23^rd Sunday I Preached to the saints in my ward was followed
by Brs Pulsipher & Porter & we had a good time And in the eve
ning I went to the Council House And met with A large assembly
Professor Pratt addressed them quite lengthy upon Asstronomy
Philosophy, And various principles which he had studied much upon
And also read a lengthy document which he had written which
was highly interesting to us. He advised the seventies to devote all
of their leasure moments to reading & study & fulfill the commandments
which says we should treasure up wisdom & knowledge by faith & by
study out of the best Books that we may have a knowledge of things
in heaven & on earth of kingdoms & countries things which are at home
& abroad, the wars perplexities of nations &c In the lecture given by
Professor Pratt He intirely overthrows many of the systems of modern
Phylosiphers & Asstronomiers & modern reasoning in many respects, to
overthrow the gentile Christian Argument, "that God made the Heavens
sun, moon, & stars And the earth & all that in them are out of nothing
in six days He said that it was admitted by modern phylosophers that
stars had been discoverd through telescopes so remote from the earth
that it would take thirty thousand years for the light of it to reach
this earth though it should travel at the rate of two hundred thousand
miles per second, so it must have been in exhistance 24000 years
before this earth was formed. He overthrows the principle of Immate-
riality & clearly shows that God, Angels, spirits, are meterial as well as
men, beasts, vegitables, minerals, &c that matter is eternal & infinite
without end or bounds & that space is infinite & without bounds or end
that matter, the elements, intelligence were not created neither
indeed can be, & were from all eternity & that God formed the
Heavens & earth out of unorganized materials or matters which
did exhist in some form & were not made out of nothing. In
speaking of the spirit of God He remarked to me that the Holy
Spirit that was through all things, and round about all things, & that
governed & controlled all things are intelligent atoms the same as God is
composed of Hence it is called the spirit of God, & he had no dobt
but that there were some of these Atoms combined in all the miner-
al, vegitable, & animal Kingdoms & by the aid of those intelligent
atoms were enabled to abide the law by which they were governed
many other interesting principles were presented by Professor Pratt
when he closed I followed him And exhorted the people to listen
to his council & improved their time I also advised the camp
to hold meetings in each ward on sunday & prayer meetings at
least one evenings in each week that if they would pray more
they would have much less spirit of complaining iamong them I
remarked that that the spirit of the Lord & the spirit of the
devil would not dwell together but A short time in the same
person or tabernacle but one would govern & the other leave
I also warned the people against judging any matter whatever
untill they herd both sides of the question for in most all
cases any person would be apt to give a wrong judgment by merly
hearing one side of the question. And that the Elders could
not be in possession of any to much truth upon any subject
whatever in order to magnify there callings among the nations
of the earth for if they should be called to stand before Kings
Princes, Asstronomiers Phylosophiers & the learned of the earth
they would find use for all there knowledge