright flowers, singing birds, and laughing streams; all these suggest burial, and resurrection--and consequently baptism. Born of God.--To be "born of God" literally means to come forth from God. "Born of woman" has a like significance. We have a Father and a Mother in heaven, in whose image man was created, male and female. We came forth from them--were begotten and born of them in the spirit, as much so as we were afterwards begotten and born in the flesh; and we must be begotten and born again, in the similitude of those other begettings and births, or we cannot regain the presence of our eternal Father and Mother. "Children of My Begetting."--Baptism signifies the creation of souls for the kingdom of God. The priest who immerses, or the elder who confirms, is the spiritual progenitor of the person baptized. "Children of my begetting," Paul terms those receiving the gospel through his instrumentality. To baptize is to perform, in a spiritual way, the functions of fatherhood. Motherhood is the sacred symbol of the baptismal font. Hence, baptism must be by divine authority--must have the sanction of heaven upon it. There must first be a marriage, a union between heavenly powers and earthly agents; otherwise the baptism will be unlawful, the birth illegitimate, the act of begetting a crime! Baptisms, like marriages, performed without divine authority, will have no effect when men are dead.