Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/341

 THE GENESIS OF A MODERN PROPHET. 327

These words cannot refer to Jesus. He was not raised up "from among men." He came down from heaven

Jesus was not "like unto Moses," for, as the apostle John says, "the law was given through Moses ; grace and truth came by, or in the person of, Jesus Christ."

Moses was a medium of God's power. Christ is himself the power and wisdom of God, being God himself manifest in the flesh. The prophet of whom Moses spake was to be one whose message came from God, who him- self said ; " I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." But Jesus Christ, our Lord, did not speak the words that were put into his mouth, for he spake by his own divine authority, which was that of the indwelling Father and Spirit, words which were in themselves divine, and he declared these words to be in themselves "spirit and life."

Hence, the Messenger of the Covenant, and Elijah the Restorer, and that prophet of whom Moses spake are all one and the same person.

The declaration that we are that person is either .... a great blasphemy, or it is a tremendous fact of the utmost importance to the whole world. Which is it ?

At a conference lasting four and a half hours, and including two hundred and fifty-four officers of the church, he explained the reasons for this proclamation of Elijah the Restorer, stating that the acceptance of this new dogma was essential to continu- ance in the ministry of the Christian Catholic Church, since division upon this point would make successful co-operation an impossibility. At the same time he declared that such accept- ance was not essential to fellowship with God. All but four of those present accepted the new teaching, and of these, two remained in Zion in " an excellent spirit." Thus was he prompted to say :

And now that the declaration has been made, what then ? Nothing has

been changed ; and yet, in Zion, all things have become new Things

never can be just the same in Zion. The chrysalis has taken wings. We speak no longer by " permission," but by the full authority of a completed divine commission.

One year later, at the great Feast of the Tabernacles in July, 1903, one step farther was taken when he said:

I believe that some of these times there will come such a holy, sacred, and pure unction from on high that we will get to the place where I shall be able, by the Holy Spirit's guidance, acting in my prophetic authority, to call