"The messenger who visited us on this occasion, and conferred this Priesthood upon us, said that his name was John, the same that is called John the Baptist in the New Testament; and that he acted under the direction of Peter, James and John who held the keys of the Melchisedec Priesthood, and who would in due season visit us and confer that, the higher Priesthood, upon us, which holds the keys of the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and right to all the offices in the church." Subsequently, in fulfilment of this promise, Peter, James, and John came to them, and conferred upon them the higher order of priesthood--the Melchisedec. This gave them the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the Church of Christ, and the power and authority to organize the Church and Kingdom of God upon the earth. ELIJAH COMES. In 1836, in the Kirtland Temple, Ohio, Elijah the Prophet came, in fulfilment of Malachi's prophecy (Mal. iv, 5, 6), and made known those principles which would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, viz., the doctrine of salvation for the dead. From the keys of knowledge which Elijah restored great light has been thrown upon the plan of salvation, showing it to be more perfect and more extensive than ever man dreamed of in his philosophy. It is learned from the keys of knowledge which he restored that the innumerable millions who have died without a knowledge of Christ or of His Gospel, together with those who have been deceived by the teachings of pseudo ministers of Christ, are not eternally lost, but that since the spirit of man when separate from the body retains all the faculties of mind, the gospel is preached in the spirit-world to the disembodied spirits, and that on condition of their {170} accepting the Gospel, and living according to the laws of God in the spirit, they may be saved on condition of the outward ordinances of the Gospel being administered vicariously for them upon the earth by their agents--their relations. That the Gospel is preached to departed spirits is evident from the Scriptures. Peter said: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: _by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water"_ (I Peter iii, 18-20), Men may turn and twist that passage all they please, but its plain simple statement is that the spirit of Christ, while His body lay in the tomb, went and preached to the spirits which were disobedient in the days of Noah. And again he says: