We have an account, however, of a period of time when he had not much dominion, that was in the days of the flood. After the wicked were destroyed, there were eight persons in the ark, sailing upon the waters, over whom, I presume, Satan had very little power. With the exception of this short period, in which the earth was submerged and the ark was sailing upon the waters, the devil has exercised power over the hearts of the children of men in all ages and countries. There seems to be a very great amount of evil in existence at the present time, for people are being continually stirred up to commit all manner of abomination—robbery, murder, blaspheming the name of the Deity, and the violation of every command that he has ever given. There is a time, however, to come, when this earth will be depopulated of the wicked to the same extent as it once was by the waters of the flood. The waters then made an entire sweep of the wicked, they were laid low, and the earth was cleansed. We might, in other words, call it a baptism of the earth by water, or a cleansing of it from sin. You know that baptism is intended for the remission of sins; it is the ordinance through which our heavenly Father forgives the sins of those who believe in his Son Jesus Christ. The promise of forgiveness, however, is on condition that we believe in the atonement made by the Savior, that we repent of our sins, and that we are baptized or immersed in water for the remission thereof. That was the way with our earth. Some eighteen hundred or two thousand years after the fall our earth was immersed in water, and every sin was swept from the face of it, the same as your sins were forgiven when you acknowledged your belief in the atonement of the Son of God, and were baptized by immersion in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. There seems to be a similarity, then, so far as these ordinances are concerned, between the inhabitants of the earth who are saved and the earth itself; there is also a similarity, in the process of creation, between the earth and its inhabitants. The earth when created, according to the accounts we have, was covered with a flood of waters; no dry land, in fact no land at all, appeared, but a flood of waters seemed to encompass it. By and by, in the providence of God, in what way we know not, this flood of waters was gathered together into one place, and the dry land appeared, emerging from the waters. This was the birth of creation, the same as we are born here into this world, from one element into another. After having been brought forth from the element of water, the process of creation, or the further development of the earth continued. It did not come forth perfect in every respect at the time of birth, it had to undergo other processes necessary to prepare it for the abode of man. It seems, from the account contained in the first of Genesis, that the earth was not only immersed in a flood of waters, but that darkness was upon the face of the earth, that is, the earth seemed to be enclosed or enveloped in darkness. The cause of this darkness, in King James' translation, is not fully revealed. There is a translation, however, that was given by inspiration, which makes the subject more clear and plain, and more easy to be understood, than the uninspired translation that is generally called King James' translation of the Bible. This inspired translation by the Prophet Joseph Smith, says—“I the Lord God created darkness upon the face of the great deep, and I, God, said let there be light, and there was light, and the evening and the morning were the first day.” This makes it very plain compared with the old uninspired translation. I will repeat the quotation, “I, the Lord God, created darkness upon the face of the great deep.”