Compare the foregoing note with the Book of Moses (P. G. P., chap, i; also chap, vii:30,31; also Book of Abraham chap, iii:1-19.) _7. The Prophet Joseph Smith's Views of Creation:_ "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified, we shall see that it is all matter. (Doc. & Cov. Sec. cxxxi.) * * * You ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing, and they will answer, "Don't the Bible say He created the world?" And they infer from that word 'create' that it must be made out of nothing. Now the word create came from the word baurau, which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize, the same as man would organize material and build a ship. Hence we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of--chaos--chaotic matter, which is element and in which dwells all the glory. Elements had an existence from the time He [God] had. The pure principles of elements can never be destroyed, they may be organized and reorganized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end." (Mill. Star, vol. 23, p. 248.) "The world and earth are not synonymous terms. The world is the human family. The earth was organized or formed out of other planets which were broken up and remodeled and made into the one on which we live. The elements are eternal. * * * In the translation 'without form and void' [Gen. i:2] it should read, 'empty and desolate.' The word 'created' should be 'formed,' or 'organized.'" (Richards & Little's "Compendium," p. 287--"Gems,") "Professor Luther T. Townsend of Boston University in a new book entitled Adam and Eve, in which he discusses the question as to whether the first chapters of Genesis are history or myth, dealing with the second verse of the first chapter of Genesis--'And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep--' he claims that the literal rendering of it is this: 'And the earth had become (past perfect tense) 'tohu' a wreck and 'lohu' without inhabitant. This desolate and tenantless condition agrees perfectly with what science reports of the general epoch; and there can be little doubt on scientific grounds," continues Prof. Townsend, "that during the break up of the ice age a darkness denser than that of the densest London fogs was upon the face of the floods." (Press Comment, Prof. Townsend's book.) This sustains the position of the Prophet Joseph stated above.