The Strength of the "Mormon" PositionWhitney, Orson F. (Orson Ferguson)
Religion
The Strength of the "Mormon" Position
Whitney, Orson F. (Orson Ferguson)
Latter Day Saint churches
President Smith, however, drew a distinction, as do all orthodox
preachers of "Mormonism", between the light that illumines, in greater
or less degree, every soul that comes into the world, and the Holy
Ghost as a personage, the third in the Godhead. He also differentiated
the universal divine spirit, enjoyed to some extent by all men, from
the gift of the Holy Ghost, a special endowment reserved for the
members of the Church of Christ.
The Poet's Mission.
An American poet, Doctor J. G. Holland, has this to say of the poet and
his mission: "The poets of the world are the prophets of humanity. They
forever reach after and foresee the ultimate good. They are evermore
building the Paradise that it is to be, painting the Millennium that is
to come. When the world shall reach the poet's ideal, it will arrive
at perfection, and much good will it do the world to measure itself by
this ideal and struggle to lift the real to its lofty level."
In the light of such a noble utterance, how paltry the ordinary concept
of the poet as a mere verse builder. His true mission is to lift up
the ideal and encourage the real to advance towards it and eventually
attain perfection. The poet, in this age of money worship, is often
ridiculed as a "dreamer"; but the ridicule, when applied to a genuine
son of song, is pointless. The poet _is_ a dreamer; but so is the
architect, and the projector of railroads. If there were no dreamers,
there would be no builders; if there were no poets, there would be
no progress. Poets are prophets of a lesser degree, and the prophets
are the mightiest of the poets. They hold the key to the symbolism of
the universe, and they alone are qualified to interpret it. There are
plenty of rhymesters who are neither poets nor prophets, and there are
poets and prophets who never build a verse, nor make a rhyme.
Rhyme is no essential element of poetry. Versification is an art
employed by the poet to make his thought more attractive. The rhyme
helps the sentiment to reach the heart. A musical instrument, say a
piano or an organ is painted and gilded, not to improve its musical
powers, but to make it beautiful to the eye, poetry as paint or gold
leaf to the organ or piano, and no more.
The essence of poetry is in its idealism. God has built his universe
upon symbols, the lesser suggesting and leading up to the greater; and
the poetic faculty, possessed by the prophet in fulness, recognizes and
interprets it. All creations testify of their creator. They point to
something above and beyond. That is why poetry of the highest order is
always prophetic, or infinitely suggestive; and that is why the poet is
a prophet, and why there is such a thing as poetic prose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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