The mystic future, with its depths profound, For ages counted as forbidden ground, Now lifts its veil, that man may penetrate The secret springs, the mysteries of fate; Know whence he is, and whither he is bound, And why the spheres perform their ample round. The Grand Council having developed the vast structure of the heavens and the earth, with all their fulness, with the evident design of utility and adaptation to certain definite uses, it well becomes us to watch their progress, and to study with diligence their future and final destiny. From a general traditional belief in an immaterial hereafter, many have concluded that the earth and all material things would be annihilated as mere temporary structures; that the material body, and the planets it occupies, make no part of eternal life and being; in short, that God, angels, and men, become at last so lost, dissolved, or merged in spirituality, or immateriality, as to lose all adaptation to the uses of the physical elements; that they will absolutely need no footstool, habitation, possession, mansion, home, furniture, food, or clothing; that the whole vast works and beautiful designs of the visible creation are a kind of necessary evil or clog on the spiritual life, and are of no possible use except to serve for the time being, for the home and sustenance of beings in their grosser, or rudimental state. What a doleful picture! With what gloom and melancholy must intelligences contemplate the vast structure, as viewed in this light! What a vastness of design! What a display of wisdom! What a field of labour in execution, do the works of creation present to the contemplative mind! Yet all this wisdom of design, all this labour of execution, after serving a momentary purpose, to be thrown away as an incumbrance to real existence and happiness. All these "spiritual," "immaterial" vagaries have no foundation in truth. The earth and other systems are to undergo a variety of changes, in their progress towards perfection. Water, fire, and other elements are the agents of these changes. But it is an eternal, unchangeable fact, a fixed law of nature, easily demonstrated and illustrated by chemical experiment, that neither fire nor any other element can annihilate a particle of matter, to say nothing of a whole globe. _A new heaven and a new earth_ are promised by the sacred writers. Or, in other words, the planetary systems are to be changed, purified, refined, exalted and glorified, in the similitude of the resurrection, by which means all physical evil or imperfection will be done away.