To: Those I love
From: Grandpa Pratt
Re: The Second Coming (continued)
“A new heaven and a new earth are promised by the sacred writers. Or, in other words, the planetary systems are to be changed, purified, refined, exalted, and glorified, in the similitude of the resurrection, by which means all physical evil or imperfection will be done away.”
Parley P. Pratt
The first step towards this glorified perfection will be at the Saviors appearance when the earth will be renewed as it was in the morning of the creation and the first couple was placed thereon. This step is imminent and the scriptures testify that it will happen sometime in the beginning of this millennium which has just started. So it could and should and will happen in the lifetime of the current generation.
The final step in its perfection will be at the end of this millennium when it will become a Celestial globe and the meek will inherit it.
So the question now is: “What was the earth like when the first inhabitants took up housekeeping there on?” When a prophet speaks of the restoration of all things, he means that all things have undergone a change and are to be again restored to their primitive order, even as they first existed.
When God had created the heavens and the earth, and separated the light from the darkness, his next great command was to the waters. “And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. Gen. 1:9
“From this we learn a marvelous fact which very few have realized or believed in this benighted age: we learn that the waters, which are now divided into oceans, seas and lakes, were then all gathered into one vast ocean and consequently, that the land which is now torn asunder and divided into continents and islands almost innumerable was then one vast continent or body, not separated as it now is.
Second, we hear the Lord God pronounce the earth, as well as everything else, very good. From this we learn that there were neither deserts, barren places, stagnant swamps, rough, broken, ragged hills, nor vast mountains covered with eternal snow; and no part of it was located in the frigid zone so as to render its climate dreary and unproductive, subject to eternal frost or everlasting chains of ice.
The whole earth was probably one vast plain, or interspersed with gently rising hills and sloping vales, well calculated for cultivation; still its climate was delightfully varied, with the moderate changes of heat and cold, of wet and dry, which only tended to crown the varied year with the greater variety of productions, all for the good of man, animal, fowl or creeping thing; all the vast creation of animated beings breathed naught but health, and peace and joy. “ Neither sigh nor groan was heard through out the vast expanse; neither were there sorrow, fear, pain, weeping, sickness, nor death; neither contentions, wars, nor bloodshed; but peace crowned the seasons as they rolled forth, and life, joy and love reigned over all God’s works. But oh how changed the scene!” “Voice of Warning” page 84 Parley P. Pratt
Of all the earths surface only a small portion remains fairly unchanged. We served a mission in Iowa. The most beautiful of the 50 states equaled only by the surrounding states and matches the early creation except for the weather.
The Garden of Eden was located where Independence, Missouri now is and when Adam and Eve were driven out they moved about 70 miles North to a valley called Adam-an-Diahman meaning the place where Adam dwelt. But other than the surfaces of the central states, all else has been changed until 71% of the earth is now covered with three major oceans and their connecting salt seas such as the vast Mediterranean and Arctic and Antarctic. Another 29% is vast desolate deserts and huge space of wasteful mountains, swamps and rivers and fresh water lakes. It is claimed that only 6% of the earth currently is inhabitable and even some of it is barely so. For one thing the climate becomes so increasingly harsh beyond the 45th meridian North or South of the Equator that one wonders why people live there at all. I’ve experienced cold -40* and it’s anything but pleasant.
Yet there is ample evidence that the Poles once enjoyed semi tropical weather. North of the arctic circle, through Alaska and Siberia, in the past two hundred years more than 30,000 mammoths and other large animals have been found frozen solid and in such perfect preservation that the flesh could be eaten. In fact when I was a young man a Fairbanks restaurant featured mammoth steaks on its menu. Furthermore the contents of their stomachs revealed that they had feasted on plants of a semi tropical nature. Some even had unswallowed plant growth in their mouths. And while the findings of animal life in the Antarctic has not been as prolific. Still they are found along with plant life. Just recently a large tree, still standing erect with leaves on it was fond frozen solid in the ice.
What changed all this? Wickedness! The earth reeled to and fro like a drunken man; the great flood, earthquakes and other natural or unnatural storms of violence were triggered by sin.
The flood, probably, more than any other phenomena would have changed the entire earths surface and then about 200 years after the flood: the Bible simply states; “In the days of Peleg was the earth divided (Gen. 10:25) into its present ocean and continents with some great changes 2000 years later at the death of the Savior which will be covered in our next memo.
Interestingly, our sun now spins on its axis 23 ½ degrees from perpendicular, some what like a kids top as it loses speed. This gives us our polar ice caps and harsh seasons. Could it be when the earth reels to and fro like a drunken man it will again spin upright and dispel the arctics????
To be continued next month!
D. & C. 90:24 “Search diligently pray always and be believing and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another.
I LOVE each one of you!
Grandpa, Dad, brother, friend
Richard Marden Pratt
