THE MASTERPIECE.

BY L. L. GREENE RICHARDS.

This morning I heard a short discourse delivered to a select congregation. It was not given from notes, but by inspiration from heaven. The chief point made by the speaker, I consider worthy of being kept in view, so I will give it in my way, and pass it along for others to take up and repeat, as they may feel impressed to do.

The speaker said, in substance, that there had been a certain important room which was to be painted. This work of art was given over to a master artist, and he employed others to work under his direction. He would say to one: "I want you to fill in this portion of the room with the designs I will furnish you, and in the colors I shall select for you." And to another he would say, "I would like you to paint these designs here, and notice that the blending of the colors must be done like this," And so on; to each of his assistants he gave the plan which he desired should be worked out in each particular part of the room.

The result was a wonderful work of harmony and completeness in the painting of the room. The under-artists had not realized that such would be the case. They simply followed the directions, and carried out the plans of their master. But the master himself had the whole design mapped out in his mind beforehand, and could tell each one of his artists just what he wanted him to do.

Now, we, in a certain sense, as children of our Father in heaven, are like those under-artists; and our Father is the great and allwise Master. He has the whole plan of the work of salva

tion in his mind. He gives to each one of us the portion to do that in his wisdom is best designed for us.

We often fail to see anything more of the pattern to be formed, but just the small spot upon which we are at work. But if we do the section assigned us well and faithfully, no matter how little we see now of the perfect work to be wrought out, when it is finished, we shall each look with joy and satisfaction upon the portions we have done.

We must work as our Master designs, not as we ourselves might consider best, because we know so little of the whole plan. But through obedience and faithfulness, we can each fill our allotments in the way which, taking them altogether, will produce the most harmonious blending of shades, and fitting together of patterns, that could possibly be arranged.

Our own lives belong to the wonderful picture, the grand masterpiece which is being painted by the artist-children of our Father, everywhere. And no matter how well we may work for a time, unless we keep up to the line drawn for us, we are liable to make some false touch, or a blotch of some kind, that will mar the beauty of our former efforts, or perhaps cut us out of the picture altogether. Then how unsatisfactory our whole life-work would be, not only to ourselves, but to the Master as well. What father would consider a family group-picture of his household complete, with some of the members left out?

And shall we mar the excellence of our Father's masterpiece by acts of folly or wickedness that would render us unworthy to appear in the places we should fill? We trust that such will not be the case with any of us. Let us study carefully every line to be drawn, every tint to be produced, every figure to be brought out, and all things that are apportioned for us to do, according to the will of him who is the designer of the great masterpiece.

"THE" OLOGY.

BY ELDER HENRY W. NAISBITT.

All the educational institutions of the land are now in full swing, professors of every degree are endeavoring to impart an understanding of their specialties to open-mouthed students who look, with a feeling akin to worship, upon the grand endowments of pedagogues who possess special facility for communicating the mysteries of their professional status.

All the ologies are spread invitingly before the multiplied students, who probably will never rise even to mediocrity, after nights of study or years of application: fragmentary methods and results are the rule, and a full, robust, intelligent comprehension of individual ologies is the only evidence of superficial comprehension, and inability to grasp the unified whole.

Is it not true that a man may be versed in all the ologies of the schools, and yet be a dunce in regard to the ology which is the base, as it is the apex, of the great pyramid of knowledge, understanding and wisdom? Is it not possible for a man to know little of these ologies, and yet have profound ideas in regard to the ology which holds and is the key to all the rest? Was it not-is it not -still true that "to know Go and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent is eternal life?" Has it not been received as an axiom that "the fear or knowledge of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom?" And yet all the institutions created of man in our proud Republic ignore, taboo, thrust aside, this fundamental base of all the rest. From entomology to zoology, a student revels in facts and living verities; or from conchology to geology, he may study extinct life: he may even regard man as the most wondrous field of re

search and reflection; may know physiology, psychology, biology, and kindred offshoots of scientific lore, without being at all impressed with conceptions of "the Great First Cause!" One of our famous poets said, "the proper study of mankind is man;" could he not have better said, "the proper study of mankind is God?" for "the greater always includes the less," and, therefore, to know the former is to establish and comprehend the latter.

The etymologist may smile at our division of a famous word; he may glibly quote it as being the science of theology; but is it not possible that the creators of the word did better than they knew? Is it impossible to believe that inspiration gave supremacy to the ology to mark its distinctive value as being superior to and embracing all the rest? Was it accident or design? Was it inspiration; or did human appreciation alone call this the ology, and thus relegate to the rear many ologies which are now deemed superior and vastly more essential to human progress and true scientific development? Has not the great world made a sad-a fatal mistake in their prospectuses and curricula? And is not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints far in advance when they declare Theology to be paramount and divinely essential to all true educational progress? Are not our universities, our academies, our colleges, our high schools of this class, superior, and far beyond, all others, even if less perfect in popular ologies? Are these not a living, ever-present, and potent protest against subordination of the divine to the traditions and whims of so-called educators, who know nothing of man's origin, and less of the purposes of his creation, and the limitless possibilities of his nature, under revelation which gives understanding of a rounded whole?

It may be urged that in the study of ordinary, secondary ologies, men have been "led from nature up to nature's God." This may be true in some instances; but a smattering of science, even a profound understanding of some of its segments, has more often led to narrowness, and to skepticism and unbelief, than a knowledge of either God or man.

Among the many and most interesting of men with whom my duties in connection with the Bureau of Information threw me in contact was that of John H. Hume, who, at the conclusion of our interview, kindly handed me his card, without affix or prefix; yet he

was doubtless a savant of the first water, and familiar with leading scientific men and thinkers in all Europe, from and on to the further north. In his travels all over the world, he has studied; the mysteries of Egypt and the Nile were his; India had opened to him its secrets of faith and discovery; Africa was an open book; Turkish intelligence, and the faith of Islam, had won his admiration; he had seen the good and the marvelous everywhere; he had studied nature surely in every mood-seas, and mountain, and lake; the vegetable, mineral, and animal kingdoms seemed to have been his specialty. By the microscope, he had counted the corpuscles of his own blood; and, from the grand telescope in Paris, he had gazed into and measured with greater accuracy than is common on earth, the volcano's immense craters and its astounding peak; the dead satellite, and the living earth, were equally familiar to his thought. He has become a modest, walking encyclopedia; but, after all, he had to admit that he knew nothing of life, though it was all around him; and knew nothing of death, though he had seen it in distant worlds, and in the human race; space, he knew, was full of immense fragments of extinct orbs, and the impact of these giant bodies have produced phenomena which men had vainly at first supposed to be a new star or a burning world; but, he said of life or man he knew nothing. He could not explain, or create. He could only use that profusion of material with which this little earth of ours is so profusely supplied.

The giant trees of California were so well understood that he could trace, he could determine, their life for two thousand years before the day of Adam, if common chronology is correct; but he could not explain that mysterious power which forced the sap of those giant trees four hundred feet to their leafy and glorified summits. "After all," said he, "I know nothing." Yet we were standing in the very shadow of the Temple of God, where the very air is pregnant with revelation, and not far from the University of the Church, where The ology is a leading feature, that which opens all avenues to surging thought; which circumscribes all that the most ardent, or most ignorant, may desire,-Theology, or the Science of Eternal Life.

Is it not evident that theology is the only key to all others; that it alone can place in proper combination all the otherwise