This treatise was written in 1872 by David Hyrum Smith under the pseudonym “Aoriul”. This was written while he was on a mission to Utah, which proved difficult for him. The latin translation of the title is “From the Depths”, and signals his state of mind at the time.
This essay’s goal was to harmonize science and theology, and was done so in 6 published parts in The True Latter Day Saints Herald volumes 20-21 in 1873-1874, which can be found here:
I couldn’t find a decent consolidated version of this work, so I took the time to transcribe it so I could share it with others moving forward. I wanted to have highlight a couple of quotes I found particularly meaningful:
“My opinion inclines to the eternal existence of matter; that ever having been it ever shall be, that whether it build the mountains or bloom in the thoughts of the Spirit, it is undying, in the sense of annihilation.
From eternity unto eternity shall it undulate, revolve and vibrate, marshal and dissolve, evolving from chaos to the heights of spiritual immortality, under the guidance of the great creative power, from the far still heights a voice seems whispering that this is truth, and therein is great consolation for the hope of immortality; for if the material is of this nature, more readily could its results be such.
“There is an infinitude in all directions; we are in the depths, we cannot grasp the extent of even one planet, let alone the universe; hence, as we cannot grasp the magnitude of Nature’s great works, neither can we begin to conceive the limit to which divisibility extends, or the minuteness of her small works.”
“There is unity in the universe. Man is a tide, a stream flowing over the earth; our individuality is only in part – members of a family, a state, a church, a race. No wonder that the prophet styles the nations “many waters”, granules of a fluid, ere we dissolve, we impart our being and flow onward in posterity. Well for us if then our individuality be of that nature to gravitate to the host of the holy on high, to be in union with God and the lamb.”
“What is the inner meaning of the great Force? We cannot speak of it as a force, because it is one that comprehends all forces; as a power, because it embraces all powers; as an entity, because it moulds, moves, and handles all entities.
At the pushing forth of a grass blade; at the birth of a butterfly; at the waking of an earthquake; at the marshaling of millions of worlds; in you, and around you; it is there, and underlies them all.
Listen to its inner meaning, to the arcane of the ages, “It is God!”
When we go out into the depths and look from afar at the wide realms they present to us, we are near Him; let us abide in Him, and He will put us forth to full fruition like a vine from its root.”
“He who communes with Nature communes with God. God the Father presides in heaven – we cannot see him until we pass within the veil, or beyond the shores of time; and not then, until we are pure in heart through the resurrection. Jesus is his missionary to man; when he cometh, we may behold him; but the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of might and truth, pervades all things; it is present with us, and is all around, is the Creator God, who will never leave us until we forsake him. He was defined by some of the earlier church worthies to be “that mysterious chain that binds all things together,” and its impress leaves the mark of its unity.”