The Unerring Guide.--The experience of Columbus differed from that of Nephi, notably in this particular: Nephi "beheld," while Columbus was moved upon--yet it was the same Spirit in each instance. It was of the Holy Ghost that the Savior was speaking, when he said to his disciples: "He will guide you into all truth." [6] The mission of the Holy Ghost is to make manifest the things of God, past, present and future, explaining the purpose of this mortal life, revealing to man his eternal origin and destiny, and answering the otherwise unanswerable questions--whence? whither? and why? Wordsworth's "Intimation."--It was this Spirit that inspired the poet Wordsworth, bringing the forgotten past to his remembrance, and prompting the utterance of the noble thoughts embodied in these lofty lines: Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home. [7] Truth and Bigotry.--The big thought was too broad for the narrow, rigid orthodoxy of Wordsworth's time, which could allow for the pre-existence of the Son of God, but not for that of the race in general. "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." [8] This wonderful prayer from the lips of the Savior was too plain to be misunderstood. It was clear that Jesus Christ, "the Word" that was "in the beginning with God," and "was God," before he "was made flesh," [9] had lived before this life. But man, "mere man," was an earth-worm, made out of nothing, and consequently had no pre-existence. So Christian orthodoxy maintained; and Wordsworth had to recant or half-way deny that his heaven-inspired "intimation" meant as much as his bigoted censors seemed to fear. Nevertheless, "Got but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born, that drops into its place, And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake." The truth uttered by the great "poet of nature" touching the previous life, was probably accepted by thousands of advanced thinkers; and their acceptance helped to prepare the way for a more positive and more complete presentation of the great doctrine of man's pre-existence. In this connection the subjoined verses from the pen of a "Mormon" poet, tell their own eloquent story: O my Father, thou that dwellest In the high and glorious place! When shall I regain thy presence, And again behold thy face? In thy holy habitation Did my spirit once reside; In my first primeval childhood Was I nurtured near thy side.