"Mr. Sutherland," said the Elder, "who knows but before now we have been better acquainted than you are with any gentleman in your village, and that we have merely forgotten our former associations together?" "I do not understand your meaning," said Sutherland, "I am certain we have never seen each other before, and consequently I cannot comprehend your idea when you intimate that perhaps we have been well acquainted. You came from the West, while I have always lived here, where you have never dwelt except during your former visit to Mr. Marshall's home, and how, therefore, can it be possible for us ever to have met before? "I do not claim for an instant that such is the case, Mr. Sutherland, but the idea afforded me such a splendid chance to open a conversation upon a principle believed in by my people, that I could not resist the opportunity of saying what I did, and, as you say you are desirous of learning all you can about our views upon religious principles, you, yourself, gave me a thought, serving as a text, for dwelling upon one of the most important of these." "If that is the case, I am very glad. What is the principle?" "You know that all Christians believe that after death there is life?" "Of course, or why should they take the pains to prepare for death? But what has that to do with having met you before?" "Neither that nor what I am going to say has anything whatever to do with it, but, Mr. Sutherland, if it is reasonable for you and me to believe we shall live after death, why should it be unreasonable for us also to believe that our spirits existed before the birth of our earthly tabernacles? There is certainly something connected with the intelligence of man that should appeal to us as if to say that the spirit is older than the body, and emanated from a more exalted place than this earth of ours." "Why, Mr. Durant," exclaimed Sutherland in astonishment, "I never heard such a doctrine as that." "Let me ask, have you ever read the Bible to any great extent?" "Yes, I have always been a lover of the Divine Record, and have spent many hours in its perusal." "I am glad to hear this, and I think, as we proceed, you may change your mind regarding never having heard such a doctrine as pre-existence. You will perhaps admit that while reading, you failed to understand fully what you read. As an introduction to this grand and glorious principle, let me read a beautiful poem I have here from the pen of one of the gifted women of Utah; she is dead now, and the intelligent spirit, sent from God to dwell in her earthly tabernacle, has been recalled by the Being who sent it, or, as the Bible declares, 'has returned to God who gave it.' Her name was Eliza B. Snow Smith, and that name, as well as this poem, will live while time endures:"