Lorenzo Snow on Eternal Progression

Godliness cannot be conferred but must be acquired, a fact of which the religious world seem[s] strangely and lamentably unconscious.

Seventy years ago this Church was organized with six members. We commenced, so to speak, as an infant. We had our prejudices to combat. Our ignorance troubled us in regard to what the Lord intended to do and what He wanted us to do We advanced to boyhood, and still we undoubtedly made some mistakes, which generally arise from a lack of experience.

We should strive earnestly to establish the principles of heaven within us, rather than trouble ourselves in fostering anxieties like the foolish people of the Tower of Babel, to reach its location before we are properly and lawfully prepared to become its inhabitants. Its advantages and blessings, in a measure, can be obtained in this probationary state by learning to live in conformity with its laws and the practice of its principles. To do this, there must be a feeling and determination to do God’s will.

The time will come when some of these boys, through their faithfulness to the gospel, will progress and develop in knowledge, intelligence and power, in future eternities.

As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be.