Excerpt from The Latter-Day Saints' Millennial Star, Vol. 78: February 24, 1916

Most High. Therefore shall they receive a glorious kingdom, and a beautiful crown from the Lord's hand.

Philo, the Hebrew philosopher, born, as generally supposed, in the year 20 before our era, was thoroughly imbued with Plato's philosophy, though he accepted the Old Testament as the word of God. He recognized the dual nature of man, but he regarded the body as a prison from which the soul or spirit longed to emerge. Death gave freedom to all who while in the body, had kept them selves free from the bondage of the senses and sensuality. All others, he held, must, after death, enter another body.

The Talmud is the name of a ponderous work in which the tradition of Hebrew scholars is preserved. It consists of the meditations and decisions of the learned rabbis who lived between rc. 50 and a.d. 150. This is called the Mishna. It also has a commentary on the Mishna, called the Gemara. Some Jews rank the Mishna with the Old Testament. The work contains a great deal of valuable information on history, geography, and archae ology, but also some idle legend and allegory and historical inaccuracies; as Archdeacon Farrar says, It is probable that no human writings ever confounded names, dates, and facts with a more absolute indifference. On the subject under discussion the Talmud teaches that the righteous continue to develop their best faculties in the next world, For the righteous, it says, there is no rest, neither in this world, nor in the next, for they go, say the Scriptures, from host to host, from striving to striving; and they will see God in Zion. The Talmud does not teach never-ending punishment but says that idolaters will be punished for genera tions upon generations. It says, further, that there is only two fingers' breadth between hell and heaven, and that the repentant sinner will be taken into heaven as soon as he manifests true repentance. Further, we read, In the next world there will be no eating, no drinking, no love, and no labor, no envy, no hatred, no contest. The righteous will sit with crowns on their heads, glorying in the splendour of God's majesty. How this is to be reconciled with the statement, previovsly quoted, according to which there is no rest for the righteous, is not clear. It is an important passage, however, as indicating the origin of some of the peculiar ideas about heaven which are held in the Christian world to-day.

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