IN FULFILMENT OF PREDICTION

Then came another glorious manifestation in fulfilment of the prediction made by the prophet Malachi some four hundred years before the birth of Christ. We read again:

.... Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us, and said:

Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachithat he (Elijah) should be sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come

To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse

Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors. (D&C 110:13-16.)

Since the bestowal of these keys the work of salvation for the dead has been proclaimed, has taken hold of the hearts of the children of men, I say, both in the Church and out of it. There are thousands who are working in the gathering of the records of the dead, and why they do it they do not know.

I asked one man in the city of Salem, Massachusetts, in the year 1902 why he was gathering the records of the dead. He was undertaking a marvelous work. He said to me: "I do not know, but I got started and I cannot quit." I know why.

JEWISH TRADITION REGARDING THE PASCHAL SEASON

I want to call your attention to an incident which I think is of some importance. I am going to read to you a statement from Alfred Edersheim in his work "The Temple." Speaking of "The Paschal Feast and the Lord's Supper," he says:

Jewish tradition has this curious conceit: that the most important events in Israel's history were connected with the Paschal season. Thus it is said to have been on the present Paschal night that, after his sacrifice, the "horror of darkness" fell upon Abraham when God revealed to him the future of his race. Similarly, it is supposed to have been at Passover time that the patriarch entertained his heavenly guests, that Sodom was destroyed and Lot escaped, and that the walls of Jericho fell before the Lord. More than that "cake of barley bread" seen in the dream which led to the destruction of Midian's hosts, had been prepared from the Omer, presented on the second day of the feast of unleavened bread; just as at a later period alike the captains of Sennacherib and the king of Assyria, who tarried at Nob, were overtaken by the hand of God at the Passover season. It was at the Paschal time also that the mysterious handwriting appeared on the wall to declare Babylon's doom, and again at the Passover that Esther and the Jews fasted, and that wicked Haman perished.

Now here is something of great significance:

And so also in the last days it would be the Paschal night when the final judgment should come upon "Edom," and the glorious deliverance of Israel take place. Hence to this day, in every Jewish home, at a certain part of the Paschal service, door is opened to admit Elijah the prophet as forerunner of the Messiah, while appropriate passages are at the same time read which foretell the destruction of all heathen nations. It is a remarkable coincidence that, in instituting his own Supper, the Lord Jesus connected the symbol, not of judgment, but of his dying love, with his "third cup."

THE COMING OF ELIJAH

It was, I am informed, on the third day of April, 1836, that the Jews, in their homes at the Paschal feast, opened their doors for Elijah to enter. On that very day Elijah did enter in the home of the Jews to partake of the Passover with them, but he appeared in the House of the Lord, erected to his name and received by the Lord in Kirtland, and there bestowed his keys to bring to pass the very things for which these Jews, assembled in their homes, were seeking.

THE COMING OF THE LORD IS NEAR

The day of the coming of the Lord is near. I do not know when. I am not looking, however, upon the coming of the Son of Man as I looked once upon the day when men would speak from city to city and throughout the land without the aid of wires, and would be heard, as something that may come in some fat distant time, because I sincerely believe it will come in the very day when some of us who are here today will be living upon the face of the earth. That day is close at hand.

It behooves us as Latter-day Saints to set our houses in order, to keep the commandments of God, to turn from evil to righteousness if it is necessary, and serve the Lord in humility and faith and prayer.

So I pray that we may do in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.