“A Marvelous Work and a Wonder” is one of the handful of biblical phrases that our religious tradition has given different meaning from what others understand. Where the phrase in Isaiah is often thought by non-LDS scholars to refer to the confounding of those who think they are wise, the similar language found in the Book of Mormon (2 Ne. 27) leads us to interpret this as a reference to the restoration of the Gospel. Indeed, the verse occurs after the reference in the same chapter to a wise man claiming he couldn’t read a sealed book—similar to what Martin Harris said happened when he visited Charles Anthon in 1828.

But the phrase might also be used for other works that God does in our lives. Wouldn’t we also call the sacrifice of our Savior a “marvelous work and a wonder?” Isn’t the process that each of us is going through as we come to this earth and learn and progress also something marvelous and wonderful?

Regardless, for us this marvelous and wonderful phrase is clearly a reference to the Restoration. For LDS poetry, and for the mindset of Church members starting in the beginning of the Church, the Restoration is one of the major topics. In a very real sense, the Restoration is what made us different from everyone else. That’s still true today, since Parley P. Pratt’s restoration poem and hymn, The Morning Breaks, was introduced as the first hymn in the 1840 hymnal, and has been the first hymn ever since.

Clearly, the idea of the restoration is crucial for our understanding of the Gospel.

 

Pride and worldliness will fail.

While we associate the restoration with the “marvelous work and a wonder” phrase, as I mentioned above the chapter in Isaiah does include a direct attack on the pride of those who think they are wise. I don’t think that is by accident at all. It’s not only the rejection of the idea of the Book of Mormon by academics like Charles Anthon, but also the entire mindset of Christianity, which was anything but open to the idea of a restoration.

Today, each of us should probably give some thought to the possibility of pride and worldliness in our own lives. In the following poem, Orson F. Whitney doesn’t address the pride and worldliness evident at the time of the restoration, but instead looks at the possibility of our own pride and worldliness. I love his opening line, “‘Tis a sin to succeed sometimes,” which is a bit shocking to our modern culture’s emphasis on “success.”

 

‘Tis a sin to succeed sometimes. The eyes,

The emerald eyes of envy, how they glow!

Green with a hatred guile can ne’er conceal,

Tho’ lip and hand seem friendly, when Success,

Fair goddess of good deeds and noble words,

Sits smiling at the fount of destiny

That feeds the river of a rival’s fame.

Tho’ lip, tho’ hand may flatter, looks ne’er lie.

Attempt how vain! Transparent as the veil

O’er autumn’s face, by Indian summer flung,

The falsehood still appears. A grievous sin

To jealous eyes—a sin scarce e’er forgiven—

Each good, each grand success that merit wins.

To jealous spleen add power, and who shall tell,

While cunning craft his wily hand doth hide,

What pits, what snares await the hapless wight,

Child of success and favorite of fame,

Who dares the mount of glorious deeds ascend!

If rightful cause, real reason, none appear,

And panoplied in purity he stands,

Still cause is quickly found—for pretext springs

As sage from barren soil; hate’s quiver pours

Its arguments like arrows at the feet

Of power that speeds the shaft; and like a bird

The soaring soul, pierced midway in its flight,

Drops dead or wounded to the lowly plain.

Shot from an ambush! Knows he aught beside,

Save that base treachery lies lurking there?

What else for him, hate’s victim, then remains,

Save patient grief and pardon of the wrong?

What cause had kingly Saul the shepherd lad—

Goliath’s conqueror—to hate and spurn?

Stood not his throne, his royal line, secure,

Tho’ David lived and breathed and battled on,

Still winning fair the laurel wreaths he wore?

Or dared he curse whom erst Jehovah blessed?

To hunt, as hound the flying hare, the soul—

The sacred soul of Israel’s future king?

Sinned he not more, so doing, severing there

More surely and more swift the fateful chain

That bound him to the favor of the stars

And states that them inhabit, than when ire

Of Samuel roused in Agag’s guilty cause?

Thy sin, O son of Jesse! was success.

Thy cause, O jealous king! the cause of Cain,

Of Cain ‘gainst Abel, Lucifer ‘gainst Christ,

Of Herod ‘gainst the babe of Bethlehem.

The cause of envious wrath ‘gainst righteous worth,

In every act and scene of Time the same.

Yet some there be—such souls as diamonds rare,

In these earth’s dying days—who are not pained

If fair success upon their fellows smile,

E’en through adversity doth coldly frown

And freeze the current of their own souls’ weal.

And some there be—such gems still rarer shine—

Who, e’en as rivals of a rising star,

Still glory in its radiance, flung afar

For earth’s illumining. God’s noble ones

Are these, in either world; souls all select,

That live and labor, not for self, but seek,

O’er all, man’s good, their Maker’s glory; live,

Strive, not alone for kin, but for their kind,

And hold all men their brethren. Blazing suns

‘Mid lesser lights, ‘mid circling stars, are they;

The planets of a primal magnitude,

That shed their light upon the lessers’ path,

Nor seek a dawning splendor to eclipse,

Nor joy to see a glorious star grow dim.

But weep, as wept the heavens o’er Lucifer,

When fainting falls and flickering expires

The lowliest of all the sons of Light,

Self-slain by pride, or pierced by envious power.

As water-drops, all lives their level find,

The meanest and the mightiest. Ne’er mix

The dross of earth and gold of heaven, save here

In God’s great furnace fire. There, Justice still

Will claim her own, and like with like will blend.

Haply till then ’twill ne’er be fully known

Who here succeed, who fail; for oft success

Doth failure seem, while sheer and rank defeat

May mask as victory. Success is sin

And failure, when unfairly we succeed;

And earth with all her blazing battle-fields,

And pride and pomp and tyranny of power,

Hath no such victories as soul may win

O’er self by sacrifice.

Such high success

No sin is; no, not e’en to jealous eyes,

That scaled in earthliness scarce see aright

Time’s vantages—how then Eternity’s?

That see not how supremely eminent,

In God’s clear gaze, doth loom the mighty soul

That masters self, self’s deepest wrongs condone,

And patient plods in pain and poverty—

If so the Master will—while lesser chiefs,

And lower lords, and serfs and paupers e’en,

In golden chariots ride; climbing with Christ,

The steep and prickly path of principle,

To where, with smiling face and outreached arms,

Wooing the martyr to her soft embrace,

To stanch his tears, and on his bleeding brow

Write the word “conqueror,” awaits Success.

Go on, great work of God! The David thou

Of dispensations; hated, hunted, spurned

Throughout the ages. Vainly still shall speed

The javelins of spiteful jealousy.

Crushed thou may’st ofttimes be, but conquered ne’er.

Still whirls the mystic wheel of destiny.

Gilboa waits the tyrant; and thy hand,

Thy potent hand, uplifted but in prayer,

And not to pierce, shall lay all giants low.

1890

 

Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah.

The possibility that the “marvelous work and a wonder” might also refer to Christ’s role in saving mankind appears when we realize that similar imagery and symbols are used in both cases. For example, where Parley P. Pratt says “The Morning Breaks” in referring to the restoration, others describe the advent of Christ as a dawning.

This is even true for LDS poets, like Orson F. Whitney. Here his waiting for the dawn seems to be about Christ, but I think the poem could be read either way. In addition, it is also clearly about the growth and advancement of Zion (the Church in Utah in Whitney’s conception), which was, at the time this poem was written, under pressure that was finally relieved the following year.

 

Wilt thou never break, O morning?

Shall we ne’er thy dawn behold,

Zion, in thy glory rising,

Might and majesty untold?

 

Vainly have we watched and waited,

Lord, Thy promised time of power,

That should rend our chains asunder,

And o’erthrow oppression’s tower?

 

Longer shall Thy sons, Jehovah,

Lick the dust of Gentile feet?

Longer shall Thy laws be trampled

As the stones of yonder street?

 

Still shall tyranny triumphant

Strive thought’s freedom to restrain?

Still shall truth be stamped as error?

Still, o’er right, injustice reign?

 

Shall the rich man hoard his millions,

While the poor man begs his crust?

Shall a god of gold be worshipped,

And in flesh shall Israel trust?

 

Shall such things be seen in Zion,

Sneered in Askelon and Gath?

Shall the alien’s taunt shame Ephraim:—

“Christ’s is not a crooked path?”

 

When shall rise a glorious Zion,

From all guile and grossness free?

God of Israel! hast forsaken

Ephraim and his destiny?

 

Nay. Though lowering night may linger

Lo! the morning comes at last;

Day of Zion’s glad redemption—

All her woes forever past.

 

Freedom waves her joyous pinions

O’er a land, from sea to sea,

Bright with beams of heavenly glory,

Home of light and liberty;

 

O’er a people happy, holy,

Gifted now with every grace;

Free from self, that sordid fetter

That enslaves our fallen race.

 

Union, love and fellow-feeling—

These the watch-words of the hour;

Rich and poor in all things equal—

Righteousness their rock and tower.

 

Mountain peaks of pride are leveled,

Lifted up the lowly plain,

Crookedness made straight, while crudeness

Now gives way to culture’s reign.

 

Now no tyrant’s sceptre saddens,

Now no bigot’s power can bind

Faith, forevermore unfettered,

Thought no dungeon e’er confined.

 

Truth, oft crushed, yet never conquered,

Soars aloft on wings of light;

Men behold their Maker’s meaning

Eye to eye with single sight.

 

God, not mammon, hath the worship

Of His people, pure in heart—

This is Zion—O ye nations!

Choose, ere past, her “better part.”

 

Peace, not war, shall make you mighty;

Righteousness alone find rest;

Turn, ah! turn, while hopeful daylight

Lingers in your dying west.

 

Crowns and sceptres, swords and bucklers—

Baubles!—break them at her feet;

Strife no more shall vex creation—

Christ’s is now the kingly seat.

 

Cities, empires, kingdoms, powers,

Earthly, heavenly treasures, Thine;

She that once was last of nations,

Henceforth as their head shall shine.

 

Thus thy future glory, Zion,

Glittering in the Spirit’s rays,

As the ocean’s sun-lit surging,

Rolls upon my raptured gaze.

 

Lovelier than painter’s limning,

Fairer than a poet’s dream,

Brighter than the noon-day splendor,

Or the midnight’s starry beam.

 

All that ages past have promised,

All that noblest minds have prized,

All that holy lips have prayed for,

Here at last is realized.

 

Haste, oh! haste, resplendent vision!

Tarry not, but hither tend,

Where hope’s pilgrims, worn and weary,

Still her toilsome heights ascend.

 

Oh may we who bide the dawning—

Though we climb a craggy way—

Greet the morn on glory’s hill-tops

When the night hath passed away!

1889

 

Turning away from the Lord brings spiritual danger.

By its nature, a restoration is a kind of paradigm shift, and in such changes there is always unexpected danger. When revolutionary change happens, turning away can simply be failing to follow the new paradigm—the restored truth. In Isaiah 29, its thinking yourself wise and following the world, both of which seem prudent when a new, outside idea comes along. Thus, we can actually turn away from the Lord without realizing it, because we’re doing just what we have always done.

In the following poem, Edward Anderson portrays the process of trying to stay with the Lord, that is the process of continuing to follow Him instead of following the world. And in the end, Anderson shows that the we in the poem is actually Joseph Smith, crying for answers in the sacred grove. How like him we are!

 

My soul’s in doubt, amidst contending creeds;

Give thou to me,

O God, the wisdom that shall meet my needs!

Make known to me

The truth, I faint in tumults, words and war;

Reach thou to me a helping hand afar.

Enough to know that in thy word is found

The remedy:

That he who asks, in knowledge shall abound

Eternally.

Thy voice shall never such a one upbraid

But in thy favor bask all unafraid.

I venture, then, thy Presence to implore,

This lovely morn;

Whate’er the answer is for me in store,

Or danger borne!

Grant me my heart’s desire: “Which church is right”

Show me the way, and save me from the night.

He cries for help, when demons’ powers alarm,

In dark despair;

’Tis then God’s light is seen to shield from harm,

And in the air,

In glory, Father and the Son appear,

Commanding him the Savior Son to hear!

1920

 

The Lord can restore what is lost or broken.

Restoration can mean a lot of things. It can mean going back to what was before, recovering what was lost or broken. It can also be something that we look forward to, as we understand that things in our lives are lost or broken. It can even mean recovering in the next life what we have lost in this life. In a sense, we are always participating in restoration, as we seek to become whole.

The restoration of the sealing power is important in this sense, since it allows us to recover and restore relationships in the next life, and even restore relationships that only existed across generations—relationships that only existed through the vail. Here poet Frank Kooyman ponders how the restoration of these relationships will be.

 

When the angel’s welcome’s given,

When we enter holier sphere,

And in that sweet joy of heaven,

We forget our troubles here,

Shall we meet there father, mother,

Friends and loved ones, gone before,

Shall we recognize each other,

Shall we know our own once more?

Chorus:

Yes, we there shall know each other,

We shall know our own once more!

When our friends, who, traveling faster,

Long since crossed the great divide,

Who with us did serve the Master,

Meet us on the other side,

Shall we read in their sweet faces,

Love and friendship as of yore,

Shall we feel their fond embraces,

Shall we know our own once more?

Oh, my soul, let naught confuse thee,

How much sorrow life may bring,

Let this glorious hope enthuse thee,

Cause thee to rejoice and sing;

All in which your faith’s delighting,

Will come true on yonder shore:

There will be a reuniting,

We shall know our own once more.

Come, ye sad and heavy-hearted,

Yonder beckons brighter day,

There you’ll find your dear departed,

Sainted loved ones – yours for aye!

Death and parting here bereave us,

There reunion will restore

All we’ve lost, no more to leave us –

We shall know our own once more!