From a green hill high above a harbor one can watch the vessels come through its intricate entrance. The observer will see only placid surface and a ship following the winding course till its berth is gained and the anchor falls. He does not know of the reefs and shoals, nor of the rips and currents that change with ebbing and flowing tides. The ship comes safely in as if with perfect confidence, because the pilot who guides has exact knowledge. The truth regarding the safe channel is known to him, and he knows the landmarks and the meaning of the buoys that both warn and guide.
One can imagine the caution of the early navigator entering unknown harbors, but recording in the ship's log his soundings and discoveries. These items later navigators will utilize and add to, and with explorations continued, as use of the harbor makes necessary, finally a chart may be drawn. Then to guide the sailor in the night, lighthouses will be built until, by day or by night, the ships may safely come and go and the passengers and crew have confidence regarding their course.
Prophets and lawgivers were as navigators who had to discover a safe course. Heathenism is a condition of mesmerism wherein the lie rules and the truth of being is veiled. Flesh and its desires, needs, and luxuries, its lusts and cruelties, is so predominant that Spirit is made to seem evanescent and unreal. When a prophet, inspired by the spirit of Truth, proclaims the way of righteousness to a sinful people, they look on him as a disturber of their peace; but he is really as a discoverer of true peace and safety amid danger. Age after age have such prophets arisen, who for the conditions of their time have disclosed the way of right, and pointed out the harm and deception of wrong. As the log of a navigator may be preserved to be found useful to many, so the vision of a true prophet endures as a record of the discovery of truth in the domain of life.
