“And behold, I swear unto you, if ye will do this, with an oath, ye shall not be destroyed; but if ye will not do this, I swear unto you with an oath, that on the morrow month I will command that my armies shall come down against you, and they shall not stay their hand and shall spare not, but shall slay you, and shall let fall the sword upon you even until ye shall become extinct.”

It was a few years ago that the peculiarity of Giddianhi’s ultimatum really stood out to me for the first time.

As an English major with a particular interest in literature written before the 20th century, I had read a variety of texts from the Old English, Middle English, Renaissance, Early Modern,18th and 19th Century periods. At the time I had been reading a great deal of early American writing, often in the original spelling and grammar, which had been written between 1500 and 1860. I had just finished a handful of books published around the time when Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon and the phrase “…on the morrow month…” in Giddianhi’s letter really stuck out as an unusual construction.

I wondered if “on the morrow month” was in common usage in the 19th century, when Joseph was translating the Nephite record, but had since fallen out of use. Or maybe it was a construction adapted from the Jacobean language of the King James Bible. I had never run into it in any of my other reading, so I started to investigate.

Now, I’m not a scholar, and this is a blog post not a thesis, so I’ll leave it to the professionals to look into it more rigorously if they desire, but here is what I found:

The word morrow derives from the Old English word morgen meaning “morning” (which Dutch and German speakers will recognize as a cognate). In Middle English the word became morwen. Eventually the ‘-en’ was dropped, in the same way that it was dropped in the word maiden to give us the word maid, and morw became morrow through the natural process of pronunciation.

Even though they were sometimes combined as early as 1500, the word tomorrow was usually written as separate words “to morrow” until the 1750s, and started to be used to mean “the next day” as early as 1275.

So morrow and tomorrow refer to the morning and by extension the next day. Month, on the other hand is derived from the cycle of the phases of the moon. The Oxford English dictionary doesn’t have any examples of either morrow or tomorrow becoming divorced from their relationship to “morning” and used as generic terms to indicate the next period of any time measurement, like a month. So Joseph Smith’s translation of Giddianhi’s ultimatum seems to be far outside the standard English usage of morrow.

Of course, just because it’s not in the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t mean that it has never been used this way, so I thought I do a little more digging. I started Google searches to try to find examples of the phrase “morrow month” unrelated to the Book of Mormon. I found a few instances worth noting.

The least obscure appearance of the words “morrow month” is in a lesser known poem by the famous Robert Browning called Time’s Revenges which he published in 1845, fifteen years after the Book of Mormon.  Here is the pertinent excerpt with added emphasis:

He does himself though,—and if some vein
Were to snap to-night in this heavy brain,
To-morrow month, if I lived to try,
Round should I just turn quietly,
Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand
Till I found him, come from his foreign land
To be my nurse in this poor place,
And make my broth and wash my face
And light my fire and, all the while,
Bear with his old good-humoured smile

The earliest use I found was in volume 8 of the Journals of the House Of Commons published in 1803, but recorded from legislative records originating in the 1660s, where it is used twice:

“Ordered, That the Committee of Privileges and Elections do, on To-morrow Month, being the Twelfth of May next, proceed to hear and determine the Cause touching the Election for the Town of Newport in Cornwall between Mr Ford and Mr Edgcombe.“

“Resolved, &c. That the House be Called over again on To morrow Month, being the Six-and-twentieth Day of April next .”

One thing to notice is that these early occurrences in the Journal of the House of Commons refer to specific dates. The first one is recorded on the Julian calendar date Lunae 13 Aprilis 1663 and the second one on Lunae 28 Martii 1664. (Britian didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752)

“To-morrow Month” here seems to mean specifically the same day as tomorrow but in four weeks. So in the first case, recorded on Monday April 13th, the “to-morrow” would be Tuesday April 14th, plus a month would be Tuesday May 12th.

Here are is the Julian calendar for April and May 1663 with the dates colored to illustrate (blue = today, green = to-morrow, red = to-morrow month)

April 1663
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
       1  2  3  4  5
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30

May 1663
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
             1  2  3
 4  5  6  7  8  9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

The same meaning is obvious in the second instance, in which “to morrow” refers to Tuesday March 29th, 1664 and the corresponding day in the next month is April 26th, just as the text states.

Looking back at Browning’s poem, he seems to be using it in this same way, although for poetic effect rather than to specify a particular date.

Another obscure use is in a 1911 book by Stephen Graham called A Vagabond in the Caucasus:

“Sleeping in the copse, even in more abundance than yesterday, are next month’s flowers: time and the sun are softly wooing them. A few mallow and lily and rose will have faded away and given place to new revellers, new festivities. The morning sun, warmer every moment, promises for to-morrow, to-morrow week, to-morrow month, the blooming of the poppy and the ripening of the vine.”

Like Browning, Graham appears to be drawing upon the obscure usage we see in the previous legalistic Journals for poetic effect, with the addition of a progression from tomorrow, to the same day next week, and then to the corresponding day next month. And like Browning, it post-dates the publication of The Book of Mormon.

Another interesting example is from Sweated industry and the minimum wage, published by Clementia Black in 1907:

“In many shops that meal is neither good nor sufficient; and even if good the food is monotonous. Each day of the week has generally its appointed bill of fare. In many houses the assistants know what the dinner will be to-morrow, to-morrow week, to-morrow month, to-morrow year. I have an Islington shop in my mind where the menu for years past has been this:– Sunday: Pork. Monday: Beef, hot. Tuesday: Beef, cold. Wednesday: Mutton, hot. Thursday: Mutton, cold. Friday: Beef, hot. Saturday: Beef, cold, and resurrection pie.”

All of these examples are consistent with the etymology of to-morrow because they are referring specifically to the next morning or next day of the week, and then referencing that same day of the week in the subsequent week, month, or year.

There are a handful of other examples of this “to-morrow month” construction in works previous to, contemporary with, and after Joseph Smith’s publication of The Book of Mormon.

But the Book of Mormon text doesn’t use “on to-morrow month”.  It says “on the morrow month”.  If we add the definite article to the search and exclude Book of Mormon citations, we come up with some false positives because Google does not differentiate between punctuation, so that “the morrow month” is treated the same as “the morrow. Month” and “the morrow, month” by the search. Once the false positives are excluded, we find that there isn’t a single literary instance of “the morrow month” outside of citations of the Book of Mormon itself.

This suggests a few possibilities:

1. Invention

Joseph Smith came up with a completely unique use of the word morrow when translating the Book of Mormon which changes its meaning to “next” or “proximate” instead of “morning.” The word occurs 41 times in the text of the Book of Mormon, and in all other cases follows the standard usage. Nobody else before or after him has used the word in this idiosyncratic way.

2. Transcription Error

The original translation of 3rd Nephi chapter 3 might have read “…I swear unto you with an oath, that on to morrow month I will command that my armies…” and it might have been subsequently changed accidentally to the when being copied for printing. In this case, Giddianhi would have been naming a specific date on which he would command the attack, and not just a fuzzy “next month”. However, my copy of Royal Skousen’s The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text does not show that he has identified any changes to 3rd Nephi Chapter 3 Verse 8. In the image of the 1828 printer’s manuscript below, it says “on the morrow month” though that doesn’t mean that it didn’t say “on to morrow month” in the original dictation. It is interesting, however, that the word month appears to have been crossed out and then replaced again for some reason in the printer’s manuscript. This may indicate that someone recognized the unusual construction and started to change it by removing month, but then decided for some reason that it should stay, though that is pure speculation.

3. Hebraism

Maybe “morrow month” is somehow related to the the Jewish Machar Chodesh which means literally “Tomorrow Month” or “Tomorrow New Moon”. When the Sabbath falls on the New Moon it is customary to read 1st Samuel 20:18 in which, in the KJV translation, Jonathan says to David, “To morrow is the new moon: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.” From what I understand, the Jewish people refer to these New-Moon Sabbaths with the words of Jonathan taken from this text. We could speculate that the words Machar Chodesh evolved in the Nephite language into a name for the next new moon, or the next sabbath on a new moon. Additionally, though machar is translated as “morrow” in the KJV, it is also translated in more vague terms as “in time to come” (see for instance Joshua 4:6). So it is possible that “morrow month” is an awkward English representation of what is a more natural construction in the Nephite language that evolved from Hebrew.

4. Insufficient Information

Perhaps I have missed something that shows that “on the morrow month” is in fact used elsewhere in English, and that it would have been familiar to Joseph Smith and his 19th century audience.

Perhaps some people with more knowledge and experience in these subjects than I have can investigate these or other possibilities further. Whatever the case, this peculiar little phrase appears to be unique to the Book of Mormon, and demonstrates that the text is more complicated and original than a cursory reading suggests.

Please feel free to share any additional insights or ideas.

I recognize that Creedal Christians have a specialized definition of “Christian,” and Later-day Saints are not “Christians” by that definition.

Latter-day Saints, they say, are not Christians because they reject the Trinitarian doctrine of the Nicaean Creed, and instead believe in a Godhead of three separate beings (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) who are one in purpose.

Aside from the question of how Protestants square Creedal Cristianity with their doctrine of Sola Scriptura, we should examine whether they apply their creedal definition consistently?

I remember the first time that I read John Milton’s Paradise Lost discovering that Milton presented God the Father and Jesus as two distinct beings. In particular this passage where the Father asks the equivalent of the famous Whom shall I send? query in LDS scripture:

To prayer, repentance, and obedience due,
Though but endeavour’d with sincere intent,
Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.
And I will place within them as a guide,
My umpire Conscience; whom if they will hear,
Light after light, well us’d, they shall attain,
And to the end, persisting, safe arrive.
This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
But hard be harden’d, blind be blinded more,
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;
And none but such from mercy I exclude.
But yet all is not done; Man disobeying,
Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heaven,
Affecting God-head, and, so losing all,
To expiate his treason hath nought left,
But to destruction sacred and devote,
He, with his whole posterity, must die,
Die he or justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death.
Say, heavenly Powers, where shall we find such love?
Which of you will be mortal, to redeem
Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save?
Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?
He ask’d, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,
And silence was in Heaven: on Man’s behalf
Patron or intercessour none appear’d,
Much less that durst upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.

In Milton’s story, the question is asked after Lucifer has been ejected from Heaven, whereas in LDS doctrine it was, in part, his response to a similar question that lead to the expulsion of Lucifer along with those that agreed with him. But the similarity is striking.

Milton continues with the response from a pre-mortal Jesus, distinct from the Father:

And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudg’d to Death and Hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renew’d.
Father, thy word is past, Man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of thy winged messengers,
To visit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought?
Happy for Man, so coming; he her aid
Can never seek, once dead in sins, and lost;
Atonement for himself, or offering meet,
Indebted and undone, hath none to bring;
Behold me then: me for him, life for life
I offer: on me let thine anger fall;
Account me Man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.

For Milton, even in a heavenly, pre-incarnation state, Jesus is a distinct being, subordinate to the Father. In fact, one might argue that Milton presented Jesus as the brother of the Devil more than anything that Latter-day Saints espouse.

Milton’s description of God’s “Umpire Conscience,” quoted in the first passage above, is very similar to LDS doctrine of The Light of Christ (compare Moroni 7:12-19 ) and Personal Revelation (compare Alma 12:10-11 ).

In an unpublished work attributed to Milton, discovered many years after his death, called De doctrina christiana, he even went as far as to express support for polygamy.

(Just to be clear, by pointing out some similarities between John Milton’s Christian beliefs and those of Mormons, I am not trying to imply that there aren’t plenty of doctrines we disagree about.)

So, despite the fact that John Milton held many views deemed heretical and in particular rejected creedal Trinitarianism, Christianity Today still lists him among the 131 Christians Everyone Should Know and few would say that Paradise Lost is not a Christian work.

It is my impression that most Creedal Christians consider John Milton one of the “great Christian writers” as he is explicitly labeled in this essay on the Christian website Crosswalk.com .

So, to Creedal Christians, Milton was a great Christian with perhaps some heretical views, but similar views of Latter-day Saints disqualify them from being Christians at all. Huh?

This inconsistency between the application of their definition of “Christian” to John Milton and Joseph Smith underscores the fact that their desire isn’t for doctrinal purity so much as it is for bigoted exclusion.

To prove otherwise, let Creedal Christians demonstrate a consistent application of their definition of Christianity by ejecting Milton and his “Non-Christian” works from the fold. We Mormons will gladly welcome him into ours.

If they are unwilling to revoke Milton’s Christianity, then they should accept Latter-day Saints for what they are: Christians.

First, John Donne’s beautiful Meditation XVII. Even if you have read it before, please reread in the context of the September 11th tragedy.

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another’s danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Second, excepts from Lewis Carroll’s amazing, albeit almost unknown, preface to his novel Sylvie and Bruno:

A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that ‘convenient season’, which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,’ this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.’

The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of inquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation—an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial ‘bon vivant’ Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one’s heart. It is the word ‘exilium’ in the well-known passage

Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.

Yes, to him this present life—in spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow—was the only life worth having: all else was ‘exile’! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?

And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of ‘exile’ from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace’s theory, and say ‘let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.’

We go to entertainments, such as the theatre—I say ‘we’, for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one, and keep at arm’s length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know—dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface, that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis—to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, “Is it serious?”, and to be told “Yes: the end is near” (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)—how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?

And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself “Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too ‘risky’, the dialogue a little too strong, the ‘business’ a little too suggestive. I don’t say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I’ll begin a stricter life to-morrow.” To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!

Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
‘Sorrow for sin God’s judgement stays!’
Against God’s Spirit he lies; quite stops
Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch’d fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall.

Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death—if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.

But, once realise what the true object is in life—that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, ‘that last infirmity of noble minds’—but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man—and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!

…I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite—I will call it Eucatastrophe.

The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic¹, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends with joy. It has pre-eminently the inner consistency of reality. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath….

But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused

__
1. The Art is here in the story itself rather than in the telling; for the Author of the story was not the evangelists.

Also, please read my previous entry on The Christmas Tree .

The ancient Scandinavians envisioned the Universe as a giant ash tree they called Yggdrasil or Mimameidr, the World Tree. Yggdrasil was described in the poems of the Poetic Edda¹ as “ever-green” (Voluspá² 19).

A few years ago, I stepped back from our just-decorated Christmas tree to admire it in the dimly-lit room and suddenly this Scandinavian universe-as-tree imagery came pouring into my mind. I found myself looking at a small model of the cosmos, full of stars, and worlds, and beings, and sap; of chaos as well as order—each branch a fractal image of the whole.

This impression remained with me for many days afterward and I sat frequently gazing at the tree and thinking about the new symbolism that the tree could be given. At the time I had been reading a lot of poetry by John Milton³ , John Donne⁴ , and Gerard Manley Hopkins⁵ and I was inspired by them to try to capture my impressions in verse. While the resulting poem is far from perfect, it endows the Christmas tree with a new symbolism that still moves me, regardless of my imperfect attempts to communicate it.

Merry Christmas everyone! May the Lord bless you and your loved ones as we celebrate His Holy birth.

The Christmas Tree

Miniature universe, great world-tree,
Whose lofty branches the firmament form
Adornéd with lights as through God’s own decree
All hung from celestial bows, stelliform.
Here are the heavenly hosts signified:
Thrones, Principalities, Powers, all set;
Reflecting in glorious spheres, simplified,
The cosmos in symbolic rev’rence here met.
Lo! Here’s a seraph! And there, cherubim!
Who sing the glad tidings in a worshipful song,
As they fly through the sap-smelling, heavenly scheme;
_‘Mid the twinkling lights and celestial throng._
And affix’d at the top a new star shines forth laud;
Announcing salvation: the Condescension of God.

As a child I was a stubborn learner and spent my second grade year of elementary school in a resource reading group. There were only three of us in the class. One was a sweet, innocent girl with Down Syndrome. I appreciate having been able to interact with this wonderful person as a peer.

I also had a cousin who, though she did not have Down Syndrome, was born with severe mental disabilities. Her problems were, in many ways, more severe than Down Syndrome. Some of my fondest Christmas-time memories are of arriving at my uncle’s home to visit with my cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents. This special cousin was always seated in her favorite rocking chair in the front room, holding her Barbie doll, rocking back and forth, often singing and laughing, and greeting visitors. She passed away some years later, but she left an important mark and a treasured memory.

To think that people are destroying special people like my classmate and my cousin is sickening!

In the Poetic Edda¹ there is a section entitled Hávamál² (Sayings of the High One). Hávamál is a collection of guidelines for wise living attributed to the Norse God Odin. I am reminded of the following verses:

70.
Betra er lifðum
og sællifðum.
Ey getur kvikur kú.
Eld sá eg upp brenna
auðgum manni fyrir,
en úti var dauður fyr durum.

71.
Haltur ríður hrossi,
hjörð rekur handarvanur,
daufur vegur og dugir.
Blindur er betri
en brenndur sé:
Nýtur manngi nás.
—————————————————

70.
It is better to live,
even to live miserably;
a living man
can always get a cow.
I saw fire consume
the rich man’s property,
and death stood without his door.

71.
The halt can ride on horseback,
the one-handed drive cattle;
the deaf fight and be useful:
to be blind is better
than to be burnt:
no ones gets good from a corpse.

I know that I am an insufferable lover of the archaic and ancient, but I can’t help but feel that their understanding about life was superior to our own muddled, post-modern mess. I pray that we will repent as a society.