=8.= Much of the confusion existing in our human conceptions concerning the nature of the Holy Ghost arises from the common failure to segregate our ideas of His person and powers. Plainly, such expressions as being filled with the Holy Ghost,[479] and the Spirit falling upon men, have reference to the powers and influences which emanate from God, and which are characteristic of Him; for the Holy Ghost may in this way operate simultaneously upon many persons, even though they be widely separated; whereas the actual person of the Holy Ghost cannot be in more than one place at a time. Yet we read that through the power of the Spirit, the Father and the Son operate in their creative acts and in their general dealings with the human family.[480] The Holy Ghost may be regarded as the minister of the Godhead, carrying into effect the decisions of the Supreme Council. [479] Luke i, 15, 67; iv, 1; Acts vi, 3; xiii, 9; Alma xxxvi, 24; Doc. and Cov. cvii, 56. [480] Gen. i, 2; Neh. ix, 30; Job xxvi, 13; Psalms civ, 30; Isa. xlii, 1; Acts x, 19; I Nephi x, 19; Alma xii, 3; Doc. and Cov. cv, 36; xcvii, 1. =9.= In the execution of these great purposes, the Holy Ghost directs and controls the numerous forces of Nature, of which indeed a few, and these perhaps of the minor order, wonderful as even the least of them seems to man, have thus far been made known to the human mind. Gravitation, sound, heat, light, and the still more mysterious, seemingly supernatural power of electricity, are but the common servants of the Holy Spirit in His operations. No earnest thinker, no sincere investigator supposes that he has yet learned of all the forces existing in and operating upon matter; indeed, the observed phenomena of nature, yet wholly inexplicable to him, far outnumber those for which he has devised even a partial explanation. There are powers and forces at the command of God, compared with which, electricity, the most occult of all the physical agencies controlled in any degree by man, is as the pack-horse to the locomotive, the foot messenger to the telegraph, the raft of logs to the ocean steamer. Man has scarcely glanced at the enginery of creation; and yet the few forces known to him have brought about miracles and wonders, which but for their actual realization would be beyond belief. These mighty agencies, and the mightier ones still to man unknown, and many, perhaps, to the present condition of the human mind unknowable, do not constitute the Holy Ghost, but the mere means ordained to serve Divine purposes.