doctrine of pre-destination as an absolute compulsion or even as
an irresistible tendency forced upon the individual toward right
or wrong--as a pre-appointment to eventual exaltation or
condemnation; yet it affirms that the infinite wisdom and
fore-knowledge of God makes plain to him the end from the
beginning; and that he can read in the natures and dispositions
of his children, their destiny.

"Mormonism" claims an actual and literal relationship of parent
and child between the Creator and man--not in the figurative
sense in which the engine may be called the child of its builder;
not the relationship of a thing mechanically made to the maker
thereof; but the kinship of father and offspring. In short it is
bold enough to declare that man's spirit being the offspring of
Deity, and man's body though of earthy components yet being in
the very image and likeness of God, man even in his present
degraded--aye, fallen condition--still possesses, if only in a
latent state, inherited traits, tendencies and powers that tell
of his more than royal descent; and that these may be developed
so as to make him, even while mortal, in a measure Godlike.

But "Mormonism" is bolder yet. It asserts that in accordance
with the inviolable law of organic nature--that like shall beget
like, and that multiplication of numbers and perpetuation of
species shall be in compliance with the condition "each after his
kind," the child may achieve the former status of the parent, and
that in his mortal condition man is a God in embryo. However far
in the future it may be, what ages may elapse, what eternities
may pass before any individual now a mortal being may attain the
rank and sanctity of godship, man nevertheless carries in his