The key of knowledge this prophet revealed was in relation to salvation for the dead; the means by which the principles and ordinances of salvation could be applied to those who had lived in those periods of time when the gospel was not upon the earth; and also to those who had lived when the gospel was on the earth, but who had not the privilege of hearing it; aye, and even to those who had heard and rejected it; though the spirits of this last class of persons must go to the prison house where they will be required to pay the utmost farthing for their wickedness in rejecting the mercies of God; and will, through their disobedience, have shut themselves out from the heights of glory and exaltation they might have attained unto had they but accepted the truth in the love of it, and walked in harmony with its teachings. This key of knowledge, I say, gives enlarged views of the mercies of God, and reveals the fact that every man, both in time and eternity, will always have the privilege of doing right, and reaping the reward of his righteousness. It brought to light the grand truth that this earth was not the only place where men could hear the gospel and give assent to its doctrines. On the contrary it gives us to understand that in the spirit world the gospel is preached to the departed spirits of men, that is, to those who have departed from this life and that there they are instructed in the way of salvation. These facts give life and meaning to the scripture which says: "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 sometimes were disobedient, when 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."[D] [Footnote D: I. Peter iii: 18-20.] In the chapter following the one I have quoted, the apostle remarks: "For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."[E] This last quotation proves as plainly as plain statement of holy writ can prove anything, that the gospel is preached also to the dead, as well as to the living; and not only that, but likewise assigns the reason why it is preached to them, _viz_.: that those to whom it is thus preached might live according to God in the spirit--that is, live in harmony with the precepts of the gospel taught to them, that they may be judged as men will be who have the gospel preached to them in the flesh. [Footnote E: Verse 6.]