This celestial theme was early revealed to the church by the prophet, and for now nearly forty years the hymn of invocation has been familiar in the meetings of the saints. A marvel indeed is this, that at the time modern Christians, and even "philosophers," were treating this little earth, with its six thousand years of mortal history, as the sum of the intelligent universe--to which was added this life's sequel, with the gloom of hell prevailing--the Mormon people, in their very household talk, conversed and sang of an endless succession of worlds. They talked of their own pre-existing lives. They came into the divine action ages ago, played their parts in a primeval state, and played them well. Hence were they the first fruits of the gospel. They scarcely limited their pre-existing lives to a beginning, or compassed their events, recorded in other worlds, in a finite story. Down through the cycles of all eternity they had come, and they were now entabernacled spirits passing through a mortal probation. It was of such a theme that "Sister Eliza" sang; and with such a theme her hymn of invocation to our Father and Mother in heaven soon made the saints familiar in every land. Let us somewhat further expound the theme of this hymn, which our poetess could not fully embody in the simple form of verse. God the Father and God the Mother stand, in the grand pre-existing view, as the origin and centre of the spirits of all the generations of mortals who had been entabernacled on this earth. First and noblest of this great family was Jesus Christ, who was the elder brother, in spirit, of the whole human race. These constituted a world-family of pre-existing souls. Brightest among these spirits, and nearest in the circle to our Father and Mother in heaven (the Father being Adam), were Seth, Enoch, Noah and Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus Christ--indeed that glorious cohort of men and women, whose lives have left immortal records in the world's history. Among these the Mormon faith would rank Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and their compeers. In that primeval spirit-state, these were also associated with a divine sisterhood. One can easily imagine the inspired authoress of the hymn on pre-existence, to have been a bright angel among this sister throng. Her hymn is as a memory of that primeval life, and her invocation is as the soul's yearning for the Father and Mother in whose courts she was reared, and near whose side her spirit was nurtured. These are the sons and daughters of Adam--the Ancient of Days--the Father and God of the whole human family. These are the sons and daughters of Michael, who is Adam, the father of the spirits of all our race. These are the sons and daughters of Eve, the Mother of a world.