for the human family so incompatible with common sense; at such proceedings God would frown with indignation, angels would hide their heads in shame; and every virtuous, intelligent man would recoil. If human laws award to each man his deserts, and punish all {98} delinquents according to their several crimes; surely the Lord will not be more cruel than man, for He is a wise Legislator and His laws are equitable, His enactments more just and His decisions more perfect than those of man; and as man judges his fellow man by law, and punishes him according to the penalty of that law, so does the God of heaven judge "according to the deeds done in the body." To say that the heathen would be damned because they did not believe the gospel would be preposterous; and to say that the Jews would all be damned that do not believe in Jesus, would be equally absurd; for "how can they believe on him of whom they have not heard; and how can they hear without a preacher; and _how can he preach except he be sent_;" consequently neither Jew nor heathen can be culpable for rejecting the conflicting opinions of sectarianism, nor for rejecting any testimony but that which is sent of God, for as the preacher cannot preach except he be sent, so the hearer cannot believe without he hears a sent preacher; and cannot be condemned for what he has not heard; and being without law will have to be judged without law. When speaking about the blessings pertaining to the gospel, and the consequences connected with disobedience to its requirements, we are frequently asked the question, What has become of our fathers? Will they all be damned for not obeying the gospel, when they never heard it? Certainly not. But they will possess the same privilege that we here enjoy, through the medium of the _everlasting_ Priesthood, which not only administers on earth but in heaven, and the wise dispensations of the great Jehovah; hence those characters referred to by Isaiah will be visited by this Priesthood, and come out of their prison, upon the same principle as those who were disobedient in the days of Noah, were visited by our Savior (who possessed the everlasting Melchisedek Priesthood) and had the gospel preached to them by Him in prison; and in order that they might fulfill all the requisitions of God, their living friends were baptized for their dead friends, and thus fulfilled the requirement of God which says: "Except a man be born again of water, and of the spirit he can in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven;" they were baptized of course, not for themselves, but for their dead. Crysostum says that the Marchionites practiced baptism for the dead, "after a catachumen was dead they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased; then coming to the dead