The Greatest Poet and Prophet.--Jesus Christ, the greatest of all prophets, was likewise the greatest of all poets. He comprehended the universe and its symbolism as no one else ever did or could. He knew it through and through. What wonder? Had he not created it, and was it not made to bear record of him? [7] He taught in poetic parables, taking simple things as types of greater things, and teaching lessons that lead the mind upward towards the ideal, towards perfection. The Gospel of Christ is replete with poetry. It is one vast poem from beginning to end. What of Philosophy--"Philosophy is the account which the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world." So says that great modern philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. [8] In Article Eleven I have pointed out the similarity between Plato's concept of causes that produced the universe, and Joseph Smith's teaching upon the origin and purpose of the great plan of eternal progression. But Joseph did not get his philosophy from Plato. He had it directly from the divine Source of Plato's inspiration. There is no plagiarism in this semi-paralleling of a sublime thought. In like manner Confucius taught, in a negative way, the Golden Rule, afterwards taught affirmatively and more fully by Jesus of Nazareth. Truth, whether uttered by ancient sage or by modern seer, is worthy of all acceptance. Emerson on "Compensation."--Few things of a philosophic nature appeal to me more strongly than Emerson's great essay on "Compensation." Says that master of thought and expression: "Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure, has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life." "Nature hates monopolies and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of conditions tend to equalize themselves. There is always some leveling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others." "The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President has paid dear for his White House." "The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the benefit, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power; but they why do not the thing have not the power." "As the royal armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies became friends, so do disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, poverty, prove benefactors." "Our strength grows out of our weakness. Not until we are pricked and stung and sorely shot at, awakens the indignation which arms itself with secret forces. Blame is safter than praise."