ELECTION AND REPROBATION: In regard to that monstrous doctrine that God, by the exercise of His sovereign will, had predestined some men and angels unto everlasting life, while others He ordained to everlasting death; and that, not because of the good or the evil they had done or might do, but because he had so willed it by his sovereign will; that "the number of such men and angels thus predestined are so peculiarly and unchangeably known, and their number so certain and definite that it can not be either increased or diminished"--against this monstrous view of the doctrine of salvation for the race of men, our Prophet declared salvation to be free, and every soul of man capable of participating therein, if happily he should seek salvation; and that man could be assured of the help and grace of God to aid him in the attainment of salvation. Commenting on a passage of Scripture supposed to teach the sectarian doctrine of Election and Reprobation, the Prophet said: "Unconditional election of individuals to eternal life was not taught by the Apostles. God did elect, or predestinate, that all those who would be saved should be saved in Christ Jesus, and through obedience to the Gospel"--other than this there was no predestination or election relating to the salvation of individuals. On the subject of the fate of the uninstructed heathen, as also upon the matter of children dying in infancy, or before arriving at the years of accountability, the doctrine of Joseph Smith held that where no law is given men will be judged without law, but will stand within the circle of the mercy of God, and there is hope, nay, assurance, of ultimate salvation for the heathen. "The heathen nations shall be redeemed, and they that knew no law shall have part in the first resurrection; and it shall be tolerable for them," are the words of the Lord through the Prophet. And as for infants dying in infancy, or before arriving at years of accountability, the Prophet taught, the mercy of God claims them wholly. They are redeemed from the consequences of Adam's transgression by the atonement of Christ, and being without sin themselves, the law against sin has no claim upon them, and they are saved to the uttermost without baptism or anything else whatsoever, by the pure mercy and justice of God. "Little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world," is a doctrine of the Prophet's. THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT: Against the dogma of the attainment of heaven or the assignment to hell, involving, as it did, the equality of the glory in the one, and equal severity of punishment in the other, our Prophet reasserted the justice of God in providing a graded state of existence for men in the future life, grades that correspond to the state of mental, moral and spiritual development of every soul of man.