But the question raised by the king's chief man of old is little better answered now than it was then. To a multitude of Christian men, life is still as the flight of a sparrow from the outer storm and darkness, through a lighted hall, and out into the unknowable darkness again. True, Christianity explained originally both what was before and what was to come. But much of what was first taught has been lost. The word of the Lord to Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations,"[B]--is a dark saying to the world. So also is the word of Jesus, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you."[C] [Footnote B: Jeremiah 1:5.] [Footnote C: John 14:2.] These questions are now again clearly answered in the story of the Restoration. As early as June, 1830, only two months after the Church was organized, the question of the previous state of man was clearly answered by the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was then that he received the revelation known as the "Visions of Moses." The Prophet was told that God created all things spiritually before they were formed naturally upon the earth; that the spirits of all men were present with God from the beginning, and convened in council with Him to consider the creation of the earth; and that the children of God shouted for joy when the earth was formed, and given shape, and appointed to become the home of man.[D] In like manner, the Book of Abraham, translated by the power of God, teaches the same divine truths. There, too, God is represented as standing in the midst of the spirits of heaven. Some of them are great and noble. These, the Father selects to become prophets, kings, and leaders to him, in the earth-life.[E] Thus, are the dark sayings of the Jewish scriptures, referring to a pre-existent state made plain. [Footnote D: Pearl of Great Price, Book of Moses, chs. 1-5.] [Footnote E: Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham, chs. 3, 4, 5.] The earth-life, then, is no longer like the flight of a sparrow from an unknown outer darkness into a lighted hall. We know whence we came. Our advent here is but the process of graduation, or promotion, from a lower life to a higher. There, we had progressed in the experience of the spirit. To advance further, we must pass from the spiritual state to the temporal state, and gain experiences unattainable there. The present life is in continuation of the life before. And there is yet to come in continuation a life hereafter.