To all this may be added the account of the greatest revelation of all given to man respecting God, in which both Father and Son are revealed to be not only persons but each a separate and distinct individual --the unveiling of both God the Father and God the Son to Joseph Smith; "I saw," said he, "two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other-- _"This my beloved son, hear him."_[A] [Footnote A: Writings of Joseph Smith, Pearl of Great Price, p 85.] Needless to say these personages in form were as men. The whole volume of revelation, the Old Testament, and the New, and all modern revelation, both in the Book of Mormon and in the Doctrine and Covenants; as well also in the discourses and conversations of the Prophet Joseph Smith, God is represented as a person--of whom Jesus Christ is the express image, and explicit manifestation; and hence believers in revelation are bound to regard God as a personal being, in whose image man was created. _3. The Nature of Man Requires a Personal God:_ The necessity of conceiving the being whom men call God as personal, also arises from the nature of man. As it is inconceivable that God should "love gases,"[A] so, too, is it impossible for man to love, revere, or worship mere force, or energy; or regard himself as holding any moral relationship whatsoever to it, though it be proclaimed infinite and eternal. It is soul that responds to soul; like responds to like; love to love. Soul of man cries out for "soul" in the "Infinite Power" to make rational a universe which otherwise is irrational, empty and void of meaning--mechanical merely, signifying nothing. The central idea of religion, consists of certain relationships that exist between men and the power recognized as God, involving the thought of duties and of rights.[B] Man knows himself as a person--an intelligence; conscious of certain existences, of self-existence, and conscious of a great number of things not self. He is capable of many and wonderful intellectual and emotional experiences. He deliberates; he compares things, contrasts things; he measures and weighs things, he sets values upon them; he prizes one more than another. He is capable of rising from the particular to the general, from the concrete to the abstract; from the things of sense-perception to objects of thought, ideas; until at last "I think," he cries, "Therefore I am."[C] [Footnote A: The impressive thought is Sir Robert Ball's, see Defense of the Faith and the Saints, Vol. II. p. 500.]