April 1861
Benson, Ezra T. "Testimony and Religion of the Saints." Journal of Discourses. Volume 8. April 6, 1861: pg. 369-370.
Kimball, Heber C. "Spirit of Unity--Independence of Zion, Etc." Journal of Discourses. Volume 9. April 6, 1861: pg. 6-8. Kimball, Heber C. "Appreciation of Divine Gifts and Blessings—Return to Jackson County—Encouragement of Home Manufactures." Journal of Discourses. Volume 9. April 7, 1861: pg. 24-28. Smith, George A. "Sectarian Religion--Democracy, Etc." Journal of Discourses. Volume 9. April 6, 1861: pg. 15-20. Snow, Lorenzo. "Improvement--Restoration of the Priesthood, Etc." Journal of Discourses. Volume 9. April 7, 1861: pg. 20-23. Taylor, John. "Union--Human and Divine Government, Etc." Journal of Discourses. Volume 9. April 6, 1861: pg. 8-15. The Deseret News. "Thirty-First Annual Conference." April 10, 1861: pg. 44-45. Wells, Daniel H. "Kingdom of God and the Governments of Men." Journal of Discourses. Volume 8. April 6, 1861: pg. 371-376. Young, Brigham. "True Testimony--Preparation for the Coming Events--Corruption of the Government, Etc." Journal of Discourses. Volume 9. April 6, 1861: pg. 1-6. Young, Brigham. "Home Manufactures." Journal of Discourses. Volume 9. April 7, 1861: pg. 29-31. Young, Brigham. "The Gifts of God—Home Manufactures—Word of Wisdom—Happiness." Journal of Discourses. Volume 9. April 7, 1861: pg. 29-31. THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONFERENCE Elder Ezra T. Benson Testimony and Religion of the Saints President Daniel H. Wells Kingdom of God and the Governments of Men President Heber C. Kimball Spirit of Unity—Independence of Zion, &c. President Brigham Young True Testimony—Preparation for Coming Events—Corruption of the Government, Etc. 2 p.m. Sustaining of the General Authorities Explanation of the Presidency of the Seventies Sustaining of the General Authorities, Continued Elder John Taylor Union—Human and Divine Government, Etc. Patriarch Isaac Morley Elder George A. Smith Sectarian Religion—Democracy, Etc. Bishops Meeting President Brigham Young Sunday Morning, April 7 Elder Lorenzo Snow Improvement—Restoration of the Priesthood, Etc. President Heber C. Kimball Appreciation of Divine Gifts and Blessings President Brigham Young Home Manufactures Afternoon President Brigham Young The Gifts of God—Home Manufactures—Word of Wisdom—Happiness Elder Jefferson Hunt President Brigham Young Benediction by Heber C. Kimball |
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THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS.
The General Conference of the Church convened in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Saturday, April 6, 1861, 10 a.m., President Brigham Young presiding.
There were on the stand: Of the First Presidency, Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Daniel H. Wells;
Of the Twelve Apostles: Orson Hyde, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow, and Franklin D. Richards;
Of the First Presidency of the Seventies: Joseph Young, Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, and Horace S. Eldredge;
Of the Presidency of the High Priests: Edwin D. Woolley and Samuel W. Richards;
Of the Presidency of the Stake: Daniel Spencer, David Fullmer and George B. Wallace;
Of the Presidency of the Bishopric: Edward Hunter, Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little;
Of the Patriarchs: John Smith and Isaac Morley;
Reporters: George D. Watt and John V. Long.
The Conference was called to order. The choir sung "The morning breaks, the shadows flee."
Elder Lorenzo Snow offered prayer.
Choir sung "Praise ye the Lord, 'tis good to praise."
The General Conference of the Church convened in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Saturday, April 6, 1861, 10 a.m., President Brigham Young presiding.
There were on the stand: Of the First Presidency, Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Daniel H. Wells;
Of the Twelve Apostles: Orson Hyde, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow, and Franklin D. Richards;
Of the First Presidency of the Seventies: Joseph Young, Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, and Horace S. Eldredge;
Of the Presidency of the High Priests: Edwin D. Woolley and Samuel W. Richards;
Of the Presidency of the Stake: Daniel Spencer, David Fullmer and George B. Wallace;
Of the Presidency of the Bishopric: Edward Hunter, Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little;
Of the Patriarchs: John Smith and Isaac Morley;
Reporters: George D. Watt and John V. Long.
The Conference was called to order. The choir sung "The morning breaks, the shadows flee."
Elder Lorenzo Snow offered prayer.
Choir sung "Praise ye the Lord, 'tis good to praise."
Elder E. T. Benson
was called upon to address the congregation. He expressed himself highly pleased with the opportunity of meeting the Saints in general conference; he bore a strong testimony to the truth of the gospel of Christ revealed to this generation by Joseph Smith; testified that the people had no need to search for any other, or any stronger testimony than that which they have already received. He exhorted the people to faithfulness, that they might win the prize, and said he rejoiced to know that the Almighty is just as ready as he ever was to bestow His spirit upon his chosen people.
was called upon to address the congregation. He expressed himself highly pleased with the opportunity of meeting the Saints in general conference; he bore a strong testimony to the truth of the gospel of Christ revealed to this generation by Joseph Smith; testified that the people had no need to search for any other, or any stronger testimony than that which they have already received. He exhorted the people to faithfulness, that they might win the prize, and said he rejoiced to know that the Almighty is just as ready as he ever was to bestow His spirit upon his chosen people.
Testimony and Religion of the Saints
Remarks by Elder Ezra T. Benson, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by J. V. Long.
I feel truly thankful, brethren and sisters, for the opportunity I enjoy this morning. I trust that we have come together with prayerful hearts before the Lord our God, that his Spirit may be upon us, and that our prayers and all our devotions during this Conference may be acceptable in his sight. If I understand my duty as an Elder in Israel, this should be my object and my desire, not only in coming to Conference meetings, but also in all my associations with the people of God. I feel well in beholding your faces and in having the privilege which I now enjoy of standing before you. I feel that it is a blessed opportunity, and one that should be appreciated by us all. We have the privilege twice in each year of coming up to headquarters to visit the First Presidency and leading authorities of the Church in G. S. L. City; and inasmuch as we have come with pure hearts and clean hands, we shall all have confidence before God and his people who reside here. Our anticipations will be realized. We shall receive such instructions and counsels from our brethren who are called to preside over us as will be for our best good.
I do not feel competent to teach this people; hence I merely rise to bear my testimony to the truth of the Gospel of the Son of God. I testify that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Most High, that he was a minister of life to the nations, that he revealed the will of the Father concerning his sons and daughters, that many of the revelations which he gave concerning this nation have already been fulfilled, and that others are being fulfilled before our eyes. I know that he revealed the future destinies of the nations of the earth, and his predictions are being fulfilled to the joy and satisfaction of every Latter-day Saint, and there is no doubt upon our minds in regard to those that are still unfulfilled. Then what shall I do? Shall I cease to bear any further testimony? Or shall I continue to aver the truth of the Gospel we have espoused, and the teachings we have received from Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Daniel H. Wells? Yes; these counsels and teachings have been just as good, just as true as the counsels given by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I now want to ask you a question. What more do you want? What greater things can you ask for than those gifts and endowments which you have received? If we have rejected, or treated coolly and walked underfoot the blessings of the Almighty, remember that we are on the Devil's ground.
While some are groveling in the dark, drying up in the things of God, and striving to lead into other channels, and doing that which will gratify their own corrupt dispositions, we should be endeavoring to increase in the light and knowledge of the truth, and to set an example that is worthy of all imitation.
Seeing that I have been called upon to make a few remarks, I feel disposed to take for my text, “Latter-day Saint.” If you take up the character of an Elder in Israel—one who has received the Gospel in humility, been ordained to the Holy Priesthood because of his faithfulness, who has preached to the nations of the earth, borne a faithful testimony to the truth of our holy religion, what more do you want? And what more can you ask in proof of that man's integrity? Do you want to search in the kingdoms of this world for any other testimony than that which we have received? No. Neither do we want to inquire, except in the household of faith, respecting the character of our brethren. The very moment that a man lets go his testimony and the spirit of his religion, where is his faith? And where is his power? They pass into the shade: the testimony first given is laid by; it is put aside—his faith, his wisdom, the power—to receive something else; and the vacuum is filled up with darkness. Is not a man in that situation a suitable subject for the Devil to work upon? Yes, he is. Having set aside the Gospel, closed up the channel of light and the medium through which he received intelligence, he cannot comprehend the things of eternity. He has turned his attention to something else, gone after other gods, become subject to other spirits, from which he receives dreams and visions that lead him on to destruction.
If we who profess to be Saints expect to keep the light of heaven within us, and the candle of the Almighty shining round about us, we must hold fast the beginning of our confidence and strive to increase in the principles of life and salvation.
If I were to go and pray to another God, I should expect that he would give me revelations to suit his own purpose, and that he would lead me out of the path in which I am now striving to walk. He would lead me away from the true and living God, and he would lead me into doubt and darkness.
If we are led by the Spirit of the true and living God, we are always led aright, we are always happy—always cheerful, we rejoice evermore, and pray without ceasing. We need not fear in regard to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is as true today as it was when we first heard it. We have more light, more faith, more knowledge, and consequently more power than we ever had before; and God has just as much right, and he is just as willing to reveal his will unto us as he was twenty years ago.
Let us be prayerful, let us cleanse our hearts from every impurity, and sanctify ourselves before our Heavenly Father, and we shall surely win the prize; but we cannot upon any other condition. This is the promise made to us by the Elders who brought the Gospel to our doors. We were told to cultivate brotherly kindness, virtue, and charity. We were told to nourish and cherish the spirit of wisdom, and to be constantly striving to add to our faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity; and we were told that, if these things were in us, we should neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
May God bless us all, and enable us to do these things, is my earnest prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Remarks by Elder Ezra T. Benson, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by J. V. Long.
I feel truly thankful, brethren and sisters, for the opportunity I enjoy this morning. I trust that we have come together with prayerful hearts before the Lord our God, that his Spirit may be upon us, and that our prayers and all our devotions during this Conference may be acceptable in his sight. If I understand my duty as an Elder in Israel, this should be my object and my desire, not only in coming to Conference meetings, but also in all my associations with the people of God. I feel well in beholding your faces and in having the privilege which I now enjoy of standing before you. I feel that it is a blessed opportunity, and one that should be appreciated by us all. We have the privilege twice in each year of coming up to headquarters to visit the First Presidency and leading authorities of the Church in G. S. L. City; and inasmuch as we have come with pure hearts and clean hands, we shall all have confidence before God and his people who reside here. Our anticipations will be realized. We shall receive such instructions and counsels from our brethren who are called to preside over us as will be for our best good.
I do not feel competent to teach this people; hence I merely rise to bear my testimony to the truth of the Gospel of the Son of God. I testify that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Most High, that he was a minister of life to the nations, that he revealed the will of the Father concerning his sons and daughters, that many of the revelations which he gave concerning this nation have already been fulfilled, and that others are being fulfilled before our eyes. I know that he revealed the future destinies of the nations of the earth, and his predictions are being fulfilled to the joy and satisfaction of every Latter-day Saint, and there is no doubt upon our minds in regard to those that are still unfulfilled. Then what shall I do? Shall I cease to bear any further testimony? Or shall I continue to aver the truth of the Gospel we have espoused, and the teachings we have received from Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Daniel H. Wells? Yes; these counsels and teachings have been just as good, just as true as the counsels given by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I now want to ask you a question. What more do you want? What greater things can you ask for than those gifts and endowments which you have received? If we have rejected, or treated coolly and walked underfoot the blessings of the Almighty, remember that we are on the Devil's ground.
While some are groveling in the dark, drying up in the things of God, and striving to lead into other channels, and doing that which will gratify their own corrupt dispositions, we should be endeavoring to increase in the light and knowledge of the truth, and to set an example that is worthy of all imitation.
Seeing that I have been called upon to make a few remarks, I feel disposed to take for my text, “Latter-day Saint.” If you take up the character of an Elder in Israel—one who has received the Gospel in humility, been ordained to the Holy Priesthood because of his faithfulness, who has preached to the nations of the earth, borne a faithful testimony to the truth of our holy religion, what more do you want? And what more can you ask in proof of that man's integrity? Do you want to search in the kingdoms of this world for any other testimony than that which we have received? No. Neither do we want to inquire, except in the household of faith, respecting the character of our brethren. The very moment that a man lets go his testimony and the spirit of his religion, where is his faith? And where is his power? They pass into the shade: the testimony first given is laid by; it is put aside—his faith, his wisdom, the power—to receive something else; and the vacuum is filled up with darkness. Is not a man in that situation a suitable subject for the Devil to work upon? Yes, he is. Having set aside the Gospel, closed up the channel of light and the medium through which he received intelligence, he cannot comprehend the things of eternity. He has turned his attention to something else, gone after other gods, become subject to other spirits, from which he receives dreams and visions that lead him on to destruction.
If we who profess to be Saints expect to keep the light of heaven within us, and the candle of the Almighty shining round about us, we must hold fast the beginning of our confidence and strive to increase in the principles of life and salvation.
If I were to go and pray to another God, I should expect that he would give me revelations to suit his own purpose, and that he would lead me out of the path in which I am now striving to walk. He would lead me away from the true and living God, and he would lead me into doubt and darkness.
If we are led by the Spirit of the true and living God, we are always led aright, we are always happy—always cheerful, we rejoice evermore, and pray without ceasing. We need not fear in regard to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is as true today as it was when we first heard it. We have more light, more faith, more knowledge, and consequently more power than we ever had before; and God has just as much right, and he is just as willing to reveal his will unto us as he was twenty years ago.
Let us be prayerful, let us cleanse our hearts from every impurity, and sanctify ourselves before our Heavenly Father, and we shall surely win the prize; but we cannot upon any other condition. This is the promise made to us by the Elders who brought the Gospel to our doors. We were told to cultivate brotherly kindness, virtue, and charity. We were told to nourish and cherish the spirit of wisdom, and to be constantly striving to add to our faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity; and we were told that, if these things were in us, we should neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
May God bless us all, and enable us to do these things, is my earnest prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President Daniel H. Wells
said that Elder Benson's text was a very good one, and well worthy of consideration by all, it was "Latter Day Saint." It was highly necessary that we should learn what it takes to constitute a saint. It is the duty of every one to study to be virtuous and true, to be God-like in all our acts. This is certainly a work of time, but we should be constantly progressing in the knowledge of the truth, and strive to gain light, through that channel of communication that is open between the heavens and the earth. He spoke of the power, the glory and the eternal reward that lie before the true-hearted saint; the promises of reward and exaltation are enough to enwrap in bliss and glory every thought of the human heart, and every idea we have received. What more could we have to induce us to pursue the right way, he asked, inasmuch as it carries its own reward with it. He regretted that the blessings were so little appreciated by the wayward, and even by the saints of the Most High, in comparison to what they should be. It appeared that the people often forgot their duties, and suffered darkness to creep into their minds, and cover up the little light that was there. We should all see and realize the importance ad greatness of the work in which we are engaged. It is our duty to draw light from the fountain of wisdom, and then extend it to others. We can all see the distress of nations, the confusion of the wicked and the distracted condition of all the governments of the world, hence how thankful we should be that the light of this gospel has reached our hearts and opened our understandings, and that we have been plucked as brands from the burning, and have been brought into this blessed inheritance.
said that Elder Benson's text was a very good one, and well worthy of consideration by all, it was "Latter Day Saint." It was highly necessary that we should learn what it takes to constitute a saint. It is the duty of every one to study to be virtuous and true, to be God-like in all our acts. This is certainly a work of time, but we should be constantly progressing in the knowledge of the truth, and strive to gain light, through that channel of communication that is open between the heavens and the earth. He spoke of the power, the glory and the eternal reward that lie before the true-hearted saint; the promises of reward and exaltation are enough to enwrap in bliss and glory every thought of the human heart, and every idea we have received. What more could we have to induce us to pursue the right way, he asked, inasmuch as it carries its own reward with it. He regretted that the blessings were so little appreciated by the wayward, and even by the saints of the Most High, in comparison to what they should be. It appeared that the people often forgot their duties, and suffered darkness to creep into their minds, and cover up the little light that was there. We should all see and realize the importance ad greatness of the work in which we are engaged. It is our duty to draw light from the fountain of wisdom, and then extend it to others. We can all see the distress of nations, the confusion of the wicked and the distracted condition of all the governments of the world, hence how thankful we should be that the light of this gospel has reached our hearts and opened our understandings, and that we have been plucked as brands from the burning, and have been brought into this blessed inheritance.
Kingdom of God and the Governments of Men
Remarks by President Daniel H. Wells, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by J. V. Long.
The text taken by Brother Benson, I think, is a very good one; and he has portrayed before us what is necessary to enable us to be one in following out those virtues and principles which are Godlike, and which are calculated to make us one, that we also may become like God. This is our duty and our privilege—to be Godlike, in our ways, to imitate the virtuous, the true, and the good, and, inasmuch as it is possible, to become ultimately as pure and holy as our Father and God. This is the privilege of the human race in our day and generation. We have the light of revelation to guide the souls of men aright—to make ourselves like our Father in heaven.
We have not known these things until within the last few years, since the revelation of the fulness of the Gospel. It is one of the greatest privileges and blessings ever made known to man, clothed with the light of truth and knowledge from the heavens, having a channel of communication opened up, through which we get intelligence from the Father of light, with whom there is no variableness nor the least shadow of turning. This light and knowledge has been imparted to the children of men, and by obedience to its directions they can make themselves like Gods in the eternal worlds. What beauty, what love, what greatness and power, and what exceeding great glory lie before the true-hearted Saint! Let your minds open up to behold in vision the greatness thereof for the moment that you can see what light, greatness, and glory are strewn in, and now illuminate your pathway to cheer you onward through the shifting and varied scenes of life, to the haven of bliss and glory hereafter, continually enlightening your minds, solacing you through life, and enabling you to overcome every difficulty which you may have to encounter in life's journey.
As sorrow and distress are in the world, we expect that everyone will, more or less, have to drink of the bitter cup. This light, these great gifts, this promise of reward, of happiness, and exaltation, the lovely principles that are unfolded to our view are enough to inspire in the human heart, every day, joy that could not be conceived of by the natural man.
As was asked by Brother Benson, what more could we ask to prove to ourselves that this is the work of the Almighty? What more could we have to induce us to pursue the right way? Still, how little are these blessings appreciated by the world at large—yes, and by the Saints of the Most High, in comparison with what they should be. It seems as though we often forget what our real blessings are, and thereby let darkness creep into our minds and cover up the little light that is in us. We should remember that our religion is designed to redeem a lost world from sin, from the bondage of iniquity, and also from the rule and thralldom of Satan, which have enveloped it for generations, and covered it, as it were, with a thick pall, and well nigh desolated the earth. It is designed now to restore it to and place it in the light, to fill it with intelligence and sanctify it through the truth. Our religion teaches us to draw wisdom from the fountain of wisdom, and to extend it to the minds of others; it opens up to its adherents every privilege which the heart of a righteous man can desire, and it leads on the faithful to glory and honor in worlds of light.
But what is the reverse? What is the other side of the picture? It is confusion, distress of communities, division in families, distress of nations, a fearful looking forward into the future because of the judgments of the Almighty, which they apprehend are near at their doors. Have they any desire to do any better? No. But the wicked are striving to see how they can get more advantages over their neighbor, and thus do worse and serve the Devil better, and almost with railroad speed, that they may see wickedness predominate throughout the length and breadth of the land. The conduct of the wicked leads to darkness and misery in the present as well as in the future.
How thankful, then, we should be that this Gospel and the light of revelation have reached our minds, and caused our bosoms to vibrate with the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. The welcome sound and accompanying power have plucked us as brands from the burning, Then do you not feel thankful that we have this blessed privilege, and that we had understanding enough left with us when this Gospel reached our ears to embrace it? It has been the privilege of the world to do the same; our contemporaries in all nations have the opportunity of becoming acquainted with its blessings. The light of this Gospel has been shed forth, more or less, among all nations of the globe; thousands and millions have heard it, but many only to reject it, because of the pride of life and the lust of the world. Friends and relatives who have dared to differ in opinion with their connections, and to join themselves to an unpopular people, have found that it has cost them their name in society, their character among their fellows, their fortune, and all they possessed. This view having been taken of it by many who have examined its principles, has caused them to reject it.
It is the privilege of the people of this nation, as much so as it has been ours, to receive the benefits of this Gospel: it is also the privilege of our Government to do good to this people; but it is left with them to act according to the dictates of their own consciences. It is not only their privilege, but it is their duty to foster this kingdom; and it was one of the main objects of the Government in laying the whole structure thereof, that it should afford succor and support to the kingdom of God. It was the wish of the Almighty that the principles of liberty and of righteousness should underlie the flag of the Union and the institutions that flow from that Government. “Who could dare to question the rights of conscience?” was a question often asked in revolutionary times. How has the Government of our country performed that important duty towards this people? We only need refer to our past history to answer this question. It ignored the privilege that we claimed, and refused to do its duty. That neglect on the part of our Government caused thousands to be ruined—to be driven forth into the trackless wilds, and for want of ordinary subsistence many weakened and died. The willful neglect of our Government caused the best blood of this generation to be shed; it caused hundreds to die through exposure, and in every respect it has failed to come out and maintain the rights of conscience towards the Saints of the Most High. It would have been far better for us if we had had no pretensions to government at all, than for it thus to have encouraged the hand of the plunderer and of the murderer. We should have fared much better than we did, to say nothing of their finally concentrating their power and their influence to wipe us out of existence, after we had gained a foothold in these dreary deserts.
Then, so far as we are concerned, we should have been better without a government than with such an one. It is a principle in political economy that no government shall be bound together any longer than it is good for its subjects. Whenever any government fails to protect and preserve the rights and interests of its people, they can no longer be expected to render unto it their allegiance and support; hence we see the people occasionally shaking off the chains of tyranny that bind them. Through all this abuse and neglect on the part of the present Government, this people has shown the most devoted loyalty, and they never have breathed a word or exhibited a desire to throw it off. When administered in its legitimate channel, it is one of the best governments upon the face of the whole earth; and if it had been used for the purposes for which it was originally designed, it would have been both stronger and better.
We find no fault with its institutions, neither do we particularly object to its form of government; but it is its administration, and the way its institutions and laws have been abused. The way it is now and has for years past been administered has founded the cause of complaint. It recognizes the principle of self-government, that the people have the right to control. Of that principle we have long been apprised, but it has never been extended to us as a people. Through the arts and plans of politicians, they have managed to deprive Territories of that which is given to the States. This is contrary to the genius of the Constitution which gives the people the right to choose their own rulers: taxation should only be exacted where representation is allowed. These privileges have been withheld from this, as well as from other Territories; and the pattern given for this Territory in the organic act is not materially different from any other. Our offense has been that we have asked for those of our own choosing to rule us. It has been the case, it is true, that they have chosen persons from the States to hold offices in all the Territories, and ostensibly they have made no difference; but this should be considered, that the appointing power has given others the opportunity of making known their preference, and such wishes have generally been considered, with the exception of the people of this Territory.
I am now speaking of the past. Hitherto it has been as I have now mentioned. This Government has been partial in this and in many other respects, and has no real claim upon our affections; but still we seek to preserve those institutions and to keep sacred those wise provisions which are embodied in the Constitution as it was formed by our fathers; and perhaps we are the only people that do seek the salvation of our country at the present time; and it will finally be shown that we are the only people that will stand by its principles, and make it what it was intended to be—an asylum for the oppressed of all nations.
It is truly a strange crisis to which the country has now arrived. It is something like a statement I saw the other day, very truly depicted, though very humiliating to receive, to be compared with an old rotten government like that of Austria—a government naturally crumbling to pieces—a government notorious for its oppression of its subjects for many generations. Another and a new one that has not yet attained its full size presents the same picture to the enlightened world; it also is crumbling to pieces from the same cause—corruption from the center to the circumference. I do not think there is a more corrupt government upon the face of the earth. It seems that when they commenced their war upon us, they commenced to glide the downward road to destruction.
It is patent everywhere that the Government does not look for anything from their public servants but corruption and robbery. They settle all their accounts with this understanding of the subject, and the whole machinery has become corrupt in the sight of Heaven and all good men.
In departing from the principles of truth, of life and mercy, in rejecting the message of salvation that has been sent to them, through the instrumentality of Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Most High God, who was chosen to open up the work of this last dispensation, they paved the way for their own destruction. They have rolled up against this people in their wrath and in their hatred, and have striven to destroy the Priesthood from the earth. We now begin to see the results. In the days of our tribulations they said to the mobs, “Go on.” Yes, they encouraged our enemies in the perpetration of all their abominable acts. The Prophet of the Lord spoke and told them they should have mobs to their heart's satisfaction, but it should be among themselves, one State against another, until the whole land should be deluged with the blood of its inhabitants.
When our people applied to the Government to compel the State of Missouri to restore us to our lands, they pretended they could not interfere with a sovereign State; and, as a reward for their conduct, they have now got State's sovereignty to their heart's content; and this will continue to be poured back upon them: they will have to walk in the road which they laid out for us, and that which they would have put upon us is now fast coming upon their own heads. What more striking illustration could be brought to bear upon the minds of this people? What course could the Lord pursue that would seem to satisfy mankind more that these are his people, and that this is his work, than that which is being daily acted before all the world? It is as was said of old—this work is as a light set upon a hill. This cause and kingdom are a living, perpetual, and final testimony to the nations that God is with us, though we are despised by the world.
The wicked reject this Gospel and this message from the Almighty, which is given in much mercy for their salvation. The fault must rest upon their own heads; they have certainly been warned time and again. They live in the time of final warning, and they begin to feel the reaction which is coming upon them. They have sent forth their thunderbolts against the Lord's anointed ones, and the rebound is beginning to take effect upon their own heads. It does seem to me that, if they were honest, they would acknowledge this.
But we do not expect them to do it at the present time: they are too far steeped in the follies and wickedness of the world to confess that God has thwarted their designs. Many, perhaps, do see it; but the pride of life and their own wicked desires may prevent them from acknowledging the hand of God in the midst of this people.
We have been sent forth into the world to preach the Gospel, and the Almighty has been with us to take care of us. We need not fear when nations are crumbling to pieces; we need only press on in the way of our duty, and there will always be sufficient light given in this kingdom to lead every Saint of God in the path of duty and of right. It is, then, for every soul to cleave to God, walk in the way of righteousness, to be united in doing good, to be one in heart and in mind—one in purpose and in faith, to live our holy religion, and let outside things take their course; and let us be true to the cause we have espoused, and be ready at a moment's notice to do anything that may be required of us. Let our hearts and minds swell with thanksgiving to God, strive to obtain his Spirit, and we shall see the propriety of his working among the children of men.
Did any of you ever do anything contrary to your own feelings because you were set to do it? I have one request to make, which is, that when he whom we have all known to be the chosen of God to lead this people requires anything at our hands, let us not only do it, but strive to see a propriety and a consistency in all his plans, that we may thereby increase in our faith to work with his for the redemption of Israel; and we shall soon see the benefit and beauty of doing things with our whole heart. It is very easy to find fault with an enterprise—much more so than to introduce one that would be better. It is much easier to object than to originate. There is evil growing out of this: it breeds division, encourages contention; and hence the necessity of striving to get a right conception of all things.
Let us seek for light from on high, that our actions may be more productive of union. Do you not know that when the earth is redeemed from sin and iniquity, and from the degradation that desolates the whole face thereof, that this people have the promise of inheriting it forever, and that they have now the privilege of establishing the principles of truth upon a firm foundation, never again to be thrown down? Do you not know that it is the privilege of the Saints to take the kingdom and possess it as an everlasting inheritance? And how is this to be done? Is it to be by going forth in martial array, and taking it by force of arms? No. Not so fast: wait a little. It is to be done by snatching from the Devil every inch of ground that we can, and then keeping it. It is to be brought about by observing the principles of salvation which have been revealed from the heavens for the exaltation of the people; it is to be by uniting together that we may become a mighty phalanx against which the surges of iniquity may strike in vain.
I always feel happy by going into a settlement and seeing a few faithful Saints. They are more precious to me than would be the crowns of nations. All this fearful and dark influence that is being gathered together among the wicked, for the purpose of destroying God's kingdom, is going to be rolled back upon the wicked nations that dwell upon the earth's surface; and they will be swept off, and the light of truth and the knowledge of God will increase among the faithful inhabitants that remain, until the whole earth will be illuminated by the righteousness of the Saints, and the elect of God will enjoy all the benefits of redemption, unmolested for a thousand years. This, then, is a great and a glorious work—one that will cheer the heart of man; and there is nothing that a man can be engaged in that will at all compare with it.
Let us be faithful before the Lord our God; let us live our holy religion, and be cheered with these heavenly ideas, and with this influence that emanates from our Father and God.
Let us go on our way rejoicing; let us be faithful and true, virtuous and holy; and let us, above all things that we do upon the earth, strive with all our power and might to advance the interests of the kingdom of our God. That this may be our purpose, and that in the end of our probation we may be found worthy of the society of the sanctified and redeemed of all ages and nations, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Remarks by President Daniel H. Wells, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by J. V. Long.
The text taken by Brother Benson, I think, is a very good one; and he has portrayed before us what is necessary to enable us to be one in following out those virtues and principles which are Godlike, and which are calculated to make us one, that we also may become like God. This is our duty and our privilege—to be Godlike, in our ways, to imitate the virtuous, the true, and the good, and, inasmuch as it is possible, to become ultimately as pure and holy as our Father and God. This is the privilege of the human race in our day and generation. We have the light of revelation to guide the souls of men aright—to make ourselves like our Father in heaven.
We have not known these things until within the last few years, since the revelation of the fulness of the Gospel. It is one of the greatest privileges and blessings ever made known to man, clothed with the light of truth and knowledge from the heavens, having a channel of communication opened up, through which we get intelligence from the Father of light, with whom there is no variableness nor the least shadow of turning. This light and knowledge has been imparted to the children of men, and by obedience to its directions they can make themselves like Gods in the eternal worlds. What beauty, what love, what greatness and power, and what exceeding great glory lie before the true-hearted Saint! Let your minds open up to behold in vision the greatness thereof for the moment that you can see what light, greatness, and glory are strewn in, and now illuminate your pathway to cheer you onward through the shifting and varied scenes of life, to the haven of bliss and glory hereafter, continually enlightening your minds, solacing you through life, and enabling you to overcome every difficulty which you may have to encounter in life's journey.
As sorrow and distress are in the world, we expect that everyone will, more or less, have to drink of the bitter cup. This light, these great gifts, this promise of reward, of happiness, and exaltation, the lovely principles that are unfolded to our view are enough to inspire in the human heart, every day, joy that could not be conceived of by the natural man.
As was asked by Brother Benson, what more could we ask to prove to ourselves that this is the work of the Almighty? What more could we have to induce us to pursue the right way? Still, how little are these blessings appreciated by the world at large—yes, and by the Saints of the Most High, in comparison with what they should be. It seems as though we often forget what our real blessings are, and thereby let darkness creep into our minds and cover up the little light that is in us. We should remember that our religion is designed to redeem a lost world from sin, from the bondage of iniquity, and also from the rule and thralldom of Satan, which have enveloped it for generations, and covered it, as it were, with a thick pall, and well nigh desolated the earth. It is designed now to restore it to and place it in the light, to fill it with intelligence and sanctify it through the truth. Our religion teaches us to draw wisdom from the fountain of wisdom, and to extend it to the minds of others; it opens up to its adherents every privilege which the heart of a righteous man can desire, and it leads on the faithful to glory and honor in worlds of light.
But what is the reverse? What is the other side of the picture? It is confusion, distress of communities, division in families, distress of nations, a fearful looking forward into the future because of the judgments of the Almighty, which they apprehend are near at their doors. Have they any desire to do any better? No. But the wicked are striving to see how they can get more advantages over their neighbor, and thus do worse and serve the Devil better, and almost with railroad speed, that they may see wickedness predominate throughout the length and breadth of the land. The conduct of the wicked leads to darkness and misery in the present as well as in the future.
How thankful, then, we should be that this Gospel and the light of revelation have reached our minds, and caused our bosoms to vibrate with the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. The welcome sound and accompanying power have plucked us as brands from the burning, Then do you not feel thankful that we have this blessed privilege, and that we had understanding enough left with us when this Gospel reached our ears to embrace it? It has been the privilege of the world to do the same; our contemporaries in all nations have the opportunity of becoming acquainted with its blessings. The light of this Gospel has been shed forth, more or less, among all nations of the globe; thousands and millions have heard it, but many only to reject it, because of the pride of life and the lust of the world. Friends and relatives who have dared to differ in opinion with their connections, and to join themselves to an unpopular people, have found that it has cost them their name in society, their character among their fellows, their fortune, and all they possessed. This view having been taken of it by many who have examined its principles, has caused them to reject it.
It is the privilege of the people of this nation, as much so as it has been ours, to receive the benefits of this Gospel: it is also the privilege of our Government to do good to this people; but it is left with them to act according to the dictates of their own consciences. It is not only their privilege, but it is their duty to foster this kingdom; and it was one of the main objects of the Government in laying the whole structure thereof, that it should afford succor and support to the kingdom of God. It was the wish of the Almighty that the principles of liberty and of righteousness should underlie the flag of the Union and the institutions that flow from that Government. “Who could dare to question the rights of conscience?” was a question often asked in revolutionary times. How has the Government of our country performed that important duty towards this people? We only need refer to our past history to answer this question. It ignored the privilege that we claimed, and refused to do its duty. That neglect on the part of our Government caused thousands to be ruined—to be driven forth into the trackless wilds, and for want of ordinary subsistence many weakened and died. The willful neglect of our Government caused the best blood of this generation to be shed; it caused hundreds to die through exposure, and in every respect it has failed to come out and maintain the rights of conscience towards the Saints of the Most High. It would have been far better for us if we had had no pretensions to government at all, than for it thus to have encouraged the hand of the plunderer and of the murderer. We should have fared much better than we did, to say nothing of their finally concentrating their power and their influence to wipe us out of existence, after we had gained a foothold in these dreary deserts.
Then, so far as we are concerned, we should have been better without a government than with such an one. It is a principle in political economy that no government shall be bound together any longer than it is good for its subjects. Whenever any government fails to protect and preserve the rights and interests of its people, they can no longer be expected to render unto it their allegiance and support; hence we see the people occasionally shaking off the chains of tyranny that bind them. Through all this abuse and neglect on the part of the present Government, this people has shown the most devoted loyalty, and they never have breathed a word or exhibited a desire to throw it off. When administered in its legitimate channel, it is one of the best governments upon the face of the whole earth; and if it had been used for the purposes for which it was originally designed, it would have been both stronger and better.
We find no fault with its institutions, neither do we particularly object to its form of government; but it is its administration, and the way its institutions and laws have been abused. The way it is now and has for years past been administered has founded the cause of complaint. It recognizes the principle of self-government, that the people have the right to control. Of that principle we have long been apprised, but it has never been extended to us as a people. Through the arts and plans of politicians, they have managed to deprive Territories of that which is given to the States. This is contrary to the genius of the Constitution which gives the people the right to choose their own rulers: taxation should only be exacted where representation is allowed. These privileges have been withheld from this, as well as from other Territories; and the pattern given for this Territory in the organic act is not materially different from any other. Our offense has been that we have asked for those of our own choosing to rule us. It has been the case, it is true, that they have chosen persons from the States to hold offices in all the Territories, and ostensibly they have made no difference; but this should be considered, that the appointing power has given others the opportunity of making known their preference, and such wishes have generally been considered, with the exception of the people of this Territory.
I am now speaking of the past. Hitherto it has been as I have now mentioned. This Government has been partial in this and in many other respects, and has no real claim upon our affections; but still we seek to preserve those institutions and to keep sacred those wise provisions which are embodied in the Constitution as it was formed by our fathers; and perhaps we are the only people that do seek the salvation of our country at the present time; and it will finally be shown that we are the only people that will stand by its principles, and make it what it was intended to be—an asylum for the oppressed of all nations.
It is truly a strange crisis to which the country has now arrived. It is something like a statement I saw the other day, very truly depicted, though very humiliating to receive, to be compared with an old rotten government like that of Austria—a government naturally crumbling to pieces—a government notorious for its oppression of its subjects for many generations. Another and a new one that has not yet attained its full size presents the same picture to the enlightened world; it also is crumbling to pieces from the same cause—corruption from the center to the circumference. I do not think there is a more corrupt government upon the face of the earth. It seems that when they commenced their war upon us, they commenced to glide the downward road to destruction.
It is patent everywhere that the Government does not look for anything from their public servants but corruption and robbery. They settle all their accounts with this understanding of the subject, and the whole machinery has become corrupt in the sight of Heaven and all good men.
In departing from the principles of truth, of life and mercy, in rejecting the message of salvation that has been sent to them, through the instrumentality of Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Most High God, who was chosen to open up the work of this last dispensation, they paved the way for their own destruction. They have rolled up against this people in their wrath and in their hatred, and have striven to destroy the Priesthood from the earth. We now begin to see the results. In the days of our tribulations they said to the mobs, “Go on.” Yes, they encouraged our enemies in the perpetration of all their abominable acts. The Prophet of the Lord spoke and told them they should have mobs to their heart's satisfaction, but it should be among themselves, one State against another, until the whole land should be deluged with the blood of its inhabitants.
When our people applied to the Government to compel the State of Missouri to restore us to our lands, they pretended they could not interfere with a sovereign State; and, as a reward for their conduct, they have now got State's sovereignty to their heart's content; and this will continue to be poured back upon them: they will have to walk in the road which they laid out for us, and that which they would have put upon us is now fast coming upon their own heads. What more striking illustration could be brought to bear upon the minds of this people? What course could the Lord pursue that would seem to satisfy mankind more that these are his people, and that this is his work, than that which is being daily acted before all the world? It is as was said of old—this work is as a light set upon a hill. This cause and kingdom are a living, perpetual, and final testimony to the nations that God is with us, though we are despised by the world.
The wicked reject this Gospel and this message from the Almighty, which is given in much mercy for their salvation. The fault must rest upon their own heads; they have certainly been warned time and again. They live in the time of final warning, and they begin to feel the reaction which is coming upon them. They have sent forth their thunderbolts against the Lord's anointed ones, and the rebound is beginning to take effect upon their own heads. It does seem to me that, if they were honest, they would acknowledge this.
But we do not expect them to do it at the present time: they are too far steeped in the follies and wickedness of the world to confess that God has thwarted their designs. Many, perhaps, do see it; but the pride of life and their own wicked desires may prevent them from acknowledging the hand of God in the midst of this people.
We have been sent forth into the world to preach the Gospel, and the Almighty has been with us to take care of us. We need not fear when nations are crumbling to pieces; we need only press on in the way of our duty, and there will always be sufficient light given in this kingdom to lead every Saint of God in the path of duty and of right. It is, then, for every soul to cleave to God, walk in the way of righteousness, to be united in doing good, to be one in heart and in mind—one in purpose and in faith, to live our holy religion, and let outside things take their course; and let us be true to the cause we have espoused, and be ready at a moment's notice to do anything that may be required of us. Let our hearts and minds swell with thanksgiving to God, strive to obtain his Spirit, and we shall see the propriety of his working among the children of men.
Did any of you ever do anything contrary to your own feelings because you were set to do it? I have one request to make, which is, that when he whom we have all known to be the chosen of God to lead this people requires anything at our hands, let us not only do it, but strive to see a propriety and a consistency in all his plans, that we may thereby increase in our faith to work with his for the redemption of Israel; and we shall soon see the benefit and beauty of doing things with our whole heart. It is very easy to find fault with an enterprise—much more so than to introduce one that would be better. It is much easier to object than to originate. There is evil growing out of this: it breeds division, encourages contention; and hence the necessity of striving to get a right conception of all things.
Let us seek for light from on high, that our actions may be more productive of union. Do you not know that when the earth is redeemed from sin and iniquity, and from the degradation that desolates the whole face thereof, that this people have the promise of inheriting it forever, and that they have now the privilege of establishing the principles of truth upon a firm foundation, never again to be thrown down? Do you not know that it is the privilege of the Saints to take the kingdom and possess it as an everlasting inheritance? And how is this to be done? Is it to be by going forth in martial array, and taking it by force of arms? No. Not so fast: wait a little. It is to be done by snatching from the Devil every inch of ground that we can, and then keeping it. It is to be brought about by observing the principles of salvation which have been revealed from the heavens for the exaltation of the people; it is to be by uniting together that we may become a mighty phalanx against which the surges of iniquity may strike in vain.
I always feel happy by going into a settlement and seeing a few faithful Saints. They are more precious to me than would be the crowns of nations. All this fearful and dark influence that is being gathered together among the wicked, for the purpose of destroying God's kingdom, is going to be rolled back upon the wicked nations that dwell upon the earth's surface; and they will be swept off, and the light of truth and the knowledge of God will increase among the faithful inhabitants that remain, until the whole earth will be illuminated by the righteousness of the Saints, and the elect of God will enjoy all the benefits of redemption, unmolested for a thousand years. This, then, is a great and a glorious work—one that will cheer the heart of man; and there is nothing that a man can be engaged in that will at all compare with it.
Let us be faithful before the Lord our God; let us live our holy religion, and be cheered with these heavenly ideas, and with this influence that emanates from our Father and God.
Let us go on our way rejoicing; let us be faithful and true, virtuous and holy; and let us, above all things that we do upon the earth, strive with all our power and might to advance the interests of the kingdom of our God. That this may be our purpose, and that in the end of our probation we may be found worthy of the society of the sanctified and redeemed of all ages and nations, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President Heber C. Kimball
said that the feelings of his heart were—God bless the Saints, and peace be multiplied unto them; he respected and loved good men and women who were striving to do the will of heaven. He reasoned upon the subject of the vine, as spoken of in the gospel of St. John. Spoke of the necessity of the people praying that the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles might be baptized into one spirit. He quoted the text—"Resist the devil and he will flee from you," and said that he had only to add that, although the devil would flee when resisted, he would watch every faithful saint; the adversary may, and doubtless will, overcome some of this people, but that will not effect the kingdom of God—it will stand forever.
He also counseled the people to be of one heart and one mind; to do as they were told; to be united in all things for the building up of the church and kingdom of God, of which we are members. He told the saints to go to work and adorn the earth; to strive to make themselves happy and independent, both in food and raiment.
said that the feelings of his heart were—God bless the Saints, and peace be multiplied unto them; he respected and loved good men and women who were striving to do the will of heaven. He reasoned upon the subject of the vine, as spoken of in the gospel of St. John. Spoke of the necessity of the people praying that the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles might be baptized into one spirit. He quoted the text—"Resist the devil and he will flee from you," and said that he had only to add that, although the devil would flee when resisted, he would watch every faithful saint; the adversary may, and doubtless will, overcome some of this people, but that will not effect the kingdom of God—it will stand forever.
He also counseled the people to be of one heart and one mind; to do as they were told; to be united in all things for the building up of the church and kingdom of God, of which we are members. He told the saints to go to work and adorn the earth; to strive to make themselves happy and independent, both in food and raiment.
Spirit of Unity—Independence of Zion, &c
Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
I am glad to see you, and the feelings within me are God bless you, peace be multiplied upon the Saints; and those that are not Saints, may they be blessed with that which they love to that degree that they cannot stay in this land. (A voice in the stand—“And I say amen.”)
I do respect and love good men and women. It has been natural to me all the days of my life to do this; and the more of the Good Spirit that dwells in a man, the more that love of those that are good accumulates in him. I often speak by figures, and so did Jesus in his day. He said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” Again, he says, “If a man abideth not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and they are cast into the fire, and they are burned.” When a branch withers and dies, the avenues of the sap and nourishment from the root is cut off, and the branch is cut off after it ceases to live and draw nourishment from the roots.
No branch is cut off from the tree while it is bearing fruit and cleaves to the tree. We cleave to the vine by our works of righteousness, and by our works of unrighteousness we become dead and unfruitful; then it is necessary that the unfruitful branch should be taken away, and another branch that is more fruitful should be grafted in. We should all be one, like unto a tree, and receive intelligence from heaven as the tree receives its nourishment from the roots.
My prayer is from time to time, Father, baptize the Presidency into one spirit, and let them partake of the same element; and then, Father, baptize the Twelve, and the Seventies, and every officer in the Church and kingdom of God, and also every Branch connected to them, that we may all be baptized into one spirit; then we need not fear earth or hell.
Brother Wells was speaking of the extension of our settlements, that every inch of ground that is consecrated to God and the use of his Saints is redeemed from the power of Satan. That is verily true; and when the people of our settlements act like one man in all things that are revealed unto them, it will truly be so. But I presume, brethren, you will find many devils in all these places; and they will be there until they are cast into hell with all those that forget God and turn away from him. It is for us to keep them out of our own bodies. If we do that, they will not trouble us much. Resist the Devil, and the Scripture says he will flee from you; that is, he will stand back a little until he can get a better chance at some future time to make an attack upon you. That it is his business, and it is ours to avoid him and keep him far from us. Our calling is to do right, and to teach righteousness and virtue, industry and economy, that we may gain power over the world, over the flesh, and over the Devil, and over all that is combined to overthrow this work. Do you think they will overthrow it? They may overthrow many of you, but they will never overthrow this Church while the world stands. But when a man loses that Good Spirit, he looks upon this work as the world look upon it. He sees no beauty in it; he is opposed to it in his heart.
As for the condition of the nations that brother Wells has been speaking of, we shall never secede from the Constitution of the United States.
We shall not stop on the way of progress, but we shall make preparations for future events. The South will secede from the North, and the North will secede from us, and God will make this people free as fast as we are able to bear it. They send their poor miserable creatures here to rule us. Why, it would be upon the same principle that this Church and authority should send some poor curse to rule me and my family in my own house. We need good men that are capable of ruling us, and we have them in our midst. Take any man there is here, and I would rather have him come and rule me and this people than have any of those poor creatures that come here. What do they know? Nothing, only to come here and undertake to lead this people astray and pollute them. They would pollute everyone, if they had the power, or everyone that would yield to them. We have to submit to this, and to bear it with patience. But let me tell you, the yoke is now off our neck, and it is on theirs, and the bow key is in.
The day is not far distant when you will see us as free as the air we breathe, and we will be ruled by those men whom God Almighty appoints. I live above the law, and I am above them, and mean to keep so by doing right, as the Lord requires us through those who dictate and lead us.
President Young is our leader, and has been all the time since the death of Joseph Smith the Prophet. He can govern this people with his hands in his pockets, and they are not governed one whit by the men that are sent here. I want to tell it, and I want they should know I tell it. We are going to be ruled by our Father in heaven, and the agents he sends and appoints for us, from this day henceforth and forever.
Let us all go to work and cultivate the earth, beautify and adorn it with trees and shrubs and plants that never die. Let us preserve and sustain, and make ourselves independent both for clothing and for food, and also for herds and flocks; and we will be free, and our enemies will not trouble us much more. I am a witness to what the nation has done to the people of the Saints for thirty years past. They have killed some of the best men that ever lived, and the whole nation sanctioned it, thinking they had got rid of the worst men that ever were upon the earth. I know this to be true. They now look upon President Young as they looked upon Joseph Smith as one of the greatest curses that could come upon the earth. They have driven us, robbed and plundered us; and when we sought for redress, they said our cause was just, but they could do nothing for us. Let a man come into my house or into yours, and serve us as the United States have served this people, and would there not be a scrambling? We would soon decide whether the cause was just or not. I can do it in a family capacity; but Territories and States have not got as much governing power as a man ought to have in his family. I do not wish to say any more at this time. Amen.
Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
I am glad to see you, and the feelings within me are God bless you, peace be multiplied upon the Saints; and those that are not Saints, may they be blessed with that which they love to that degree that they cannot stay in this land. (A voice in the stand—“And I say amen.”)
I do respect and love good men and women. It has been natural to me all the days of my life to do this; and the more of the Good Spirit that dwells in a man, the more that love of those that are good accumulates in him. I often speak by figures, and so did Jesus in his day. He said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” Again, he says, “If a man abideth not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and they are cast into the fire, and they are burned.” When a branch withers and dies, the avenues of the sap and nourishment from the root is cut off, and the branch is cut off after it ceases to live and draw nourishment from the roots.
No branch is cut off from the tree while it is bearing fruit and cleaves to the tree. We cleave to the vine by our works of righteousness, and by our works of unrighteousness we become dead and unfruitful; then it is necessary that the unfruitful branch should be taken away, and another branch that is more fruitful should be grafted in. We should all be one, like unto a tree, and receive intelligence from heaven as the tree receives its nourishment from the roots.
My prayer is from time to time, Father, baptize the Presidency into one spirit, and let them partake of the same element; and then, Father, baptize the Twelve, and the Seventies, and every officer in the Church and kingdom of God, and also every Branch connected to them, that we may all be baptized into one spirit; then we need not fear earth or hell.
Brother Wells was speaking of the extension of our settlements, that every inch of ground that is consecrated to God and the use of his Saints is redeemed from the power of Satan. That is verily true; and when the people of our settlements act like one man in all things that are revealed unto them, it will truly be so. But I presume, brethren, you will find many devils in all these places; and they will be there until they are cast into hell with all those that forget God and turn away from him. It is for us to keep them out of our own bodies. If we do that, they will not trouble us much. Resist the Devil, and the Scripture says he will flee from you; that is, he will stand back a little until he can get a better chance at some future time to make an attack upon you. That it is his business, and it is ours to avoid him and keep him far from us. Our calling is to do right, and to teach righteousness and virtue, industry and economy, that we may gain power over the world, over the flesh, and over the Devil, and over all that is combined to overthrow this work. Do you think they will overthrow it? They may overthrow many of you, but they will never overthrow this Church while the world stands. But when a man loses that Good Spirit, he looks upon this work as the world look upon it. He sees no beauty in it; he is opposed to it in his heart.
As for the condition of the nations that brother Wells has been speaking of, we shall never secede from the Constitution of the United States.
We shall not stop on the way of progress, but we shall make preparations for future events. The South will secede from the North, and the North will secede from us, and God will make this people free as fast as we are able to bear it. They send their poor miserable creatures here to rule us. Why, it would be upon the same principle that this Church and authority should send some poor curse to rule me and my family in my own house. We need good men that are capable of ruling us, and we have them in our midst. Take any man there is here, and I would rather have him come and rule me and this people than have any of those poor creatures that come here. What do they know? Nothing, only to come here and undertake to lead this people astray and pollute them. They would pollute everyone, if they had the power, or everyone that would yield to them. We have to submit to this, and to bear it with patience. But let me tell you, the yoke is now off our neck, and it is on theirs, and the bow key is in.
The day is not far distant when you will see us as free as the air we breathe, and we will be ruled by those men whom God Almighty appoints. I live above the law, and I am above them, and mean to keep so by doing right, as the Lord requires us through those who dictate and lead us.
President Young is our leader, and has been all the time since the death of Joseph Smith the Prophet. He can govern this people with his hands in his pockets, and they are not governed one whit by the men that are sent here. I want to tell it, and I want they should know I tell it. We are going to be ruled by our Father in heaven, and the agents he sends and appoints for us, from this day henceforth and forever.
Let us all go to work and cultivate the earth, beautify and adorn it with trees and shrubs and plants that never die. Let us preserve and sustain, and make ourselves independent both for clothing and for food, and also for herds and flocks; and we will be free, and our enemies will not trouble us much more. I am a witness to what the nation has done to the people of the Saints for thirty years past. They have killed some of the best men that ever lived, and the whole nation sanctioned it, thinking they had got rid of the worst men that ever were upon the earth. I know this to be true. They now look upon President Young as they looked upon Joseph Smith as one of the greatest curses that could come upon the earth. They have driven us, robbed and plundered us; and when we sought for redress, they said our cause was just, but they could do nothing for us. Let a man come into my house or into yours, and serve us as the United States have served this people, and would there not be a scrambling? We would soon decide whether the cause was just or not. I can do it in a family capacity; but Territories and States have not got as much governing power as a man ought to have in his family. I do not wish to say any more at this time. Amen.
President Brigham Young
said he was thankful for the privilege of meeting with so many brethren and sisters in general conference. He hoped yet to see a house large enough to hold the people, but did not know that we should ever see a building capable of holding them on this side of the day of rest. We have generally had the privilege of meeting in the open air, but the state of the weather now precludes our doing so.
He observed that the Book of Mormon was translated in the immediate neighborhood where himself and Br. Kimball resided, still it was two years before they were baptized into the church. Since then the people have passed through a great deal, and have learned much of the things of God. He reasoned upon the subject of miracles, and asked—if he saw a man turn a stick into a serpent, sand into lice and water into blood, what proof such things would be that the man was sent of God; and answered that it would be no proof of that at all, for there was only one reliable kind of evidence that a man is sent by the Almighty and that is the Spirit which Jesus diffused among his disciples.
He alluded to Saul, who in his darkness and sin went to the witch of Endor for information. We can not realize more fully the blessings attendant upon our being driven to these valleys, for had we remained we should have been obliged to mingle, to some extent, in the turmoil and strife that now afflict this nation. We can see the nations of the earth gradually gliding to the borders of the precipice of eternal ruin. Said how much he had reflected upon the subject of our being called back to the centre stake of Zion, and he felt to counsel the Saints not to be too anxious for the Lord to hasten his work, but to turn their attention to the sanctifying of their own hearts, and thereby prepare themselves for the great things that await the people of God.
His counsel was, seek not to bring destruction upon the wicked, but let the Lord have his own way and his own time, and let us be diligent in preparing ourselves for those times that are coming. Let each and every one be true to their covenants, and to each other. He longed to see the time when the people would be ready to receive the counsel of God, and live by it. If the counsel of the servants of God is harsh, and is not acceptable, it is either because it is not the truth, or that we are not right before God. If the Almighty speaks from heaven, and we are not pleased, and therefore do not receive it, we are not in the enjoyment of the Spirit of truth.
He remarked that he sometimes wondered if the great men of our nation ever asked themselves the question, how can a republican government stand. There is but one way in which it can endure, and that is as the government of heaven endures upon the eternal rock of truth and virtue. Said if Martin Van Buren had ordered the State of Missouri to restore the Latter-Day Saints to their property, the nation would have been much stronger to-day than it is. Although he had no reason to doubt that President Lincoln is as good a man as ever sat in the chair of state, yet he is powerless, because of the corruptions that have been introduced and fostered by the chief men of the nation. They have put aside the innocent, justified thieving, and every species of debauchery, and have fostered every one that plundered the coffers of the people, and have said let it be so.
said he was thankful for the privilege of meeting with so many brethren and sisters in general conference. He hoped yet to see a house large enough to hold the people, but did not know that we should ever see a building capable of holding them on this side of the day of rest. We have generally had the privilege of meeting in the open air, but the state of the weather now precludes our doing so.
He observed that the Book of Mormon was translated in the immediate neighborhood where himself and Br. Kimball resided, still it was two years before they were baptized into the church. Since then the people have passed through a great deal, and have learned much of the things of God. He reasoned upon the subject of miracles, and asked—if he saw a man turn a stick into a serpent, sand into lice and water into blood, what proof such things would be that the man was sent of God; and answered that it would be no proof of that at all, for there was only one reliable kind of evidence that a man is sent by the Almighty and that is the Spirit which Jesus diffused among his disciples.
He alluded to Saul, who in his darkness and sin went to the witch of Endor for information. We can not realize more fully the blessings attendant upon our being driven to these valleys, for had we remained we should have been obliged to mingle, to some extent, in the turmoil and strife that now afflict this nation. We can see the nations of the earth gradually gliding to the borders of the precipice of eternal ruin. Said how much he had reflected upon the subject of our being called back to the centre stake of Zion, and he felt to counsel the Saints not to be too anxious for the Lord to hasten his work, but to turn their attention to the sanctifying of their own hearts, and thereby prepare themselves for the great things that await the people of God.
His counsel was, seek not to bring destruction upon the wicked, but let the Lord have his own way and his own time, and let us be diligent in preparing ourselves for those times that are coming. Let each and every one be true to their covenants, and to each other. He longed to see the time when the people would be ready to receive the counsel of God, and live by it. If the counsel of the servants of God is harsh, and is not acceptable, it is either because it is not the truth, or that we are not right before God. If the Almighty speaks from heaven, and we are not pleased, and therefore do not receive it, we are not in the enjoyment of the Spirit of truth.
He remarked that he sometimes wondered if the great men of our nation ever asked themselves the question, how can a republican government stand. There is but one way in which it can endure, and that is as the government of heaven endures upon the eternal rock of truth and virtue. Said if Martin Van Buren had ordered the State of Missouri to restore the Latter-Day Saints to their property, the nation would have been much stronger to-day than it is. Although he had no reason to doubt that President Lincoln is as good a man as ever sat in the chair of state, yet he is powerless, because of the corruptions that have been introduced and fostered by the chief men of the nation. They have put aside the innocent, justified thieving, and every species of debauchery, and have fostered every one that plundered the coffers of the people, and have said let it be so.
True Testimony—Preparation for Coming Events—Corruption of the Government, Etc.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
We have always had larger congregations on such occasions as this than we have had buildings to accommodate; and had it not been that I requested the brethren of the city to tarry at home, so as to give room to these who should come from a distance, the house would have been crowded to overflowing, and there would have been a large congregation outside. I do not know that, this side of the day of rest that we are looking for, we shall ever have a building large enough to accommodate our congregations. When we have overcome the enemy to righteousness and have a thousand years to work unmolested, I think that we then can build a room that will contain as many people as can hear the speaker's voice. We have the privilege, it is true, of assembling in the open air, where most of our Conferences have been held.
We now enjoy the anniversary of our General Conference. The Church is thirty-one years old today. It seems but a short time—but a few days, since there were only six members in this Church. It seems but a short time since I desired most fervently to see someone who was a foreigner baptized into this Church. I well remember how anxious I was that an English preacher belonging to the Independents, and with whom I was acquainted, should come into the Church, that he could go to his native land and preach the Gospel there. What were the feelings of the few, thirty-one years ago today?
Brother Kimball observed in his remarks, that he could recollect the history of this Church from its beginning, and understood the persecutions against this people. The Book of Mormon was translated near where we then resided, as we might say, in our own neighborhood. It was translated about as far from where Brother Kimball then lived as it is from here to Little Cottonwood; and where Joseph first discovered the plates was about as far from where I then lived as it is from here to Provo. Here we would have considered the discoverer of those plates and the translator of the Book of Mormon as one of our neighbors. We are in the habit here of traveling more frequently and further than we were there. From the time that Joseph had his first revelation, in the neighborhood where Brother Kimball and I then lived, appears but a few days. Since then this people have passed through, experienced, and learned a great deal.
If there is a person in the midst of the Latter-day Saints—one who has named the name of Christ as a Latter-day Saint, that can ask for any more literal testimony than we have, I do not know what he would ask. He might wish to see some person that had power to bring fire down from heaven. Should such a person appear, the exercise of that power would by no means prove that he was a messenger of salvation. Or suppose that I should see a man capable of raising the dead every hour in a day, could I merely for that believe he was sent of God? No. Some may think it strange, but should I see a man come along here and cast his cane on the floor, and it became a serpent and ran out of the door, would I anymore believe that man to be sent of God? No, I would not. Were I to see a person fill the air with living creatures, turn the dust into life, or the river Jordan into blood, do you suppose I would any more for that consider that man sent of God? Not in the least. There is but one witness—one testimony, pertaining to the evidence of the Gospel of the Son of God, and that is the Spirit that he diffused among his disciples. Do his will, and we shall know whether he speaks by the authority of the Father or of himself. Do as he commands us to do, and we shall know of the doctrine, whether it is of God or not. It is only by the revelations of the Spirit that we can know the things of God.
Suppose that we should see a man capable of raising the dead and he should say, “Consequently, I ought to be the leader of the Church—the legitimate heir that God has appointed to perform his work in the last days,” would I for that believe him? No. I have never seen the day, since I arrived at the years of discretion, when it would have made any difference in my feelings. Almost one of the first things I read in the Bible was that Saul, in his darkness and unbelief, called on the Witch of Endor for a revelation, and she had power to raise Samuel from the dead. What proof was that that she was a Saint of God? If the people want anymore witness than they have, I do not know what they would call for. Seek for the Spirit of Truth, and that will bring all things to your remembrance that Jesus spake and performed—all that has been, is, and that which is to come, so far as may be necessary. That is the Spirit by which Joseph spoke.
I am thankful that we live to see this day, and have the privilege of assembling ourselves in these valleys. We are not now mingling in the turmoils of strife, warring, and contention, that we would have been obliged to have mingled in, had not the Lord suffered us to have been driven to these mountains—one of the greatest blessings that could have been visited upon us. It has been designed for many generations to hide up the Saints in the last days until the indignation of the Almighty be over. His wrath will be poured out upon the nations of the earth. We see the nations steadily driving along to the precipice. The Lord has spoken from the heavens, and he is about to fulfil the prophecies of his ancient and modern Prophets. He will bring the nations into judgment, and deal with them and make a full end of them. Do you wish to see it done today? Are you prepared for the crisis that will eventually come? No.
I have frequently thought upon the preparation that is necessary. Suppose the word should come, “Return and build up the Center Stake of Zion,” are we ready for it? No. I have often alluded to our mechanics. We have not a mechanic that would know how to lay the first stone for the foundation of the wall around the New Jerusalem, to say nothing about the temples of our God. Are you prepared for the day of vengeance to come, when the Lord will consume the wicked by the brightness of his coming? No. Then do not be too anxious for the Lord to hasten his work. Let our anxiety be centered upon this one thing, the sanctification of our own hearts, the purifying of our own affections, the preparing of ourselves for the approach of the events that are hastening upon us. This should be our concern, this should be our study, this should be our daily prayer, and not to be in a hurry to see the overthrow of the wicked. Be careful; for if they were all to be overthrown at once, how many would there be left that are called Saints? Not as many as I would have remain. We are prepared for the day that is approaching: let us then prepare ourselves for the presence of our Master—for the coming of the Son of Man. The wicked and the ungodly are preparing for their own utter overthrow, and the nation in which we live is doing so as fast as the wheels of time can roll, and ere long sudden destruction will come upon them. Seek not to hasten it, but be satisfied to let the Lord have his own time and way, and be patient. Seek to have the Spirit of Christ, that we may wait patiently the time of the Lord, and prepare ourselves for the times that are coming. This is our duty.
We are blessed in these mountains.
This is the best place on the earth for the Latter-day Saints. Search the history of all the nations, and every geographical position on the face of the earth, and you cannot find another situation so well adapted for the Saints as are these mountains. Here is the place in which the Lord designed to hide his people. Be thankful for it; be true to your covenants; be faithful, each and every one. How frequently we hear from each other, “Be ready to receive the truth. If it is contrary to our feelings—let it be ever so opposite to our own feelings or affections—receive the words of counsel from those who are appointed to lead us.” How my heart longs to see the brethren and sisters in a condition that when the words of truth and virtue—righteous words of counsel—are poured upon them, they will meet like drops of water meeting each other. How I long to see the brethren, when they hear the words of truth poured upon them, ready to receive those words because they are perfectly congenial to their feelings, and every soul exclaim, “Those words savor of the Spirit that is in me; they are my delight, my meat, and my drink; they are the streams of eternal life. How congenial they are, instead of their being contrary to my feelings.”
If I or any other man give counsel that meets with opposition, that intrudes upon the affections, meditations, and feelings of the people, and is harsh to their ears, bitter to their souls, it is either not the words of truth, or they have not the fountain of life within them, one of the two. If the Lord speaks from the heavens, reveals his will, and it comes in contact with our feelings and notions of things, or with our judgments, we are destitute of that fountain of truth which we should possess. If our hearts are filled with the Spirit of truth, with the Spirit of the Lord, no matter what the true words from heaven are, when God speaks, all his subjects shout “Hallelujah! Praise God! We are ready to receive those words, for they are true.”
Much has been said in regard to the Government in which we live. We say that it is the best form of human government upon the earth. The laws and institutions are good, but how can a republican government stand? Did you ever ask yourselves this question? I wonder whether our great men of the nation have ever asked themselves this question. The heads of different departments—governors, judges, cabinet officers, senators, representatives, presidents—I wonder whether they ever ask themselves the question, “How can a republican government stand?” There is only one way for it to stand. It can endure; but how? It can endure, as the government of heaven endures, upon the eternal rock of truth and virtue; and that is the only basis upon which any government can endure. Let the people become corrupt, let them begin to deceive each other, and they will all deceive themselves, as our Government has. When we made application to the General Government for a restoration of our property and rights in Missouri, if Martin Van Buren had said, “Yes, I will restore your lands to you, and will defend you in the possession of your rights, if I have power; and if I have not, my name shall not remain as President of the United States,” he could have reinstated us in our rights. A few words from the General Government to the Government of Missouri would have restored to us our lands and stayed the operations of the mob. If Van Buren had said, “Be still, or I will chasten you and keep sacred the oath of my office,” we should not have been mobbed, and the nation would not have been as it is today.
Our present President, what is his strength? It is like a rope of sand, or like a rope made of water. He is as weak as water. What can he do? Very little. Has he power to execute the laws? No. I am an American-born citizen—born under the Green Mountains in Vermont, from whose summits you can look down upon the Atlantic States; and I feel chagrined and mortified when I reflect upon the condition of my nation. Of late, at times, I have almost wished that I had been born in a foreign nation. I feel disgraced in having been born under a government that has so little power, disposition, and influence for truth and right; but I cannot help it. What is the cause of their weakness and imbecility? They have left the paths of truth and virtue, they have joined themselves to falsehood, they have made lies their refuge, they have turned aside the innocent from their rights, and justified the iniquitous doers. They have justified thieving and lying and every species of debauchery; they have fostered those who have purloined money out of the public treasury—those who have plundered the coffers of the people, and have said, “Let it be so; you secrete my faults, you assist me to plunder and deceive, and I am with you to cover up your iniquity.” Shame, shame on the rulers of the nation! I feel myself disgraced to hail such men as my countrymen, though I think I shall live through it. I will endure it as well as I can; but the corruption, the iniquity, and the deception of men in high places no man can tell.
I have previously related one little circumstance, which occurred not long ago, illustrative of the mode in which payment of claims against the Government is sometimes secured. A certain gentleman had attended many sessions of Congress, trying to get payment of a claim due to widows and orphans; but could not. In a short time, the claim was adjusted. Brother George A. Smith, when in Washington, saw a gentleman who had been years in endeavoring to get a claim allowed and paid; one thousand dollars more to grease the wheels, and through it went—the claim was paid. We have long been trying to get our claims paid for expenditures in quelling Indian disturbances in 1853. When the appropriation had reached the last move to be made, it could not go. “What is the matter?” “Somebody is throwing sand on the axletree, and the wheel is stuck.” “What must be done?” “Thirteen hundred dollars must grease it.” It then moved through—the appropriation was made. It is so all the time—every day. These instances are comparatively of little moment, and I merely allude to them to show how minutely corruption prevails where justice should exist.
These corruptions flow very naturally from the indebtedness contracted to attain power. In elections, the successful become indebted to their friends; and they promise them the patronage of the President, that they shall be sent as a minister to such or such a country, or be appointed a judge here or there, or a governor yonder. They cannot obtain their election without paying largely for it, both in promises and money; and to recover the means, they must either become thieves or repudiate their debts. “Such a one owes me so much for contributing to his election, and he will not pay me.” It often happens that he cannot, unless he steals it.
The whole Government is gone; it is as weak as water. I heard Joseph Smith say, nearly thirty years ago, “They shall have mobbing to their heart's content, if they do not redress the wrongs of the Latter-day Saints.” Mobs will not decrease, but will increase until the whole Government becomes a mob, and eventually it will be State against State, city against city, neighborhood against neighborhood, Methodists against Methodists, and so on. Probably you remember reading, not a week ago, an account of a Conference being held in Baltimore, in the course of which they seceded from their fellow churches in the free States. It will be the same with other denominations of professing Christians, and it will be Christian against Christian, and man against man; and those who will not take up the sword against their neighbors must flee to Zion.
Where is Zion? Let us be prepared to receive the honorable men of the earth—those who are good. Are there any good people among them? Yes, hundreds and thousands and thousands right in our Government, rotten as it is; but they are so priest-ridden that they have no mind of their own—they have not strength and fortitude. And I ask you, and I can appeal to your own experience, place any of us back in the midst of our old neighbors, would it not be hard to break out and say, “We are Latter-day Saints and followers of Joseph Smith; we believe ‘Mormonism:’ good bye?” There are hundreds and thousands in this situation in the States, who desire to see truth, righteousness, and right prevail; but they have not strength and power of mind to break loose and say, “We will be for God and none else.” They follow the customs of their fathers, and more or less cling to the faith and religion of their fathers. They are bound down with priestcraft. I look forward to the days when their bands will be broken. I pray this people to do right. Purify yourselves, sanctify yourselves, and prepare to receive those persons into everlasting habitations.
It is time to close our forenoon meeting. This afternoon, probably, we will take up the business of the Conference, and continue our meeting; and when we are through and wish to adjourn, we will do so. We all feel like praying for the prosperity of the kingdom. The whole body is continually seeking the welfare of each individual part. The eye wishes the foot well, the foot wishes the head well, and will walk to get food for the head and stomach, and they are united, and we shall become more and more united. And I pray that the Lord will pour out his grace on his sons and daughters, and I pray the Saints to improve upon it until we are sanctified. God bless you! Amen.
Choir sung, "Arise O glorious Zion."
Benediction by Pres. John Young.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
We have always had larger congregations on such occasions as this than we have had buildings to accommodate; and had it not been that I requested the brethren of the city to tarry at home, so as to give room to these who should come from a distance, the house would have been crowded to overflowing, and there would have been a large congregation outside. I do not know that, this side of the day of rest that we are looking for, we shall ever have a building large enough to accommodate our congregations. When we have overcome the enemy to righteousness and have a thousand years to work unmolested, I think that we then can build a room that will contain as many people as can hear the speaker's voice. We have the privilege, it is true, of assembling in the open air, where most of our Conferences have been held.
We now enjoy the anniversary of our General Conference. The Church is thirty-one years old today. It seems but a short time—but a few days, since there were only six members in this Church. It seems but a short time since I desired most fervently to see someone who was a foreigner baptized into this Church. I well remember how anxious I was that an English preacher belonging to the Independents, and with whom I was acquainted, should come into the Church, that he could go to his native land and preach the Gospel there. What were the feelings of the few, thirty-one years ago today?
Brother Kimball observed in his remarks, that he could recollect the history of this Church from its beginning, and understood the persecutions against this people. The Book of Mormon was translated near where we then resided, as we might say, in our own neighborhood. It was translated about as far from where Brother Kimball then lived as it is from here to Little Cottonwood; and where Joseph first discovered the plates was about as far from where I then lived as it is from here to Provo. Here we would have considered the discoverer of those plates and the translator of the Book of Mormon as one of our neighbors. We are in the habit here of traveling more frequently and further than we were there. From the time that Joseph had his first revelation, in the neighborhood where Brother Kimball and I then lived, appears but a few days. Since then this people have passed through, experienced, and learned a great deal.
If there is a person in the midst of the Latter-day Saints—one who has named the name of Christ as a Latter-day Saint, that can ask for any more literal testimony than we have, I do not know what he would ask. He might wish to see some person that had power to bring fire down from heaven. Should such a person appear, the exercise of that power would by no means prove that he was a messenger of salvation. Or suppose that I should see a man capable of raising the dead every hour in a day, could I merely for that believe he was sent of God? No. Some may think it strange, but should I see a man come along here and cast his cane on the floor, and it became a serpent and ran out of the door, would I anymore believe that man to be sent of God? No, I would not. Were I to see a person fill the air with living creatures, turn the dust into life, or the river Jordan into blood, do you suppose I would any more for that consider that man sent of God? Not in the least. There is but one witness—one testimony, pertaining to the evidence of the Gospel of the Son of God, and that is the Spirit that he diffused among his disciples. Do his will, and we shall know whether he speaks by the authority of the Father or of himself. Do as he commands us to do, and we shall know of the doctrine, whether it is of God or not. It is only by the revelations of the Spirit that we can know the things of God.
Suppose that we should see a man capable of raising the dead and he should say, “Consequently, I ought to be the leader of the Church—the legitimate heir that God has appointed to perform his work in the last days,” would I for that believe him? No. I have never seen the day, since I arrived at the years of discretion, when it would have made any difference in my feelings. Almost one of the first things I read in the Bible was that Saul, in his darkness and unbelief, called on the Witch of Endor for a revelation, and she had power to raise Samuel from the dead. What proof was that that she was a Saint of God? If the people want anymore witness than they have, I do not know what they would call for. Seek for the Spirit of Truth, and that will bring all things to your remembrance that Jesus spake and performed—all that has been, is, and that which is to come, so far as may be necessary. That is the Spirit by which Joseph spoke.
I am thankful that we live to see this day, and have the privilege of assembling ourselves in these valleys. We are not now mingling in the turmoils of strife, warring, and contention, that we would have been obliged to have mingled in, had not the Lord suffered us to have been driven to these mountains—one of the greatest blessings that could have been visited upon us. It has been designed for many generations to hide up the Saints in the last days until the indignation of the Almighty be over. His wrath will be poured out upon the nations of the earth. We see the nations steadily driving along to the precipice. The Lord has spoken from the heavens, and he is about to fulfil the prophecies of his ancient and modern Prophets. He will bring the nations into judgment, and deal with them and make a full end of them. Do you wish to see it done today? Are you prepared for the crisis that will eventually come? No.
I have frequently thought upon the preparation that is necessary. Suppose the word should come, “Return and build up the Center Stake of Zion,” are we ready for it? No. I have often alluded to our mechanics. We have not a mechanic that would know how to lay the first stone for the foundation of the wall around the New Jerusalem, to say nothing about the temples of our God. Are you prepared for the day of vengeance to come, when the Lord will consume the wicked by the brightness of his coming? No. Then do not be too anxious for the Lord to hasten his work. Let our anxiety be centered upon this one thing, the sanctification of our own hearts, the purifying of our own affections, the preparing of ourselves for the approach of the events that are hastening upon us. This should be our concern, this should be our study, this should be our daily prayer, and not to be in a hurry to see the overthrow of the wicked. Be careful; for if they were all to be overthrown at once, how many would there be left that are called Saints? Not as many as I would have remain. We are prepared for the day that is approaching: let us then prepare ourselves for the presence of our Master—for the coming of the Son of Man. The wicked and the ungodly are preparing for their own utter overthrow, and the nation in which we live is doing so as fast as the wheels of time can roll, and ere long sudden destruction will come upon them. Seek not to hasten it, but be satisfied to let the Lord have his own time and way, and be patient. Seek to have the Spirit of Christ, that we may wait patiently the time of the Lord, and prepare ourselves for the times that are coming. This is our duty.
We are blessed in these mountains.
This is the best place on the earth for the Latter-day Saints. Search the history of all the nations, and every geographical position on the face of the earth, and you cannot find another situation so well adapted for the Saints as are these mountains. Here is the place in which the Lord designed to hide his people. Be thankful for it; be true to your covenants; be faithful, each and every one. How frequently we hear from each other, “Be ready to receive the truth. If it is contrary to our feelings—let it be ever so opposite to our own feelings or affections—receive the words of counsel from those who are appointed to lead us.” How my heart longs to see the brethren and sisters in a condition that when the words of truth and virtue—righteous words of counsel—are poured upon them, they will meet like drops of water meeting each other. How I long to see the brethren, when they hear the words of truth poured upon them, ready to receive those words because they are perfectly congenial to their feelings, and every soul exclaim, “Those words savor of the Spirit that is in me; they are my delight, my meat, and my drink; they are the streams of eternal life. How congenial they are, instead of their being contrary to my feelings.”
If I or any other man give counsel that meets with opposition, that intrudes upon the affections, meditations, and feelings of the people, and is harsh to their ears, bitter to their souls, it is either not the words of truth, or they have not the fountain of life within them, one of the two. If the Lord speaks from the heavens, reveals his will, and it comes in contact with our feelings and notions of things, or with our judgments, we are destitute of that fountain of truth which we should possess. If our hearts are filled with the Spirit of truth, with the Spirit of the Lord, no matter what the true words from heaven are, when God speaks, all his subjects shout “Hallelujah! Praise God! We are ready to receive those words, for they are true.”
Much has been said in regard to the Government in which we live. We say that it is the best form of human government upon the earth. The laws and institutions are good, but how can a republican government stand? Did you ever ask yourselves this question? I wonder whether our great men of the nation have ever asked themselves this question. The heads of different departments—governors, judges, cabinet officers, senators, representatives, presidents—I wonder whether they ever ask themselves the question, “How can a republican government stand?” There is only one way for it to stand. It can endure; but how? It can endure, as the government of heaven endures, upon the eternal rock of truth and virtue; and that is the only basis upon which any government can endure. Let the people become corrupt, let them begin to deceive each other, and they will all deceive themselves, as our Government has. When we made application to the General Government for a restoration of our property and rights in Missouri, if Martin Van Buren had said, “Yes, I will restore your lands to you, and will defend you in the possession of your rights, if I have power; and if I have not, my name shall not remain as President of the United States,” he could have reinstated us in our rights. A few words from the General Government to the Government of Missouri would have restored to us our lands and stayed the operations of the mob. If Van Buren had said, “Be still, or I will chasten you and keep sacred the oath of my office,” we should not have been mobbed, and the nation would not have been as it is today.
Our present President, what is his strength? It is like a rope of sand, or like a rope made of water. He is as weak as water. What can he do? Very little. Has he power to execute the laws? No. I am an American-born citizen—born under the Green Mountains in Vermont, from whose summits you can look down upon the Atlantic States; and I feel chagrined and mortified when I reflect upon the condition of my nation. Of late, at times, I have almost wished that I had been born in a foreign nation. I feel disgraced in having been born under a government that has so little power, disposition, and influence for truth and right; but I cannot help it. What is the cause of their weakness and imbecility? They have left the paths of truth and virtue, they have joined themselves to falsehood, they have made lies their refuge, they have turned aside the innocent from their rights, and justified the iniquitous doers. They have justified thieving and lying and every species of debauchery; they have fostered those who have purloined money out of the public treasury—those who have plundered the coffers of the people, and have said, “Let it be so; you secrete my faults, you assist me to plunder and deceive, and I am with you to cover up your iniquity.” Shame, shame on the rulers of the nation! I feel myself disgraced to hail such men as my countrymen, though I think I shall live through it. I will endure it as well as I can; but the corruption, the iniquity, and the deception of men in high places no man can tell.
I have previously related one little circumstance, which occurred not long ago, illustrative of the mode in which payment of claims against the Government is sometimes secured. A certain gentleman had attended many sessions of Congress, trying to get payment of a claim due to widows and orphans; but could not. In a short time, the claim was adjusted. Brother George A. Smith, when in Washington, saw a gentleman who had been years in endeavoring to get a claim allowed and paid; one thousand dollars more to grease the wheels, and through it went—the claim was paid. We have long been trying to get our claims paid for expenditures in quelling Indian disturbances in 1853. When the appropriation had reached the last move to be made, it could not go. “What is the matter?” “Somebody is throwing sand on the axletree, and the wheel is stuck.” “What must be done?” “Thirteen hundred dollars must grease it.” It then moved through—the appropriation was made. It is so all the time—every day. These instances are comparatively of little moment, and I merely allude to them to show how minutely corruption prevails where justice should exist.
These corruptions flow very naturally from the indebtedness contracted to attain power. In elections, the successful become indebted to their friends; and they promise them the patronage of the President, that they shall be sent as a minister to such or such a country, or be appointed a judge here or there, or a governor yonder. They cannot obtain their election without paying largely for it, both in promises and money; and to recover the means, they must either become thieves or repudiate their debts. “Such a one owes me so much for contributing to his election, and he will not pay me.” It often happens that he cannot, unless he steals it.
The whole Government is gone; it is as weak as water. I heard Joseph Smith say, nearly thirty years ago, “They shall have mobbing to their heart's content, if they do not redress the wrongs of the Latter-day Saints.” Mobs will not decrease, but will increase until the whole Government becomes a mob, and eventually it will be State against State, city against city, neighborhood against neighborhood, Methodists against Methodists, and so on. Probably you remember reading, not a week ago, an account of a Conference being held in Baltimore, in the course of which they seceded from their fellow churches in the free States. It will be the same with other denominations of professing Christians, and it will be Christian against Christian, and man against man; and those who will not take up the sword against their neighbors must flee to Zion.
Where is Zion? Let us be prepared to receive the honorable men of the earth—those who are good. Are there any good people among them? Yes, hundreds and thousands and thousands right in our Government, rotten as it is; but they are so priest-ridden that they have no mind of their own—they have not strength and fortitude. And I ask you, and I can appeal to your own experience, place any of us back in the midst of our old neighbors, would it not be hard to break out and say, “We are Latter-day Saints and followers of Joseph Smith; we believe ‘Mormonism:’ good bye?” There are hundreds and thousands in this situation in the States, who desire to see truth, righteousness, and right prevail; but they have not strength and power of mind to break loose and say, “We will be for God and none else.” They follow the customs of their fathers, and more or less cling to the faith and religion of their fathers. They are bound down with priestcraft. I look forward to the days when their bands will be broken. I pray this people to do right. Purify yourselves, sanctify yourselves, and prepare to receive those persons into everlasting habitations.
It is time to close our forenoon meeting. This afternoon, probably, we will take up the business of the Conference, and continue our meeting; and when we are through and wish to adjourn, we will do so. We all feel like praying for the prosperity of the kingdom. The whole body is continually seeking the welfare of each individual part. The eye wishes the foot well, the foot wishes the head well, and will walk to get food for the head and stomach, and they are united, and we shall become more and more united. And I pray that the Lord will pour out his grace on his sons and daughters, and I pray the Saints to improve upon it until we are sanctified. God bless you! Amen.
Choir sung, "Arise O glorious Zion."
Benediction by Pres. John Young.
2 p.m.
The meeting commenced by the choir singing "Great God attend while Zion sings."
Prayer was offered by Bishop Lorenzo D. Young.
Choir sung another hymn.
The meeting commenced by the choir singing "Great God attend while Zion sings."
Prayer was offered by Bishop Lorenzo D. Young.
Choir sung another hymn.
President Young
requested the attention of the congregation till the several quorums of the Church were presented for their sanction and approval.
Elder John Taylor
then presented the authorities of the Church as follows:--
Brigham Young, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Heber C. Kimball, his first, and Daniel H. Wells, his second counselors;
Orson Hyde, as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Orson Pratt, Sen., Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Amasa Lyman, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards and George Q. Cannon, as members of said Quorum;
John Smith, Patriarch of the whole Church;
Daniel Spencer, as President of this Stake of Zion, and David Fullmer and George B. Wallace, his counselors;
William Eddington, James A. Little, John V. Long, John L. Blythe, George Nebeker, John T. Caine, Joseph W. Young, Gilbert Clements, Brigham Young, Jun., Franklin B. Woolley, Orson Pratt, Jun., and Howard Spencer, as members of the High Council;
John Young, as President of the High Priests' Quorum, Edwin D. Woolley, and Samuel W. Richards, his counselors;
Joseph Young President of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies, and Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge and Jacob Gates, as members of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies;
requested the attention of the congregation till the several quorums of the Church were presented for their sanction and approval.
Elder John Taylor
then presented the authorities of the Church as follows:--
Brigham Young, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Heber C. Kimball, his first, and Daniel H. Wells, his second counselors;
Orson Hyde, as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Orson Pratt, Sen., Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Amasa Lyman, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards and George Q. Cannon, as members of said Quorum;
John Smith, Patriarch of the whole Church;
Daniel Spencer, as President of this Stake of Zion, and David Fullmer and George B. Wallace, his counselors;
William Eddington, James A. Little, John V. Long, John L. Blythe, George Nebeker, John T. Caine, Joseph W. Young, Gilbert Clements, Brigham Young, Jun., Franklin B. Woolley, Orson Pratt, Jun., and Howard Spencer, as members of the High Council;
John Young, as President of the High Priests' Quorum, Edwin D. Woolley, and Samuel W. Richards, his counselors;
Joseph Young President of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies, and Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge and Jacob Gates, as members of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies;
President Brigham Young
arose and gave the following instruction:
We will readily perceive that the Quorums of the Seventies are somewhat different from other Quorums in the Church. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is one Quorum, they are the apostles to all the world. The High Priests' Quorum is strictly but one quorum, though many quorums of High Priests are made to accommodate members of that quorum living in different localities. The Seventies are definitely multiplied by Seventies. The first Seventy was called in the winter of 1835, the winter after we returned from Missouri. What is called Zion's camp went to Missouri in 1834. The next following winter the Twelve Apostles were chosen. The Prophet Joseph also then began to organize quorums of Seventies. He organized one quorum, then he told the brethren to call up other Elders and ordain them into the Seventies, forming another Quorum of Seventies, and then another, and then a fourth quorum, and a fifth, and a sixth, etc. How many quorums are there now, Brother Joseph? [Brother Joseph, "62."] There are now sixty-two Quorums of Seventies.
The first Quorum of Seventies, where are they? Seven of them are here as First Presidents of the Seventies, and sixty-three of them now stand at the head of different quorums of Seventies. Sixty-three of them have been made presidents over quorums. It works very differently to what it does in other quorums in the Church. That leaves the first seven men, apparently isolated, over the body of the first Seventy. The quorum they were called to preside over have been taken and made presidents of other quorums, consequently there are only seven men now belonging to the first Quorum. Do we say that is a fact? No, only apparently, for, when the seven presidents over the first Quorum wish to call their quorum together (they meet in quorum meetings such as you attend frequently in the Seventies' Hall,) they call the presidents of the various quorums together, and that is virtually their quorum. There are now seven presidents to transact business, to guide, dictate, and direct the presidents of all the Seventies, and to call and ordain other quorums of Seventies. This virtually makes them the presidents of all the Seventies. What is their true position in the kingdom of God? They are the first seven presidents of all the Seventies.
Bro. Joseph is the senior president over the first seven presidents of the Seventies. Bro. Orson Hyde is the senior man now in the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, of those first chosen into that quorum. This calls him, by his age, to be the president of that quorum. Now, I will go a step further for your consideration. The oldest man—the senior member of the first Quorum will preside, each in his turn, until every one of them has passed away. The next quorum that comes into action may take the senior man for a president, but not until the first Quorum is gone. Bro. Orson Hyde and Br. Orson Pratt, Sen., are the only two that are now left in the Quorum of the Twelve that Br. Joseph Smith selected. Perhaps there are a great many here who never thought of these ideas, and never heard anything said about them.
I will remark a little further. When Br. Lyman Wight was ordained into the Quorum of the Twelve he was an older man than I, and yet I was the President of the Twelve. He and others believed that he ought to be the president, but you can read the revelation in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. The Lord said to Joseph, I have given to you my servant Brigham to be the President of the Twelve. Lyman could not be the President of the Twelve. This will explain all that is now necessary on this point.
To return to the Seventies. The first seven are now presented. They are a body of men presiding over all the Seventies, and they are all presidents; but in all organized quorums in the kingdom of God there must be a head, or a presiding officer, as well in the first Quorum of Seventies as in others, as you can read in the revelations.
arose and gave the following instruction:
We will readily perceive that the Quorums of the Seventies are somewhat different from other Quorums in the Church. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is one Quorum, they are the apostles to all the world. The High Priests' Quorum is strictly but one quorum, though many quorums of High Priests are made to accommodate members of that quorum living in different localities. The Seventies are definitely multiplied by Seventies. The first Seventy was called in the winter of 1835, the winter after we returned from Missouri. What is called Zion's camp went to Missouri in 1834. The next following winter the Twelve Apostles were chosen. The Prophet Joseph also then began to organize quorums of Seventies. He organized one quorum, then he told the brethren to call up other Elders and ordain them into the Seventies, forming another Quorum of Seventies, and then another, and then a fourth quorum, and a fifth, and a sixth, etc. How many quorums are there now, Brother Joseph? [Brother Joseph, "62."] There are now sixty-two Quorums of Seventies.
The first Quorum of Seventies, where are they? Seven of them are here as First Presidents of the Seventies, and sixty-three of them now stand at the head of different quorums of Seventies. Sixty-three of them have been made presidents over quorums. It works very differently to what it does in other quorums in the Church. That leaves the first seven men, apparently isolated, over the body of the first Seventy. The quorum they were called to preside over have been taken and made presidents of other quorums, consequently there are only seven men now belonging to the first Quorum. Do we say that is a fact? No, only apparently, for, when the seven presidents over the first Quorum wish to call their quorum together (they meet in quorum meetings such as you attend frequently in the Seventies' Hall,) they call the presidents of the various quorums together, and that is virtually their quorum. There are now seven presidents to transact business, to guide, dictate, and direct the presidents of all the Seventies, and to call and ordain other quorums of Seventies. This virtually makes them the presidents of all the Seventies. What is their true position in the kingdom of God? They are the first seven presidents of all the Seventies.
Bro. Joseph is the senior president over the first seven presidents of the Seventies. Bro. Orson Hyde is the senior man now in the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, of those first chosen into that quorum. This calls him, by his age, to be the president of that quorum. Now, I will go a step further for your consideration. The oldest man—the senior member of the first Quorum will preside, each in his turn, until every one of them has passed away. The next quorum that comes into action may take the senior man for a president, but not until the first Quorum is gone. Bro. Orson Hyde and Br. Orson Pratt, Sen., are the only two that are now left in the Quorum of the Twelve that Br. Joseph Smith selected. Perhaps there are a great many here who never thought of these ideas, and never heard anything said about them.
I will remark a little further. When Br. Lyman Wight was ordained into the Quorum of the Twelve he was an older man than I, and yet I was the President of the Twelve. He and others believed that he ought to be the president, but you can read the revelation in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. The Lord said to Joseph, I have given to you my servant Brigham to be the President of the Twelve. Lyman could not be the President of the Twelve. This will explain all that is now necessary on this point.
To return to the Seventies. The first seven are now presented. They are a body of men presiding over all the Seventies, and they are all presidents; but in all organized quorums in the kingdom of God there must be a head, or a presiding officer, as well in the first Quorum of Seventies as in others, as you can read in the revelations.
Elder Taylor
then resumed presenting the authorities as follows:
John Nebeker, as President of the Elders' Quorum, and Elnathan Eldredge and Joseph Felt, his counselors;
Edward Hunter, as Presiding Bishop; Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little, his counselors:
Lewis Wight, as President of the Priests' Quorum; William Whiting and Samuel Moore, his counselors;
McGee Harris, as President of the Teachers' Quorum; Adam Speirs and David Bowman, his counselors;
John S. Carpenter, as President of the Deacons' Quorum; William F. Cook and Warren Hardy, his counselors.
Brigham Young was presented as Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints;
Daniel H. Wells, as Superintendent of Public Works;
Truman O. Angell, Architect for the Church;
Brigham Young, President of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund to gather the poor;
Heber C. Kimball, Daniel H. Wells and Edward Hunter, his assistants and agents for said fund;
George A. Smith, Historian and general Church Recorder, and Wilford Woodruff his assistant.
The foregoing quorums and authorities were all voted for separately, and each and all were unanimously sustained by the conference.
then resumed presenting the authorities as follows:
John Nebeker, as President of the Elders' Quorum, and Elnathan Eldredge and Joseph Felt, his counselors;
Edward Hunter, as Presiding Bishop; Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little, his counselors:
Lewis Wight, as President of the Priests' Quorum; William Whiting and Samuel Moore, his counselors;
McGee Harris, as President of the Teachers' Quorum; Adam Speirs and David Bowman, his counselors;
John S. Carpenter, as President of the Deacons' Quorum; William F. Cook and Warren Hardy, his counselors.
Brigham Young was presented as Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints;
Daniel H. Wells, as Superintendent of Public Works;
Truman O. Angell, Architect for the Church;
Brigham Young, President of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund to gather the poor;
Heber C. Kimball, Daniel H. Wells and Edward Hunter, his assistants and agents for said fund;
George A. Smith, Historian and general Church Recorder, and Wilford Woodruff his assistant.
The foregoing quorums and authorities were all voted for separately, and each and all were unanimously sustained by the conference.
Elder John Taylor
made some pertinent remarks on the principle of union among the Latter Day Saints. He said there was a little difference between the Church of Jesus Christ in its actions and the democrats of this nation: the saints are united, but they are divided against themselves. Where all the people are seeking to do right, that makes one of the best governments in the world. He gave it as his opinion that there are no people under the heavens capable of governing themselves, and no man is able to govern the human family aright without the wisdom that comes from God. He recommended secret prayer, especially to the stubborn and self-willed; said that by that means they would gain the favor of the Almighty, and be able to act as sons of the Most High. He thought that the following poetic sentiment would apply to many who were fond of talking about their dignity and their rights:
"Were half our time in reasoning spent,
To heaven in supplication sent,
Our cheerful songs would oftener be,
On what the Lord has done for me."
made some pertinent remarks on the principle of union among the Latter Day Saints. He said there was a little difference between the Church of Jesus Christ in its actions and the democrats of this nation: the saints are united, but they are divided against themselves. Where all the people are seeking to do right, that makes one of the best governments in the world. He gave it as his opinion that there are no people under the heavens capable of governing themselves, and no man is able to govern the human family aright without the wisdom that comes from God. He recommended secret prayer, especially to the stubborn and self-willed; said that by that means they would gain the favor of the Almighty, and be able to act as sons of the Most High. He thought that the following poetic sentiment would apply to many who were fond of talking about their dignity and their rights:
"Were half our time in reasoning spent,
To heaven in supplication sent,
Our cheerful songs would oftener be,
On what the Lord has done for me."
Union—Human and Divine Government, Etc.
Remarks by Elder John Taylor, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by J. V. Long.
We have got through presenting the various Quorums comprising the authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has seemed to be a little difficult to get some of the names right, and also to get them in their proper places; but we have now got them straight, and I believe there has been a unanimous feeling to sustain all those officers presented in their respective positions.
The question very naturally occurs to me, Would there be the same unanimity of feeling in sustaining the same number of officers anywhere else in the world? I do not think there would. In fact, I know there would not. There is a principle of union with us: at least, in outside show we are united; and in our actions, to a certain extent, far more so than any other people; for other communities cannot even be persuaded to vote alike. If there are those among us that feel a little crossways, thinking that some other way might be better; yet there is so much of the feeling to the contrary that the opposition is readily brought to acquiesce in the popular vote, whether they really feel so or not; but they generally feel like it. But still there is a lesson that we have been learning that none of us are perfect in. Our judgment is not perfect; and as we are not perfect in our sphere, we need not expect to find others perfect in theirs; and as we are not perfect ourselves, we may have need to come to the throne of mercy and ask for wisdom and support, and we can come to the Lord with faith and full assurance. If we have need to come to the Lord, so have you. Be careful, then, how you judge. We can say to all, With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure, ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
In regard to our criticism on the acts of public men, whatever we may feel in regard to their acts, it is best to let it be laid aside for the general good of all; or, in other words, we do not think, or should not think, we are the smartest men in the world. It appears natural to us to think that we are as competent to judge as anybody else, and yet we think that those who dictate matters ought to have the Spirit of the Lord to guide them, and consequently yield our judgment to theirs, and we strive to carry out the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our actions. We do it to a great extent, but not so fully as we might do. It is all voluntary on the part of the people; but generally, out of respect to the superior intelligence of those that are associated with the dictation of affairs, we act with them. Although we may feel an uncertainty in regard to the views of some, yet with those feelings we act in unison to a certain extent, and we yield to the judgment of the majority, and to that of those whose right it is to nominate and dictate in the kingdom of God.
So far, then, as we have made progress in those things, so far have we advanced in the knowledge of the Gospel of Christ, and so far have we become strong and powerful as a people upon the earth.
There is a little difference between our principles, or, I should say, the principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and what are called democratic principles. Democracy governs by the people alone; and, as was stated this morning, where the people are pure and living under the influence of correct principles, and are seeking to do right, it is one of the best governments on the earth. But where the people are wicked and corrupt, that alters the case very materially. It is not with us as it is with democracy. We do not believe that any people are capable of governing themselves. There is no need of entering into an argument upon the matter before this congregation; but it is my opinion that there are no people under the heavens that now exist, nor are there any that ever did exist, that are capable of governing themselves.
There have been a variety of governments on the earth, and very powerful ones too have existed in different ages of the world. Those governments have generally been established and maintained by force of arms—by power. Thus many submit to the few, and the majority have had very little to say in the matter. We have generally been in the habit of supposing that our republican institutions are the most perfect of anything that can exist among men—the ne plus ultra of human government; and hence we have had a very favorite motto ready always upon our tongue's end--Vox populi, vox Dei. I do not believe that the voice of the people is the voice of God, but would ask, Is it the Northern or Southern States that are governed by the Almighty? We have one of the best human Governments upon the earth governed by the voice of the people, and yet we are divided, torn asunder, and confused, and appear to be on the eve of having two governments, and both republican in their form; but which of them is governed by God?
Neither of them have anything to do with the Lord. They are not under his guidance or direction, and without his dictation it is impossible to govern correctly. The principles of human government, as now practiced, are wrong; for what man knows the things of God? What human wisdom can dictate to the inhabitants of a world? Human governments have always been fluctuating and changeable. They have their rise, their progress, and fall, and have always contained within themselves the elements of their own destruction. The proper mode of government is this—God first speaks, and then the people have their action. It is for them to say whether they will have his dictation or not. They are free: they are independent under God. The government of God is not a species of priestcraft, after the order of the Church of Rome, where one man dictates and everybody obeys without having a voice in it. We have our voice and agency, and act with the most perfect freedom; still we believe there is a correct order—some wisdom and knowledge somewhere that is superior to ours: that wisdom and knowledge proceeds from God through the medium of the holy Priesthood. We believe that no man or set of men, of their own wisdom and by their own talents, are capable of governing the human family aright.
These are our opinions. We believe that it requires the same wisdom that governs the planetary system, that produces seed time and harvest, day and night, that organized our system, and that implanted intelligence in finite man—that it needs the same intelligence to govern men and promote their happiness upon the earth that it does to control and keep in order the heavenly bodies; and we believe that that cannot be found with man independently. It is a principle that exists with God, and he will not confer it upon the wicked and ungodly, neither will he sustain those that trample under foot his authority and his laws. Hence he has organized his kingdom with the express intention of governing his children himself according to the wisdom that dwells with him, through the medium that he has appointed; and hence, having appointed a medium, he brings it before the people, that they may have an opportunity of expressing their sentiments. Then, if they do not like the method which he has adopted, or any plans that he may introduce—if they do not like his officers, they have a voice in it, and can say so. There is no man or government under the heavens that has so strict a scrutiny as we have in the Church of Jesus Christ. All the authorities of this Church have to be acted for twice a year by all the Saints throughout all the world. This is very rigid sentry, more searching than that of our democratic rulers; but these men with whom we associate in the kingdom of God do not take it upon themselves alone to dictate and regulate these important matters pertaining to the kingdom of God and the salvation of man, because they do not consider they have got the intelligence. Hence my remarks so far, and hence the course of procedure pursued today in the presentation of the authorities of the Church in bringing all leading matters before the people.
We can acquiesce generally in the guidance of the Lord, and with pleasure obey the dictation of his servants. Have we by doing this progressed in a knowledge of the law of God, and the rule and government of his kingdom upon the earth? If we have any intelligence, we shall show that we have learned a great and important lesson—one that we might have learned some time ago. But I will tell you what it is: When God dictates through the channel that he has placed upon the earth, he directs through the gift and power of the Holy Ghost, and this way manifests his will to those whose right it is to know it. In this way he makes known the things of his kingdom and the principles that are necessary to the salvation of the people. Then all the congregation lift up their hands as a token before God that they sanction what is presented, and then the voice of the people is the voice of God. He first dictates, and then we sustain his nomination. Thus we have the wisdom of God associated with the concurrence of man; and God being governed by the Spirit of truth, and the Saints possessing and being guided by the gift of the Holy Ghost, it is the voice of God and the voice of his people under his direction, and God and his people are one, as Jesus said—“I in them, and thou in me, that we all may be one.” This is the way we look at things, and by pursuing this course we have made great progress in the principles of eternal life, and all those things that devolve upon us to attend to.
What is it that we are after? Is it to revolutionize these States of America by force, by physical power, by the sword, and by treading underfoot their rights? No. Are we striving to overthrow the nations, and to put our feet upon the necks of men? No: we care but very little about them or their concerns. But is there not a kingdom that God should set up? Yes. Is not this the stone hewn out of the mountain without hands, that is to grow into a great kingdom and fill the whole earth? It is. Then how are you going to accomplish this great work? We answer, precisely as the Lord tells us. We have existed for thirty years, and we have used a great deal of our time and labor for the promotion of this kingdom. But have we at any time interfered with the rights of others? We have been outraged and abused in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois; but whom have we interfered with? We are at the defiance of the world to point out a single instance. Have we attempted to overrun Texas or New Mexico—to trample underfoot the people of Nebraska and Kansas, and make everybody tremble and succumb by the power of the sword? Have we interfered with California, Oregon, or Washington Territory? No, we have not.
Then what have we done to cause people to be so jealous of us? Why, we have just let everybody else alone; we have preached peace and salvation, built up Zion, and proclaimed the kingdom of God. They would not, however, let us alone; but we could not help that. The very move that they have made and all the steps that we have taken have brought us before the nations, and manifested the power of God in a way that never could have been done otherwise. They may say what they will, but this is the result of it. We did not kill them when we had a chance. They came upon us and sought to destroy us, and why did they do this? It was because the Lord was with us. We could not help them doing as they did, and I suppose they could not resist the power that prompted them to do as they have done. However, it is all right; the hand of God is in it and has been from the beginning. Do we rejoice at the present time over the difficulties of our enemies in the States? No, we would be glad to do them good, if they would only let us; but they are unwilling to receive the truth.
Have we forsaken our covenants? Or have they violated the law in their treatment to us? It was shown very clearly this morning, by President Wells, that they hunted us like the wolves in the desert. They came with their armies fully bent on our destruction, but a barrier stood in the way. The Lord said; “Thus far shall you go, and no farther. You can now stop. You can shiver and shake out there in the mountains, during the cold, chilling blasts of a dreary winter; but touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm.”
They have now got the difficulties at home which they intended to create among us. We have not injured them—we have not hurt a hair of their heads, and we still feel willing to assist them. We feel willing to help to preserve the nation; and our Elders have traveled thousands of miles to bless the people. Yes, we feel to bless everybody; and what will we not do to benefit our fellow beings? Brethren, let us try to conquer ourselves. Let us try to understand our own position, to magnify our calling, that we may be prepared to act in that sphere in which God may call us to operate. The Lord has chosen his servants, he has lifted up his standard in Zion, he has proclaimed peace and happiness on earth, he has taught us how to live and how to die; the way is pointed out whereby we can obtain salvation in his kingdom. He has made manifest unto us his will, and we feel glad. We rejoice and sing Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!
Brethren and sisters, we have a great mission to perform—we have to try to govern ourselves according to the laws of the kingdom of God, and we find it one of the most difficult tasks we ever undertook, to learn to govern ourselves, our appetites, our dispositions, our habits, our feelings, our lives, our spirits, our judgment, and to bring all our desires into subjection to the law of the kingdom of God and to the Spirit of truth. It is a very critical thing to be engaged in the upbuilding of the kingdom of God—a nucleus of which we have here.
Whatever good feelings we have originate from the Spirit of the Lord, and from the light and intelligence that come from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For all we owe our oblation of thanksgiving to the great Giver of all good.
We are assembled here from different nations, having a variety of prejudices, different kinds of education, having imbibed different feelings, notions, and ideas; and we have now come together to learn to bend our minds, to yield our opinions, and not to follow our own notions, not to cling to our peculiar whims and caprices, but to bow to the holy Priesthood, which is the rule of God upon the earth. You should understand that when you have been voting here to sustain the Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Twelve Apostles, the High Council, the Bishops, and other Quorums, you have been voting to sustain the legitimate and authorized officers of the Church and kingdom of God, whose right it is to rule and govern whenever and wherever the Almighty has a people upon the earth.
Now, then, brethren and sisters, do not go away from here, and run against those very parties whom you have covenanted to sustain; because, the very moment you do, every sensible man will set you down as hypocrites. You have a free opportunity here of manifesting your choice, and I will here say that so far you have manifested good sense in being united in regard to those principles we have to carry out. Let the principles of union and faith be observed at your homes; and if you are men having families, let there be a daily incense arise from your family altar, and let your constant and daily prayer be, “God bless the Presidency of the Church, God bless the Twelve, the Bishops, and all the constituted authorities of the Church, and the Lord give me wisdom to act according to their dictation, and the Lord bless all those that believe on their words.” Then there will be a feeling of union in all our small districts; and instead of its being, “Tom wants to do this, and Jim wants to do the other,” it will be, “I don't want my way, but I want the mind and will of God. I want to know what my duty is, and then I will pray God to give me grace and power to do it.” This is the feeling of every good, intelligent, Latter-day Saint at the present time, who is seeking to do the will of God upon the earth. Never mind if somebody is trying to encroach; never mind about your independence and your rights.
I was talking to a man, the other day, who said—“I must have my rights.” I replied to him, “I have no rights only those that God gives me.” “But I have been imposed upon,” said the man. Well, what if you have? It is a great deal better than if you had imposed upon somebody else. Just say, “Why, that man don't know any better; and if he can stand it, I can.”
These are our feelings in regard to rights. There was a time when I thought I had a great many rights of my own, but now I have got to understand that I have all the rights that God will give me, and I don't want to have any more. I want to live in the light of his countenance, to ask him to give me his Spirit, and then I know I shall prosper. When you feel like talking about your rights, let me advise you to go into your closet, forget your imaginary rights, and ask the Lord to give you wisdom to guide you aright, that you may act before him as children of the light, and not be the means of throwing a stumbling block in the way of others. By pursuing this course, you will get along much easier, and there will not be near so much of that spirit of grumbling and complaining.
It would be first rate for many Latter-day Saints to consider the following sentiment of the poet--
Were half our time in reasoning spent,
To heaven in supplication sent,
Our cheerful songs would oftener be,
Hear what the Lord has done for me.
I believe what he has done for me and for this people to be saving in its nature, and to be the best that could have been done for us. Let us all seek to do right, get the Spirit of the Lord, and allow that to govern and dictate us.
Suppose there are some who do not do exactly right in some places, what of that? There are many things that are not right. Never mind; everything that is wrong will in due time be righted. Permit me to bring a figure before you. A year ago last winter there was a very severe frost, and it injured the fruit trees. Some who professed to be judges thought it best to cut down the peach trees; some thought that if left alone they would still grow, and therefore they left them alone to see how many would live. There was quite a difference of opinion upon the subject, and some adopted one plan, and some another. The general impression was, I believe, that it would be best to cut off those limbs that were frostbitten and that did not appear to have much sap in them.
Now, my doctrine is, Prune the trees, or, in other words, the branches of the great tree to which we are connected, just at the time when it will do the least injury. It requires great wisdom, however, to prune and regulate the Church of Christ. There were a great many of our people got frostbitten—a kind of dead in their spirits, and some were for going right to work and pruning; but hold on.
Said Jesus, “The wheat and tares must grow together until harvest.” Perhaps you would pull up the wheat with the tares, if you were to do it when you think best. If there is nothing good in a man, he will by-and-by develop the evil that is in him, and then everybody will agree that the pruning ought to be done, and the branch ought to be cut off; but if the good preponderates, it would be wrong because of prejudice or ignorance, to destroy the good. It is best to leave it to the husbandman, and then all the congregation will say Amen.
There are a great many things that might be spoken about to further illustrate this subject, but the same principle applies everywhere. For instance, there were two or three of us went up to Salt Creek a few days ago to attend to some business; and by the accounts given and the reports circulated, a stranger would have thought that we had got one of the most mean and contemptible of men for a Bishop: but when the matter came up for investigation, there was not one solitary charge that could be sustained; the man was innocent. Now, I would rather be found at some other business than to be finding fault with and accusing my brethren. If people would leave such things alone a little more than they do, and leave the management of them to the proper authorities, it would be better. Suppose a corrupt man is presiding in a certain place, his corruptions are soon known. People need not strive to turn good into evil because they think that some man does wrong. They need not turn calumniators and defamers, for all will come right in its turn. Then attend to your own business, work the works of righteousness, sustain the constituted authorities of the Church until God removes them, and he will do it in his own time. Bishops, be after such men as speak against the Lord's anointed. The Priesthood is placed in the Church for this purpose, to dig, to plant, to nourish, to teach correct principles, and to develop the order of the kingdom of God, to fight the devils, and maintain and support the authorities of the Church of Christ upon the earth. It is our duty all to act together to form one great unit—one great united phalanx, having sworn allegiance to the kingdom of God; then everything will move on quietly, peaceably, and easily, and then there will be very little trouble. I never want to interfere with anybody else's business: I always find enough to attend to of my own.
There was a man came to me, a short time ago, and wanted me to do something about a decision of a High Council. I told him I would have nothing to do with it. It was presumable to me that they had done right—that twelve disinterested men were more likely to judge correctly than one man who was evidently interested. I did not want to be entangled in affairs that did not belong to me. I like people to attend to their own affairs.
Am I an Apostle? I would like to magnify my calling. Am I an Elder, a Bishop, a Priest, a Teacher? If I am, I would like to magnify my calling, that I might secure the honor and glory of God, and promote the welfare of his kingdom, and be a coworker in the establishment of the principles of righteousness, and become a blessing to my neighborhood. What do we see our President at? Is he sitting down at ease, allowing the time to pass unimproved? No: he is stimulating us to good works. He is saying to the Elders, Go forth and preach the Gospel, gather the poor, send out your teams and your young men, and thus show that you can do something for the gathering of scattered Israel. Get the Spirit of life, power, and energy within you, that you may be able to do something to make you feel fit to hold the Priesthood of the Most High God. The poor Saints are watching you, the First Presidency and other authorities are watching you, and they are watching with Argus' eyes over the interests of the Church and kingdom of God.
Where does this spirit come from? It comes from the Lord. Where does it flow to? It finds access to every man that has the spirit of honesty within him; and hence when the teachings come, “Send your wagons, go here, go there,” the reply is, “Yes,” we are all one in the Church of Christ; we have dedicated ourselves, spirit and body, to the Church and kingdom of God; we are on hand to furnish anything for its advancement. This is the feeling that governs the Latter-day Saints. They all feel to say—“Do you want teams? Do you want wagons? Do you want men, wheat, or corn?” The response is, “Yes, we are all on hand.” Brethren, this is the way to make ourselves rich and strong, and secure the favor of God and of the holy angels. This is the way to have peace in our own bosoms, to preserve peace and happiness in our own families, by engaging in doing the work of the Lord, by striving to accomplish his purposes upon the earth, and by preparing, as President Young said, for the events that are approaching.
Let us be prepared to become coworkers with our file leaders, and then all will be well. Brethren, God bless you! Amen.
Remarks by Elder John Taylor, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by J. V. Long.
We have got through presenting the various Quorums comprising the authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has seemed to be a little difficult to get some of the names right, and also to get them in their proper places; but we have now got them straight, and I believe there has been a unanimous feeling to sustain all those officers presented in their respective positions.
The question very naturally occurs to me, Would there be the same unanimity of feeling in sustaining the same number of officers anywhere else in the world? I do not think there would. In fact, I know there would not. There is a principle of union with us: at least, in outside show we are united; and in our actions, to a certain extent, far more so than any other people; for other communities cannot even be persuaded to vote alike. If there are those among us that feel a little crossways, thinking that some other way might be better; yet there is so much of the feeling to the contrary that the opposition is readily brought to acquiesce in the popular vote, whether they really feel so or not; but they generally feel like it. But still there is a lesson that we have been learning that none of us are perfect in. Our judgment is not perfect; and as we are not perfect in our sphere, we need not expect to find others perfect in theirs; and as we are not perfect ourselves, we may have need to come to the throne of mercy and ask for wisdom and support, and we can come to the Lord with faith and full assurance. If we have need to come to the Lord, so have you. Be careful, then, how you judge. We can say to all, With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure, ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
In regard to our criticism on the acts of public men, whatever we may feel in regard to their acts, it is best to let it be laid aside for the general good of all; or, in other words, we do not think, or should not think, we are the smartest men in the world. It appears natural to us to think that we are as competent to judge as anybody else, and yet we think that those who dictate matters ought to have the Spirit of the Lord to guide them, and consequently yield our judgment to theirs, and we strive to carry out the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our actions. We do it to a great extent, but not so fully as we might do. It is all voluntary on the part of the people; but generally, out of respect to the superior intelligence of those that are associated with the dictation of affairs, we act with them. Although we may feel an uncertainty in regard to the views of some, yet with those feelings we act in unison to a certain extent, and we yield to the judgment of the majority, and to that of those whose right it is to nominate and dictate in the kingdom of God.
So far, then, as we have made progress in those things, so far have we advanced in the knowledge of the Gospel of Christ, and so far have we become strong and powerful as a people upon the earth.
There is a little difference between our principles, or, I should say, the principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and what are called democratic principles. Democracy governs by the people alone; and, as was stated this morning, where the people are pure and living under the influence of correct principles, and are seeking to do right, it is one of the best governments on the earth. But where the people are wicked and corrupt, that alters the case very materially. It is not with us as it is with democracy. We do not believe that any people are capable of governing themselves. There is no need of entering into an argument upon the matter before this congregation; but it is my opinion that there are no people under the heavens that now exist, nor are there any that ever did exist, that are capable of governing themselves.
There have been a variety of governments on the earth, and very powerful ones too have existed in different ages of the world. Those governments have generally been established and maintained by force of arms—by power. Thus many submit to the few, and the majority have had very little to say in the matter. We have generally been in the habit of supposing that our republican institutions are the most perfect of anything that can exist among men—the ne plus ultra of human government; and hence we have had a very favorite motto ready always upon our tongue's end--Vox populi, vox Dei. I do not believe that the voice of the people is the voice of God, but would ask, Is it the Northern or Southern States that are governed by the Almighty? We have one of the best human Governments upon the earth governed by the voice of the people, and yet we are divided, torn asunder, and confused, and appear to be on the eve of having two governments, and both republican in their form; but which of them is governed by God?
Neither of them have anything to do with the Lord. They are not under his guidance or direction, and without his dictation it is impossible to govern correctly. The principles of human government, as now practiced, are wrong; for what man knows the things of God? What human wisdom can dictate to the inhabitants of a world? Human governments have always been fluctuating and changeable. They have their rise, their progress, and fall, and have always contained within themselves the elements of their own destruction. The proper mode of government is this—God first speaks, and then the people have their action. It is for them to say whether they will have his dictation or not. They are free: they are independent under God. The government of God is not a species of priestcraft, after the order of the Church of Rome, where one man dictates and everybody obeys without having a voice in it. We have our voice and agency, and act with the most perfect freedom; still we believe there is a correct order—some wisdom and knowledge somewhere that is superior to ours: that wisdom and knowledge proceeds from God through the medium of the holy Priesthood. We believe that no man or set of men, of their own wisdom and by their own talents, are capable of governing the human family aright.
These are our opinions. We believe that it requires the same wisdom that governs the planetary system, that produces seed time and harvest, day and night, that organized our system, and that implanted intelligence in finite man—that it needs the same intelligence to govern men and promote their happiness upon the earth that it does to control and keep in order the heavenly bodies; and we believe that that cannot be found with man independently. It is a principle that exists with God, and he will not confer it upon the wicked and ungodly, neither will he sustain those that trample under foot his authority and his laws. Hence he has organized his kingdom with the express intention of governing his children himself according to the wisdom that dwells with him, through the medium that he has appointed; and hence, having appointed a medium, he brings it before the people, that they may have an opportunity of expressing their sentiments. Then, if they do not like the method which he has adopted, or any plans that he may introduce—if they do not like his officers, they have a voice in it, and can say so. There is no man or government under the heavens that has so strict a scrutiny as we have in the Church of Jesus Christ. All the authorities of this Church have to be acted for twice a year by all the Saints throughout all the world. This is very rigid sentry, more searching than that of our democratic rulers; but these men with whom we associate in the kingdom of God do not take it upon themselves alone to dictate and regulate these important matters pertaining to the kingdom of God and the salvation of man, because they do not consider they have got the intelligence. Hence my remarks so far, and hence the course of procedure pursued today in the presentation of the authorities of the Church in bringing all leading matters before the people.
We can acquiesce generally in the guidance of the Lord, and with pleasure obey the dictation of his servants. Have we by doing this progressed in a knowledge of the law of God, and the rule and government of his kingdom upon the earth? If we have any intelligence, we shall show that we have learned a great and important lesson—one that we might have learned some time ago. But I will tell you what it is: When God dictates through the channel that he has placed upon the earth, he directs through the gift and power of the Holy Ghost, and this way manifests his will to those whose right it is to know it. In this way he makes known the things of his kingdom and the principles that are necessary to the salvation of the people. Then all the congregation lift up their hands as a token before God that they sanction what is presented, and then the voice of the people is the voice of God. He first dictates, and then we sustain his nomination. Thus we have the wisdom of God associated with the concurrence of man; and God being governed by the Spirit of truth, and the Saints possessing and being guided by the gift of the Holy Ghost, it is the voice of God and the voice of his people under his direction, and God and his people are one, as Jesus said—“I in them, and thou in me, that we all may be one.” This is the way we look at things, and by pursuing this course we have made great progress in the principles of eternal life, and all those things that devolve upon us to attend to.
What is it that we are after? Is it to revolutionize these States of America by force, by physical power, by the sword, and by treading underfoot their rights? No. Are we striving to overthrow the nations, and to put our feet upon the necks of men? No: we care but very little about them or their concerns. But is there not a kingdom that God should set up? Yes. Is not this the stone hewn out of the mountain without hands, that is to grow into a great kingdom and fill the whole earth? It is. Then how are you going to accomplish this great work? We answer, precisely as the Lord tells us. We have existed for thirty years, and we have used a great deal of our time and labor for the promotion of this kingdom. But have we at any time interfered with the rights of others? We have been outraged and abused in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois; but whom have we interfered with? We are at the defiance of the world to point out a single instance. Have we attempted to overrun Texas or New Mexico—to trample underfoot the people of Nebraska and Kansas, and make everybody tremble and succumb by the power of the sword? Have we interfered with California, Oregon, or Washington Territory? No, we have not.
Then what have we done to cause people to be so jealous of us? Why, we have just let everybody else alone; we have preached peace and salvation, built up Zion, and proclaimed the kingdom of God. They would not, however, let us alone; but we could not help that. The very move that they have made and all the steps that we have taken have brought us before the nations, and manifested the power of God in a way that never could have been done otherwise. They may say what they will, but this is the result of it. We did not kill them when we had a chance. They came upon us and sought to destroy us, and why did they do this? It was because the Lord was with us. We could not help them doing as they did, and I suppose they could not resist the power that prompted them to do as they have done. However, it is all right; the hand of God is in it and has been from the beginning. Do we rejoice at the present time over the difficulties of our enemies in the States? No, we would be glad to do them good, if they would only let us; but they are unwilling to receive the truth.
Have we forsaken our covenants? Or have they violated the law in their treatment to us? It was shown very clearly this morning, by President Wells, that they hunted us like the wolves in the desert. They came with their armies fully bent on our destruction, but a barrier stood in the way. The Lord said; “Thus far shall you go, and no farther. You can now stop. You can shiver and shake out there in the mountains, during the cold, chilling blasts of a dreary winter; but touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm.”
They have now got the difficulties at home which they intended to create among us. We have not injured them—we have not hurt a hair of their heads, and we still feel willing to assist them. We feel willing to help to preserve the nation; and our Elders have traveled thousands of miles to bless the people. Yes, we feel to bless everybody; and what will we not do to benefit our fellow beings? Brethren, let us try to conquer ourselves. Let us try to understand our own position, to magnify our calling, that we may be prepared to act in that sphere in which God may call us to operate. The Lord has chosen his servants, he has lifted up his standard in Zion, he has proclaimed peace and happiness on earth, he has taught us how to live and how to die; the way is pointed out whereby we can obtain salvation in his kingdom. He has made manifest unto us his will, and we feel glad. We rejoice and sing Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!
Brethren and sisters, we have a great mission to perform—we have to try to govern ourselves according to the laws of the kingdom of God, and we find it one of the most difficult tasks we ever undertook, to learn to govern ourselves, our appetites, our dispositions, our habits, our feelings, our lives, our spirits, our judgment, and to bring all our desires into subjection to the law of the kingdom of God and to the Spirit of truth. It is a very critical thing to be engaged in the upbuilding of the kingdom of God—a nucleus of which we have here.
Whatever good feelings we have originate from the Spirit of the Lord, and from the light and intelligence that come from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For all we owe our oblation of thanksgiving to the great Giver of all good.
We are assembled here from different nations, having a variety of prejudices, different kinds of education, having imbibed different feelings, notions, and ideas; and we have now come together to learn to bend our minds, to yield our opinions, and not to follow our own notions, not to cling to our peculiar whims and caprices, but to bow to the holy Priesthood, which is the rule of God upon the earth. You should understand that when you have been voting here to sustain the Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Twelve Apostles, the High Council, the Bishops, and other Quorums, you have been voting to sustain the legitimate and authorized officers of the Church and kingdom of God, whose right it is to rule and govern whenever and wherever the Almighty has a people upon the earth.
Now, then, brethren and sisters, do not go away from here, and run against those very parties whom you have covenanted to sustain; because, the very moment you do, every sensible man will set you down as hypocrites. You have a free opportunity here of manifesting your choice, and I will here say that so far you have manifested good sense in being united in regard to those principles we have to carry out. Let the principles of union and faith be observed at your homes; and if you are men having families, let there be a daily incense arise from your family altar, and let your constant and daily prayer be, “God bless the Presidency of the Church, God bless the Twelve, the Bishops, and all the constituted authorities of the Church, and the Lord give me wisdom to act according to their dictation, and the Lord bless all those that believe on their words.” Then there will be a feeling of union in all our small districts; and instead of its being, “Tom wants to do this, and Jim wants to do the other,” it will be, “I don't want my way, but I want the mind and will of God. I want to know what my duty is, and then I will pray God to give me grace and power to do it.” This is the feeling of every good, intelligent, Latter-day Saint at the present time, who is seeking to do the will of God upon the earth. Never mind if somebody is trying to encroach; never mind about your independence and your rights.
I was talking to a man, the other day, who said—“I must have my rights.” I replied to him, “I have no rights only those that God gives me.” “But I have been imposed upon,” said the man. Well, what if you have? It is a great deal better than if you had imposed upon somebody else. Just say, “Why, that man don't know any better; and if he can stand it, I can.”
These are our feelings in regard to rights. There was a time when I thought I had a great many rights of my own, but now I have got to understand that I have all the rights that God will give me, and I don't want to have any more. I want to live in the light of his countenance, to ask him to give me his Spirit, and then I know I shall prosper. When you feel like talking about your rights, let me advise you to go into your closet, forget your imaginary rights, and ask the Lord to give you wisdom to guide you aright, that you may act before him as children of the light, and not be the means of throwing a stumbling block in the way of others. By pursuing this course, you will get along much easier, and there will not be near so much of that spirit of grumbling and complaining.
It would be first rate for many Latter-day Saints to consider the following sentiment of the poet--
Were half our time in reasoning spent,
To heaven in supplication sent,
Our cheerful songs would oftener be,
Hear what the Lord has done for me.
I believe what he has done for me and for this people to be saving in its nature, and to be the best that could have been done for us. Let us all seek to do right, get the Spirit of the Lord, and allow that to govern and dictate us.
Suppose there are some who do not do exactly right in some places, what of that? There are many things that are not right. Never mind; everything that is wrong will in due time be righted. Permit me to bring a figure before you. A year ago last winter there was a very severe frost, and it injured the fruit trees. Some who professed to be judges thought it best to cut down the peach trees; some thought that if left alone they would still grow, and therefore they left them alone to see how many would live. There was quite a difference of opinion upon the subject, and some adopted one plan, and some another. The general impression was, I believe, that it would be best to cut off those limbs that were frostbitten and that did not appear to have much sap in them.
Now, my doctrine is, Prune the trees, or, in other words, the branches of the great tree to which we are connected, just at the time when it will do the least injury. It requires great wisdom, however, to prune and regulate the Church of Christ. There were a great many of our people got frostbitten—a kind of dead in their spirits, and some were for going right to work and pruning; but hold on.
Said Jesus, “The wheat and tares must grow together until harvest.” Perhaps you would pull up the wheat with the tares, if you were to do it when you think best. If there is nothing good in a man, he will by-and-by develop the evil that is in him, and then everybody will agree that the pruning ought to be done, and the branch ought to be cut off; but if the good preponderates, it would be wrong because of prejudice or ignorance, to destroy the good. It is best to leave it to the husbandman, and then all the congregation will say Amen.
There are a great many things that might be spoken about to further illustrate this subject, but the same principle applies everywhere. For instance, there were two or three of us went up to Salt Creek a few days ago to attend to some business; and by the accounts given and the reports circulated, a stranger would have thought that we had got one of the most mean and contemptible of men for a Bishop: but when the matter came up for investigation, there was not one solitary charge that could be sustained; the man was innocent. Now, I would rather be found at some other business than to be finding fault with and accusing my brethren. If people would leave such things alone a little more than they do, and leave the management of them to the proper authorities, it would be better. Suppose a corrupt man is presiding in a certain place, his corruptions are soon known. People need not strive to turn good into evil because they think that some man does wrong. They need not turn calumniators and defamers, for all will come right in its turn. Then attend to your own business, work the works of righteousness, sustain the constituted authorities of the Church until God removes them, and he will do it in his own time. Bishops, be after such men as speak against the Lord's anointed. The Priesthood is placed in the Church for this purpose, to dig, to plant, to nourish, to teach correct principles, and to develop the order of the kingdom of God, to fight the devils, and maintain and support the authorities of the Church of Christ upon the earth. It is our duty all to act together to form one great unit—one great united phalanx, having sworn allegiance to the kingdom of God; then everything will move on quietly, peaceably, and easily, and then there will be very little trouble. I never want to interfere with anybody else's business: I always find enough to attend to of my own.
There was a man came to me, a short time ago, and wanted me to do something about a decision of a High Council. I told him I would have nothing to do with it. It was presumable to me that they had done right—that twelve disinterested men were more likely to judge correctly than one man who was evidently interested. I did not want to be entangled in affairs that did not belong to me. I like people to attend to their own affairs.
Am I an Apostle? I would like to magnify my calling. Am I an Elder, a Bishop, a Priest, a Teacher? If I am, I would like to magnify my calling, that I might secure the honor and glory of God, and promote the welfare of his kingdom, and be a coworker in the establishment of the principles of righteousness, and become a blessing to my neighborhood. What do we see our President at? Is he sitting down at ease, allowing the time to pass unimproved? No: he is stimulating us to good works. He is saying to the Elders, Go forth and preach the Gospel, gather the poor, send out your teams and your young men, and thus show that you can do something for the gathering of scattered Israel. Get the Spirit of life, power, and energy within you, that you may be able to do something to make you feel fit to hold the Priesthood of the Most High God. The poor Saints are watching you, the First Presidency and other authorities are watching you, and they are watching with Argus' eyes over the interests of the Church and kingdom of God.
Where does this spirit come from? It comes from the Lord. Where does it flow to? It finds access to every man that has the spirit of honesty within him; and hence when the teachings come, “Send your wagons, go here, go there,” the reply is, “Yes,” we are all one in the Church of Christ; we have dedicated ourselves, spirit and body, to the Church and kingdom of God; we are on hand to furnish anything for its advancement. This is the feeling that governs the Latter-day Saints. They all feel to say—“Do you want teams? Do you want wagons? Do you want men, wheat, or corn?” The response is, “Yes, we are all on hand.” Brethren, this is the way to make ourselves rich and strong, and secure the favor of God and of the holy angels. This is the way to have peace in our own bosoms, to preserve peace and happiness in our own families, by engaging in doing the work of the Lord, by striving to accomplish his purposes upon the earth, and by preparing, as President Young said, for the events that are approaching.
Let us be prepared to become coworkers with our file leaders, and then all will be well. Brethren, God bless you! Amen.
Patriarch Isaac Morley
made a few remarks, expressive of the rejoicing he felt in the blessings of the everlasting gospel; it had been saving to him both temporally and spiritually. His prayer was that the blessings of the everlasting hills might come down upon the inhabitants of these valleys, and that we might enjoy all the blessings of the heavens and of the earth.
made a few remarks, expressive of the rejoicing he felt in the blessings of the everlasting gospel; it had been saving to him both temporally and spiritually. His prayer was that the blessings of the everlasting hills might come down upon the inhabitants of these valleys, and that we might enjoy all the blessings of the heavens and of the earth.
Elder George A. Smith
arose and said that he designed to preach from the text "Sectarian religion, sectarian God, and the democracy of our country." Showed the folly of men worshipping a God without body, parts or passions, for such being, if being he might be called, must be destitute of principles and power. He argued that the God worshipped by sectarians could not be the being that wrestled with Jacob, that conversed with Moses and wrote with his finger upon tables of stone. In speaking of democracy, he graphically described the present condition of the government of our nation. He remarked that Joseph Smith had prophesied when the Saints were driven from Jackson county, that if the government did not redress our wrongs they should have mob upon mob until mob power, and that alone should govern the whole land.
He bore testimony to the truth of the work of the Lord in which he was engaged, and said if the Latter Day Saints would listen to President Young's instructions as they ought to do, they would soon be the wealthiest people upon the face of the earth.
arose and said that he designed to preach from the text "Sectarian religion, sectarian God, and the democracy of our country." Showed the folly of men worshipping a God without body, parts or passions, for such being, if being he might be called, must be destitute of principles and power. He argued that the God worshipped by sectarians could not be the being that wrestled with Jacob, that conversed with Moses and wrote with his finger upon tables of stone. In speaking of democracy, he graphically described the present condition of the government of our nation. He remarked that Joseph Smith had prophesied when the Saints were driven from Jackson county, that if the government did not redress our wrongs they should have mob upon mob until mob power, and that alone should govern the whole land.
He bore testimony to the truth of the work of the Lord in which he was engaged, and said if the Latter Day Saints would listen to President Young's instructions as they ought to do, they would soon be the wealthiest people upon the face of the earth.
Sectarian Religion—Democracy, Etc.
Remarks by Elder George A. Smith, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
I arise before you to offer a few remarks, and to preach from a text. I do not know that you will find it recorded in any particular volume, and it is not exactly possible for me to tell the chapter and verse, but it will be found in the Gospel according to Saint Brigham—Sectarian religion, sectarian God, and the democracy of our country compared together.
We find in the Methodist discipline that the God worshipped by John Wesley's followers was a very singular being, without body or parts. In the platforms of the Presbyterians, Baptists, and other denominations, it is declared that he has neither body, parts, nor passions. This is John Knox's old platform. I never was very much posted in these systems of piety, but I remember, when quite young, looking at the book containing the articles of their faith, and wondering what sort of a being it was that had neither body, parts, nor passions, and I might perhaps, with propriety, add principles or power.
Lindley Murray says a substantive is the name of anything that exists; but if a being had no body, parts, or passions, its existence could only be imaginary. I suppose it would be a noun, but not really a substantive. I understand a substantive, according to Kirkham, to be the name of a substance.
The God that Moses saw wrote with his finger upon the tables of stone. (See Ex., ch. 31, v. 18.) The God that Jacob saw walked with him. Jacob was, no doubt, an expert wrestler, and in the habit of throwing anybody that came along (See Genesis, chap. 32). He was wandering about one night, and met a stranger, with whom he wrestled all night; and when he found he could not throw him, he said, You are something more than a man, or I could throw you. But I will not let thee go, except thou bless me; for thou art more than mortal, or I could throw thee. And Jacob said, I will call the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. The God with whom Jacob wrestled had some body and some parts. I need not go to investigate this subject, only to say that the God worshipped by the sectarian world is not the being that wrestled with Jacob.
We also learn from the old book that the Lord created man in his own image and in his express likeness. Man possesses body and parts: the result is, he is a being in the express image of the Father. The Father of the God that the sectarians worship is not the being who created man. But this imaginary deity, or myth of nothing at all, whose center is said to be everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere (I have heard it described in that language), which is worshipped by the sectarian world, can simply be expressed by using the words of the Methodist discipline and the creeds generally, and with the addition of two or three other words, without body, parts, or passions; then add principles or power. What is the result of worshipping such a being? It is a most indescribable religious confusion—a confusion that our language is inadequate to express. One of the old Prophets says—“Woe to the multitude of many people, that make a noise.”
I once went to a Methodist camp meeting, and heard some thousands of men and women praying, shouting, screeching all at once. At that time I looked round, and thought of the words of the Prophet—“Woe to the multitude of many people, that make a noise like the noise of a sea.” It was like a perfect bedlam of confusion. About midnight I got tired of the noise, and thought I would go away. I had tied my horse about a quarter of a mile from the camp. When I went to get him, he had broke the girth of the saddle, drawn the halter so tightly that I had to cut it and to lead him some distance before I could quiet him so as to ride him.
This will give you an idea of the confusion that can be created by a thousand voices in the extreme of enthusiasm and confusion of a Methodist camp meeting. The different sects differ about almost everything that pertains to their religion.
Harper's Magazine tells the following story--
“A Mormon Elder from Salt Lake, by the name of Randall, not many years ago, while on a visit to his friends in the State of Ohio, was requested to attend a Campbellite meeting—a society to which his relatives belonged. He went, and listened to an eloquent discourse. The preacher was more charitable than many of the clergy of other denominations; and, in the course of his remarks, said that each denomination or branch of the church formed a link in the chain with which Satan will be bound, and thus usher in the reign of peace. After the sermon was ended, many of the brethren expressed their approbation of the discourse, and bore testimony to the truth of what the preacher had said. Finally, the friends of the Mormon Elder requested him to speak. He hesitated. But, after much solicitation, he arose and said—“I believe what your preacher has said in regard to the different denominations—that they each form a link in the chain with which Satan will be bound; and when bound, both Satan and chain will be cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, according to the testimony of John the Revelator;” and sat down. He was not called on again.
But now for the second part of my text—the Democracy of our country. I was reading the remarks of a gentleman, who was insisting that the young men of our country should learn to spout—that is, to make a speech on politics, and be prepared to take the stump. A gentleman commenting on it says gold will ruin the country and destroy the Union. The people being the government, having no recognized head, and having to express itself through the belly, if you please, it takes a long time; and by the time the sentiment comes to the head, it is so confused and divided that the fact is, it would have you to suppose that the greater portion of the brains were in the boots! Read the proceedings of Congress for the last year, and you will see one constant stew. Every man that could get the opportunity would get up and pronounce a solemn speech, or have it printed at the public expense—at any rate, to send home to his constituents, to let them know that he did or must say something to prevent the dissolution of the Union, without ever reflecting upon or seeing the real cause of the difficulty. It is a species of maddening fury that rolls along like the waves of the sea—a kind of universal confusion. Take, for instance, those who have been the most devoted to the Constitution of the United States, and they, like the ancients who shouted “Great is the goddess Diana of the Ephesians!” would shout “Great is the Constitution!” “A great and glorious thing is the Union!” And every step they would take, every single effort they would make, would be to tread on the rights of others. What is the matter? What causes all this confusion? Why, those men who are placed in authority, from the President down, looked silently on, and saw the laws trampled underfoot, the Constitution violated, the rights of the innocent trifled with, the blood of innocence poured upon the ground like water, and the little insignificant body of people, the “damned Mormons,” as they pleased to call them, driven from their homes into the wilderness, and so peace was taken from their midst. Suppose you get the Christians now together and fetch them up here, and ask them to tell us which is the pure religion. Take, say a dozen of the leading sects, and let each one tell us which is the pure religion of Jesus Christ, and they would get up such a quarrel, such a confusion, such a hubbub, that it would be impossible to tell anything about it. Go to work and gather up the different factions of our country, politically, and let them undertake to tell what the matter is, and it would only have a tendency to show a specimen of that ignorance, stupidity, weakness, and universal confusion which reigns throughout the land. When the Latter-day Saints were driven from Jackson County, in 1833, Joseph Smith prophesied that if the people of the United States would not bring to justice that mob and protect the Saints, they should have mob upon mob, mob upon mob, until mob and power and mob rule should be all over the whole land, until no man's life or property should be safe. This prophecy is being literally fulfilled.
The laws of the country are trampled upon with impunity, and there is nothing but a general and universal mob rule. There is really a combination of corruption which exceeds anything which the world has witnessed for generations.
Take, for instance, the officers of the army; go into any little detachment of the army, and they get together in solemn conclave, and condemn a whole lot of provisions—sell them for a mere trifle. Some of them will buy them in again, and pay twenty times as much as they sold for, and thus bleed Uncle Sam. Such men are in office every year. Men in office think it a fine thing to swindle the Government, which is only a miserable goose for them to pluck.
Now I will put the text together. The religious and political organizations of the country. Abe Lincoln, the present President of the United States, that was—at any rate he occupies the seat and claims the title, and presides over a portion of the Union at Washington in name—this man is the representative of the religious enthusiasm of the country. For the last thirty years there has been a constant stirring up and firm exertion on the part of the North to get up a crusade against slavery—to make the men who live in the Southern States turn over their slaves.
I was raised in the State of New York, and recollect the early movements in this matter. At that time a great many men held slaves. We drove our slaves to Virginia and sold them for the money, and got full pay. We immediately began to feel sorry for them, and began to feel that it was very wicked to keep negroes, seeing we had got the money for ours. Our State was free from slavery, and we desired all the Virginians to turn their negroes loose. We grew more and more conscientious about it. The pulpit took the lead—the Sunday schools and every other religious influence that could be brought to bear. Mr. Lincoln now is put into power by that priestly influence; and the presumption is, should he not find his hands full by the secession of the Southern States, the spirit of priestcraft would force him, in spite of his good wishes and intentions, to put to death, if it was in his power, every man that believes in the divine mission of Joseph Smith, or that bears testimony of the doctrines he preached.
There is no spirit more intolerant, cruel, and devilish than a spirit of religious persecution. It carries its cruelties to a greater extent; and when the civil authority becomes mingled with the religious, and that power is united, and the sword is placed in their hands, it is the most bloody weapon that was ever wielded. Infidelity is almost harmless, compared with it. The bloodthirsty power that has been exercised under such influence exceeds anything that history records. It is a union—a combination of civil and religious power in the hands of corrupt men, and that brought to bear, and turned loose upon us, with a determination to annihilate every Latter-day Saint. But God is our shield and our protector.
It was this influence that brought us trouble during the administration of Mr. Buchanan.
The Republican organs whipped Mr. Buchanan into the Utah war, and they then whipped him for getting into it; and they whipped him until he got out of it the best way he could, and then they whipped him awfully for getting out. They meant to keep him there until the work of destruction was done. But, thank the Lord, the Latter-day Saints yet live, and yet have an influence, and they are yet felt.
Now, brethren, this is the word of the Lord. And that contention which exists throughout the country, and which by its actual division is rendered powerless to injure us, is really our protection; God uses it to protect us. He has said, “The wicked shall slay the wicked.” The time shall come when the vengeance of the Almighty will fall upon the heads of those that have persecuted, slain, driven, and rejoiced over the destruction and affliction of the Saints. I know that this is the work of the Lord Almighty. I bear my testimony to it. And I say that if we were as we ought to be, if we would listen to the counsel of President Young as we ought to do, if we would obey his instructions as we ought to obey them, we should be the wealthiest people upon the face of the earth. I suppose, however, so far as the necessaries of life are concerned, we are so now. I presume you cannot find a community throughout the United States as large as ours but what the present distress, growing out of the present financial panic, from political disorganization, the failure of men to pay their debts, the refusal of the South to continue in the Union—among these influences you cannot find a community so large as this but what would be more or less actually in a state of suffering for want of bread. There is no Latter-day Saint in these mountains but what can get good bread, and eat that which is good and wholesome. Hence, I may say, we are the richest people; and if we had listened as we ought to have done for the last four years to the counsel of the Presidency, we should have possessed millions of property which we do not now. The fear there is in the breasts of many that the Presidency will exercise an influence over their business affairs, that would not give them as good a chance as they ought to have, has been all the while a plan to entangle our own feet, and has caused us to grope like blind men in the dark, and scramble for the picayunes when we might as well have picked up the eagles. I have been sorry for this. I know that a wise head to guide us in our movements in our different settlements—to tell us what we should cultivate, what kind of things we should improve in, and the advantages to be taken of the climate and productions of our several localities, and the way we should exercise our labor to produce the necessaries of life, is of vast importance to us. We have our brethren scattered all over the world, far and near, and many of them have been struggling for years to come to Zion. We should be awake while we are here, and try to release them from their bondage, for ere long the terrible storm will break loose; every man's hand will be let loose upon his neighbor, and blood and distress, turmoil, sorrow, misery, war, and destruction will sweep the whole face of the earth as with the besom of destruction.
Let us, then, exert ourselves to deliver our brethren, that they may flee from the old barn like rats from a building on fire, and escape in time, and escape unhurt. Be wide awake and diligent in these things; and, when we are called upon to go after the poor, regard it as a most important mission. I do not want to bread. There is no Latter-day Saint go as teamsters, select some that are of no account. If you send out a team round which you expect to have gathered fifteen or twenty Saints to cross the Plains, send a man that will be a father to them, and teach them righteousness, and inspire them with good sentiments and exalted feelings. And you that go on such missions, remember you are sent to bring home the sheaves: therefore take care of them; strengthen and encourage them in regard to the things they should do and understand; stir up in their hearts a spirit of obedience, and they will come in here with the light of the Spirit of the Lord burning brightly within them, that their passage over the Plains may be a school to them of principle and doctrine and truth, that they may inherit all the blessings that are in store for them—blessings that will endure forever.
I believe I have got entirely from my text. Excuse me, and may the Lord bless you. Amen.
Choir sung "The standard of Zion."
Patriarch Morley pronounced the benediction.
Remarks by Elder George A. Smith, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
I arise before you to offer a few remarks, and to preach from a text. I do not know that you will find it recorded in any particular volume, and it is not exactly possible for me to tell the chapter and verse, but it will be found in the Gospel according to Saint Brigham—Sectarian religion, sectarian God, and the democracy of our country compared together.
We find in the Methodist discipline that the God worshipped by John Wesley's followers was a very singular being, without body or parts. In the platforms of the Presbyterians, Baptists, and other denominations, it is declared that he has neither body, parts, nor passions. This is John Knox's old platform. I never was very much posted in these systems of piety, but I remember, when quite young, looking at the book containing the articles of their faith, and wondering what sort of a being it was that had neither body, parts, nor passions, and I might perhaps, with propriety, add principles or power.
Lindley Murray says a substantive is the name of anything that exists; but if a being had no body, parts, or passions, its existence could only be imaginary. I suppose it would be a noun, but not really a substantive. I understand a substantive, according to Kirkham, to be the name of a substance.
The God that Moses saw wrote with his finger upon the tables of stone. (See Ex., ch. 31, v. 18.) The God that Jacob saw walked with him. Jacob was, no doubt, an expert wrestler, and in the habit of throwing anybody that came along (See Genesis, chap. 32). He was wandering about one night, and met a stranger, with whom he wrestled all night; and when he found he could not throw him, he said, You are something more than a man, or I could throw you. But I will not let thee go, except thou bless me; for thou art more than mortal, or I could throw thee. And Jacob said, I will call the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. The God with whom Jacob wrestled had some body and some parts. I need not go to investigate this subject, only to say that the God worshipped by the sectarian world is not the being that wrestled with Jacob.
We also learn from the old book that the Lord created man in his own image and in his express likeness. Man possesses body and parts: the result is, he is a being in the express image of the Father. The Father of the God that the sectarians worship is not the being who created man. But this imaginary deity, or myth of nothing at all, whose center is said to be everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere (I have heard it described in that language), which is worshipped by the sectarian world, can simply be expressed by using the words of the Methodist discipline and the creeds generally, and with the addition of two or three other words, without body, parts, or passions; then add principles or power. What is the result of worshipping such a being? It is a most indescribable religious confusion—a confusion that our language is inadequate to express. One of the old Prophets says—“Woe to the multitude of many people, that make a noise.”
I once went to a Methodist camp meeting, and heard some thousands of men and women praying, shouting, screeching all at once. At that time I looked round, and thought of the words of the Prophet—“Woe to the multitude of many people, that make a noise like the noise of a sea.” It was like a perfect bedlam of confusion. About midnight I got tired of the noise, and thought I would go away. I had tied my horse about a quarter of a mile from the camp. When I went to get him, he had broke the girth of the saddle, drawn the halter so tightly that I had to cut it and to lead him some distance before I could quiet him so as to ride him.
This will give you an idea of the confusion that can be created by a thousand voices in the extreme of enthusiasm and confusion of a Methodist camp meeting. The different sects differ about almost everything that pertains to their religion.
Harper's Magazine tells the following story--
“A Mormon Elder from Salt Lake, by the name of Randall, not many years ago, while on a visit to his friends in the State of Ohio, was requested to attend a Campbellite meeting—a society to which his relatives belonged. He went, and listened to an eloquent discourse. The preacher was more charitable than many of the clergy of other denominations; and, in the course of his remarks, said that each denomination or branch of the church formed a link in the chain with which Satan will be bound, and thus usher in the reign of peace. After the sermon was ended, many of the brethren expressed their approbation of the discourse, and bore testimony to the truth of what the preacher had said. Finally, the friends of the Mormon Elder requested him to speak. He hesitated. But, after much solicitation, he arose and said—“I believe what your preacher has said in regard to the different denominations—that they each form a link in the chain with which Satan will be bound; and when bound, both Satan and chain will be cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, according to the testimony of John the Revelator;” and sat down. He was not called on again.
But now for the second part of my text—the Democracy of our country. I was reading the remarks of a gentleman, who was insisting that the young men of our country should learn to spout—that is, to make a speech on politics, and be prepared to take the stump. A gentleman commenting on it says gold will ruin the country and destroy the Union. The people being the government, having no recognized head, and having to express itself through the belly, if you please, it takes a long time; and by the time the sentiment comes to the head, it is so confused and divided that the fact is, it would have you to suppose that the greater portion of the brains were in the boots! Read the proceedings of Congress for the last year, and you will see one constant stew. Every man that could get the opportunity would get up and pronounce a solemn speech, or have it printed at the public expense—at any rate, to send home to his constituents, to let them know that he did or must say something to prevent the dissolution of the Union, without ever reflecting upon or seeing the real cause of the difficulty. It is a species of maddening fury that rolls along like the waves of the sea—a kind of universal confusion. Take, for instance, those who have been the most devoted to the Constitution of the United States, and they, like the ancients who shouted “Great is the goddess Diana of the Ephesians!” would shout “Great is the Constitution!” “A great and glorious thing is the Union!” And every step they would take, every single effort they would make, would be to tread on the rights of others. What is the matter? What causes all this confusion? Why, those men who are placed in authority, from the President down, looked silently on, and saw the laws trampled underfoot, the Constitution violated, the rights of the innocent trifled with, the blood of innocence poured upon the ground like water, and the little insignificant body of people, the “damned Mormons,” as they pleased to call them, driven from their homes into the wilderness, and so peace was taken from their midst. Suppose you get the Christians now together and fetch them up here, and ask them to tell us which is the pure religion. Take, say a dozen of the leading sects, and let each one tell us which is the pure religion of Jesus Christ, and they would get up such a quarrel, such a confusion, such a hubbub, that it would be impossible to tell anything about it. Go to work and gather up the different factions of our country, politically, and let them undertake to tell what the matter is, and it would only have a tendency to show a specimen of that ignorance, stupidity, weakness, and universal confusion which reigns throughout the land. When the Latter-day Saints were driven from Jackson County, in 1833, Joseph Smith prophesied that if the people of the United States would not bring to justice that mob and protect the Saints, they should have mob upon mob, mob upon mob, until mob and power and mob rule should be all over the whole land, until no man's life or property should be safe. This prophecy is being literally fulfilled.
The laws of the country are trampled upon with impunity, and there is nothing but a general and universal mob rule. There is really a combination of corruption which exceeds anything which the world has witnessed for generations.
Take, for instance, the officers of the army; go into any little detachment of the army, and they get together in solemn conclave, and condemn a whole lot of provisions—sell them for a mere trifle. Some of them will buy them in again, and pay twenty times as much as they sold for, and thus bleed Uncle Sam. Such men are in office every year. Men in office think it a fine thing to swindle the Government, which is only a miserable goose for them to pluck.
Now I will put the text together. The religious and political organizations of the country. Abe Lincoln, the present President of the United States, that was—at any rate he occupies the seat and claims the title, and presides over a portion of the Union at Washington in name—this man is the representative of the religious enthusiasm of the country. For the last thirty years there has been a constant stirring up and firm exertion on the part of the North to get up a crusade against slavery—to make the men who live in the Southern States turn over their slaves.
I was raised in the State of New York, and recollect the early movements in this matter. At that time a great many men held slaves. We drove our slaves to Virginia and sold them for the money, and got full pay. We immediately began to feel sorry for them, and began to feel that it was very wicked to keep negroes, seeing we had got the money for ours. Our State was free from slavery, and we desired all the Virginians to turn their negroes loose. We grew more and more conscientious about it. The pulpit took the lead—the Sunday schools and every other religious influence that could be brought to bear. Mr. Lincoln now is put into power by that priestly influence; and the presumption is, should he not find his hands full by the secession of the Southern States, the spirit of priestcraft would force him, in spite of his good wishes and intentions, to put to death, if it was in his power, every man that believes in the divine mission of Joseph Smith, or that bears testimony of the doctrines he preached.
There is no spirit more intolerant, cruel, and devilish than a spirit of religious persecution. It carries its cruelties to a greater extent; and when the civil authority becomes mingled with the religious, and that power is united, and the sword is placed in their hands, it is the most bloody weapon that was ever wielded. Infidelity is almost harmless, compared with it. The bloodthirsty power that has been exercised under such influence exceeds anything that history records. It is a union—a combination of civil and religious power in the hands of corrupt men, and that brought to bear, and turned loose upon us, with a determination to annihilate every Latter-day Saint. But God is our shield and our protector.
It was this influence that brought us trouble during the administration of Mr. Buchanan.
The Republican organs whipped Mr. Buchanan into the Utah war, and they then whipped him for getting into it; and they whipped him until he got out of it the best way he could, and then they whipped him awfully for getting out. They meant to keep him there until the work of destruction was done. But, thank the Lord, the Latter-day Saints yet live, and yet have an influence, and they are yet felt.
Now, brethren, this is the word of the Lord. And that contention which exists throughout the country, and which by its actual division is rendered powerless to injure us, is really our protection; God uses it to protect us. He has said, “The wicked shall slay the wicked.” The time shall come when the vengeance of the Almighty will fall upon the heads of those that have persecuted, slain, driven, and rejoiced over the destruction and affliction of the Saints. I know that this is the work of the Lord Almighty. I bear my testimony to it. And I say that if we were as we ought to be, if we would listen to the counsel of President Young as we ought to do, if we would obey his instructions as we ought to obey them, we should be the wealthiest people upon the face of the earth. I suppose, however, so far as the necessaries of life are concerned, we are so now. I presume you cannot find a community throughout the United States as large as ours but what the present distress, growing out of the present financial panic, from political disorganization, the failure of men to pay their debts, the refusal of the South to continue in the Union—among these influences you cannot find a community so large as this but what would be more or less actually in a state of suffering for want of bread. There is no Latter-day Saint in these mountains but what can get good bread, and eat that which is good and wholesome. Hence, I may say, we are the richest people; and if we had listened as we ought to have done for the last four years to the counsel of the Presidency, we should have possessed millions of property which we do not now. The fear there is in the breasts of many that the Presidency will exercise an influence over their business affairs, that would not give them as good a chance as they ought to have, has been all the while a plan to entangle our own feet, and has caused us to grope like blind men in the dark, and scramble for the picayunes when we might as well have picked up the eagles. I have been sorry for this. I know that a wise head to guide us in our movements in our different settlements—to tell us what we should cultivate, what kind of things we should improve in, and the advantages to be taken of the climate and productions of our several localities, and the way we should exercise our labor to produce the necessaries of life, is of vast importance to us. We have our brethren scattered all over the world, far and near, and many of them have been struggling for years to come to Zion. We should be awake while we are here, and try to release them from their bondage, for ere long the terrible storm will break loose; every man's hand will be let loose upon his neighbor, and blood and distress, turmoil, sorrow, misery, war, and destruction will sweep the whole face of the earth as with the besom of destruction.
Let us, then, exert ourselves to deliver our brethren, that they may flee from the old barn like rats from a building on fire, and escape in time, and escape unhurt. Be wide awake and diligent in these things; and, when we are called upon to go after the poor, regard it as a most important mission. I do not want to bread. There is no Latter-day Saint go as teamsters, select some that are of no account. If you send out a team round which you expect to have gathered fifteen or twenty Saints to cross the Plains, send a man that will be a father to them, and teach them righteousness, and inspire them with good sentiments and exalted feelings. And you that go on such missions, remember you are sent to bring home the sheaves: therefore take care of them; strengthen and encourage them in regard to the things they should do and understand; stir up in their hearts a spirit of obedience, and they will come in here with the light of the Spirit of the Lord burning brightly within them, that their passage over the Plains may be a school to them of principle and doctrine and truth, that they may inherit all the blessings that are in store for them—blessings that will endure forever.
I believe I have got entirely from my text. Excuse me, and may the Lord bless you. Amen.
Choir sung "The standard of Zion."
Patriarch Morley pronounced the benediction.
In the evening the Bishops and High Priests met in the Thirteenth Ward Assembly Rooms. Reports were received from most of the Bishops in the Territory, relative to tithing, the condition of their Wards and the preparations they were making for sending teams east to gather the poor, after which
President B. Young
delivered a discourse, that was full of important instructions to Bishops, High Priests, and to all true saints.
President B. Young
delivered a discourse, that was full of important instructions to Bishops, High Priests, and to all true saints.
Sunday Morning, April 7.
The Conference was called to order at 10 o'clock.
Choir sung "Come, all ye Saints who dwell on earth."
George A. Smith offered prayer.
Choir sung "I'll praise my Maker while I've breath."
The Conference was called to order at 10 o'clock.
Choir sung "Come, all ye Saints who dwell on earth."
George A. Smith offered prayer.
Choir sung "I'll praise my Maker while I've breath."
Elder Lorenzo Snow
addressed the audience on the subject of the blessings this people enjoy, and the great privilege they have of meeting together in a Conference capacity to see and learn how much improvement each other have made. He said it was impossible to point to the day, the hour, or the moment that a child grows, but yet it is visible that the child is increasing in stature, and it is just so with this people—they grow imperceptibly. We would all, doubtless, like to be wise and happy, but we do not know how to become so, but the gospel is giving us power to attain to these things; it shows us how to be both happy and good. When a man receives wisdom and intelligence from God, the spirit of truth prompts him to communicate it to others, and when he has learned to be happy it prompts him to teach others to be happy. A man may have power to make the thunders roll and the lightning flash, but he asked the congregations what that had to do with making a man happy. Men may be very good and yet not be half so useful as they might be, if they were more wise. He asked how we know that the brethren who preside over us are men of God, and that their designs are pure and holy, and answered because the Deity is within us; because the Holy Spirit given through obedience to the gospel, reveals these things to us, and every man and woman who are in the line of their duty, live in the light of revelation continually.
addressed the audience on the subject of the blessings this people enjoy, and the great privilege they have of meeting together in a Conference capacity to see and learn how much improvement each other have made. He said it was impossible to point to the day, the hour, or the moment that a child grows, but yet it is visible that the child is increasing in stature, and it is just so with this people—they grow imperceptibly. We would all, doubtless, like to be wise and happy, but we do not know how to become so, but the gospel is giving us power to attain to these things; it shows us how to be both happy and good. When a man receives wisdom and intelligence from God, the spirit of truth prompts him to communicate it to others, and when he has learned to be happy it prompts him to teach others to be happy. A man may have power to make the thunders roll and the lightning flash, but he asked the congregations what that had to do with making a man happy. Men may be very good and yet not be half so useful as they might be, if they were more wise. He asked how we know that the brethren who preside over us are men of God, and that their designs are pure and holy, and answered because the Deity is within us; because the Holy Spirit given through obedience to the gospel, reveals these things to us, and every man and woman who are in the line of their duty, live in the light of revelation continually.
Improvement—Restoration of the Priesthood, Etc.
Remarks by Elder Lorenzo Snow, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1861.
Reported by J. V. Long.
It is a matter of rejoicing to me, brethren and sisters, that I have the privilege of assembling here with you in a Conference capacity, contemplating the growth of the kingdom of the Almighty which has been upon the earth for the past thirty-one years, and considering the progress that this people have made in knowledge, power, and intelligence. We meet together in this capacity from time to time. Twice in a year we have always the same privilege.
After considering the past, and seeing the improvements we have made, as a people and as individuals, it is a matter of importance to us to consider ourselves, to see whether we are making such progress as is required of us—to learn if we are keeping pace with the times and the improvements that are being made by the leading men of the Church—to find out whether we, as individuals, are improving in the principles of the Gospel, whether we are improving in the practice of righteous and holy principles, and whether we are gaining knowledge, wisdom, virtue, and getting a more full understanding of how to make ourselves happy, and thus prepare ourselves for that situation that we expect to occupy in future.
As has been said by our President, we can clearly see the rapid improvements and advances that this people are making from year to year. It is a pleasure to us, and we ought to feel grateful to our Heavenly Father for the strength that he has given to this people in consequence of the union, the knowledge, and wisdom that we are continually gaining.
We can easily see the improvements that the people are making. It is like the babe that passes from a state of infancy to childhood, and thence to manhood. You cannot tell the particular moments of its growth and increase in stature; you cannot point out the particular day, hour, or minute in which it increases; but you are all the time perfectly aware that it is gaining, growing, becoming greater continually. It is precisely so in regard to ourselves spiritually. If we are doing our duty, though we cannot point out the moment, the day, or the particular time when we receive the increase of knowledge, wisdom, or power, yet we know and feel conscious, as we reflect back, that we have gained. This is a blessing, and for this we should feel deeply grateful to our Heavenly Father. We are where we want to make ourselves happy, and the nature of the objects around us are such as to cause us to bear some fruit, be it good or bad, sweet or sour.
We are in the world, but we are ignorant. We do not know what will make us happy, or whether we shall receive what we anticipate. We know little or nothing about these things. We seek happiness and that which will make us comfortable, but we do not really understand what will make us happy for time and happy for eternity.
The Priesthood has been restored. It has been bestowed upon man, that through that medium all who would like to be good and happy might have the privilege. The Gospel tells us how to be great, good, and happy. The Spirit of the Gospel of Christ teaches all things that are necessary for our present and future welfare.
We have these objects in view today, and we should continually keep them before us. Look back for twenty-five years, or look back ten years only, and a great many have been in the Church that length of time, and see what we have accomplished. We see farther and comprehend things better; hence we are better prepared for the things that are coming on the earth than we were ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years ago to know how to be useful—to know how to do things as they should be done.
A man may be a very good man, and yet not have wisdom to do things right; but we have got the Spirit that will enable us to know how to put them in the best channel, so that they will be best calculated to roll on the kingdom of God, to make us happy, and prepare us for the scenes that lie before us. Is not the Gospel a good thing? Is it not worthy of a man losing his substance and even his life to gain the blessings that are promised to the faithful in Israel? The man who has the priesthood, who is filled with the Holy Ghost, is to be guided and dictated by it in the way of happiness and life. It is very necessary for us to have these things laid before us frequently, that we may be put in remembrance of our duties.
The organized spirit which God gave us is the one which conceives through the revelations that are given from on high. The nature and the character of those teachings that come from the Priesthood are such that we comprehend them: the Spirit manifests them unto us as they are. By it we learn our duties to God and man. We are taught by it to shun the evil and cleave unto that which is good. We understand this, if we are in the path of duty. It is not miracles that produce within us that living faith of which President Young so frequently speaks; but we learn the nature and character of our religion. We learn that which is calculated to enable us to shun all evil power and to make us happy.
When a man receives knowledge, he is prompted to impart it to others; when a man becomes happy, the Spirit that surrounds him teaches him to strive to make others happy. It is not so in the Gentile world. If a man attains to any important position, he does not strive to elevate others to participate in the same blessings. In this respect there is a great difference between the Latter-day Saints and the world of mankind. The object of the Priesthood is to make all men happy, to diffuse information, to make all partakers of like same blessings in their turn. Is there any chance of a man's becoming happy without a knowledge of the Gospel of Christ? A man may make the thunders roll, the lightnings flash; but what has that to do with making a man happy? Nothing. Though in the world they try to make themselves happy, still they are not successful in what they strive to accomplish. They cannot be happy except upon one principle, and that is by embracing the fulness of the Gospel, which teaches us not to wait till we get into eternity before we begin to make ourselves happy; but it teaches us to strive here to make ourselves and those around us rejoice in the blessings of the Almighty.
This, then, should be our aim and object—to learn to make ourselves useful—to be saviors to our fellow men—to learn how to save them—to communicate to them a knowledge of the principles that are necessary to raise them to the same degree of intelligence that we have ourselves.
Men may be very good, and yet they may not be very wise, nor so useful as they might be; but the Gospel is given to make us wise, and to enable us to get those things in our minds that are calculated to make us happy. The time that we have to meet together here and compare ourselves with the principles of our profession is a great blessing.
We are a Territory; we have our own Government; we have our own dispenser of light and knowledge, who is supported by our united faith; and the Spirit within us teaches to sanction their proceedings, and how to walk in the path of life.
I dare say that some of us do not sufficiently reflect upon the good things that are in our minds, nor do we have that gratitude that we ought to have to our Heavenly Father.
I see some of my brethren around me who hold the holy Priesthood that has descended out of the heavens in these last days; I behold their faces multiplied around me; I see them appointed to become saviors among men—to be always on hand to officiate in the Priesthood. They are destined to become saviors on the earth—rulers among the children of men, to teach mankind how to increase in the principles and likeness of Deity—how to increase in those principles of power that will enable them constantly to ascend in the path of eternal life—to be like the child that grows when in infancy, gradually increasing in the knowledge of God.
This is the condition in which they are placed, if they are acting in their proper positions, and if they are upholding and sustaining those who are in our midst, and who are appointed to lead and guide this people to eternal life and exaltation. We may increase in knowledge and power, and in our ability to build up the kingdom of God upon the earth, and that, too, by our diligence, our humility, and faithfulness to the covenants we have made. We do not require miracles to enable as to perform the duties of today. We know, from defending the teachings of the servants of God, that we are right—that the Spirit from on high accompanies us. We knew that we are right as well as the Lord does. How do we know this? Because Deity is within us, and that Spirit of Deity that is within us teaches us that we are the sons of God; it teaches the sisters that they are the daughters of God, and by it we are all taught that we are the children of our Father in heaven. Therefore we know if we are in the line of our duty; for the Spirit of the Gospel teaches every man who lives in the line of his duty that he is in the path of right, and so it does every woman. By it she knows she is walking in the path of truth and life. It is this Spirit which teaches the sisters as well as the brethren the right from the wrong; and she has a perfect right to know the truth of her religion—to have a knowledge for herself that the principles of her profession are divine. Is there anything wrong or mysterious in this? No. It is because she is a child of God, and therefore she is capacitated to know as he knows—to comprehend the principles of her religion, its divine origin, and its tendency onward and upward.
This is a good and glorious principle, and we are uniting ourselves together, and continually striving to form a nucleus of power, and getting round us that support that will endure forever; and we will stand shoulder to shoulder, and break in pieces and subdue that which would strive to overcome us, and then plant the principles of righteousness over all the earth. This we will accomplish, for it is given to us to do; and this is the period in which it is to be done, and we will do it. We will gird up our loins and rejoice, in the work given to us, and in erecting constantly around us that which will enable us to increase in wisdom, in experience, and in the knowledge of God.
Brethren and sisters, short sermons is the doctrine of the day; therefore I say, The Lord bless you! And I bless you with all the power that I possess. President Young blesses you, his Counselors bless you, the Twelve Apostles bless you, the Seventies bless you, the High Priests bless you, and we all bless each other; and hence we are a blessed people, inasmuch us we live for each other's good, and the building up of the kingdom of God.
Brethren, who can overcome us? Who can place a stumbling block in the way of our feet as we are wending our way to celestial glory? Is there any need of tears? No, not much. Need we have any fear of the result? No. There is no need of crying and mourning, for we are the saviors of men, appointed to be the kings and queens of the earth. We cannot always do what we would like to do, but we shall have the power to do that which we should do. The Lord will give us the power to do this.
The Lord bless you! Amen.
Remarks by Elder Lorenzo Snow, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1861.
Reported by J. V. Long.
It is a matter of rejoicing to me, brethren and sisters, that I have the privilege of assembling here with you in a Conference capacity, contemplating the growth of the kingdom of the Almighty which has been upon the earth for the past thirty-one years, and considering the progress that this people have made in knowledge, power, and intelligence. We meet together in this capacity from time to time. Twice in a year we have always the same privilege.
After considering the past, and seeing the improvements we have made, as a people and as individuals, it is a matter of importance to us to consider ourselves, to see whether we are making such progress as is required of us—to learn if we are keeping pace with the times and the improvements that are being made by the leading men of the Church—to find out whether we, as individuals, are improving in the principles of the Gospel, whether we are improving in the practice of righteous and holy principles, and whether we are gaining knowledge, wisdom, virtue, and getting a more full understanding of how to make ourselves happy, and thus prepare ourselves for that situation that we expect to occupy in future.
As has been said by our President, we can clearly see the rapid improvements and advances that this people are making from year to year. It is a pleasure to us, and we ought to feel grateful to our Heavenly Father for the strength that he has given to this people in consequence of the union, the knowledge, and wisdom that we are continually gaining.
We can easily see the improvements that the people are making. It is like the babe that passes from a state of infancy to childhood, and thence to manhood. You cannot tell the particular moments of its growth and increase in stature; you cannot point out the particular day, hour, or minute in which it increases; but you are all the time perfectly aware that it is gaining, growing, becoming greater continually. It is precisely so in regard to ourselves spiritually. If we are doing our duty, though we cannot point out the moment, the day, or the particular time when we receive the increase of knowledge, wisdom, or power, yet we know and feel conscious, as we reflect back, that we have gained. This is a blessing, and for this we should feel deeply grateful to our Heavenly Father. We are where we want to make ourselves happy, and the nature of the objects around us are such as to cause us to bear some fruit, be it good or bad, sweet or sour.
We are in the world, but we are ignorant. We do not know what will make us happy, or whether we shall receive what we anticipate. We know little or nothing about these things. We seek happiness and that which will make us comfortable, but we do not really understand what will make us happy for time and happy for eternity.
The Priesthood has been restored. It has been bestowed upon man, that through that medium all who would like to be good and happy might have the privilege. The Gospel tells us how to be great, good, and happy. The Spirit of the Gospel of Christ teaches all things that are necessary for our present and future welfare.
We have these objects in view today, and we should continually keep them before us. Look back for twenty-five years, or look back ten years only, and a great many have been in the Church that length of time, and see what we have accomplished. We see farther and comprehend things better; hence we are better prepared for the things that are coming on the earth than we were ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years ago to know how to be useful—to know how to do things as they should be done.
A man may be a very good man, and yet not have wisdom to do things right; but we have got the Spirit that will enable us to know how to put them in the best channel, so that they will be best calculated to roll on the kingdom of God, to make us happy, and prepare us for the scenes that lie before us. Is not the Gospel a good thing? Is it not worthy of a man losing his substance and even his life to gain the blessings that are promised to the faithful in Israel? The man who has the priesthood, who is filled with the Holy Ghost, is to be guided and dictated by it in the way of happiness and life. It is very necessary for us to have these things laid before us frequently, that we may be put in remembrance of our duties.
The organized spirit which God gave us is the one which conceives through the revelations that are given from on high. The nature and the character of those teachings that come from the Priesthood are such that we comprehend them: the Spirit manifests them unto us as they are. By it we learn our duties to God and man. We are taught by it to shun the evil and cleave unto that which is good. We understand this, if we are in the path of duty. It is not miracles that produce within us that living faith of which President Young so frequently speaks; but we learn the nature and character of our religion. We learn that which is calculated to enable us to shun all evil power and to make us happy.
When a man receives knowledge, he is prompted to impart it to others; when a man becomes happy, the Spirit that surrounds him teaches him to strive to make others happy. It is not so in the Gentile world. If a man attains to any important position, he does not strive to elevate others to participate in the same blessings. In this respect there is a great difference between the Latter-day Saints and the world of mankind. The object of the Priesthood is to make all men happy, to diffuse information, to make all partakers of like same blessings in their turn. Is there any chance of a man's becoming happy without a knowledge of the Gospel of Christ? A man may make the thunders roll, the lightnings flash; but what has that to do with making a man happy? Nothing. Though in the world they try to make themselves happy, still they are not successful in what they strive to accomplish. They cannot be happy except upon one principle, and that is by embracing the fulness of the Gospel, which teaches us not to wait till we get into eternity before we begin to make ourselves happy; but it teaches us to strive here to make ourselves and those around us rejoice in the blessings of the Almighty.
This, then, should be our aim and object—to learn to make ourselves useful—to be saviors to our fellow men—to learn how to save them—to communicate to them a knowledge of the principles that are necessary to raise them to the same degree of intelligence that we have ourselves.
Men may be very good, and yet they may not be very wise, nor so useful as they might be; but the Gospel is given to make us wise, and to enable us to get those things in our minds that are calculated to make us happy. The time that we have to meet together here and compare ourselves with the principles of our profession is a great blessing.
We are a Territory; we have our own Government; we have our own dispenser of light and knowledge, who is supported by our united faith; and the Spirit within us teaches to sanction their proceedings, and how to walk in the path of life.
I dare say that some of us do not sufficiently reflect upon the good things that are in our minds, nor do we have that gratitude that we ought to have to our Heavenly Father.
I see some of my brethren around me who hold the holy Priesthood that has descended out of the heavens in these last days; I behold their faces multiplied around me; I see them appointed to become saviors among men—to be always on hand to officiate in the Priesthood. They are destined to become saviors on the earth—rulers among the children of men, to teach mankind how to increase in the principles and likeness of Deity—how to increase in those principles of power that will enable them constantly to ascend in the path of eternal life—to be like the child that grows when in infancy, gradually increasing in the knowledge of God.
This is the condition in which they are placed, if they are acting in their proper positions, and if they are upholding and sustaining those who are in our midst, and who are appointed to lead and guide this people to eternal life and exaltation. We may increase in knowledge and power, and in our ability to build up the kingdom of God upon the earth, and that, too, by our diligence, our humility, and faithfulness to the covenants we have made. We do not require miracles to enable as to perform the duties of today. We know, from defending the teachings of the servants of God, that we are right—that the Spirit from on high accompanies us. We knew that we are right as well as the Lord does. How do we know this? Because Deity is within us, and that Spirit of Deity that is within us teaches us that we are the sons of God; it teaches the sisters that they are the daughters of God, and by it we are all taught that we are the children of our Father in heaven. Therefore we know if we are in the line of our duty; for the Spirit of the Gospel teaches every man who lives in the line of his duty that he is in the path of right, and so it does every woman. By it she knows she is walking in the path of truth and life. It is this Spirit which teaches the sisters as well as the brethren the right from the wrong; and she has a perfect right to know the truth of her religion—to have a knowledge for herself that the principles of her profession are divine. Is there anything wrong or mysterious in this? No. It is because she is a child of God, and therefore she is capacitated to know as he knows—to comprehend the principles of her religion, its divine origin, and its tendency onward and upward.
This is a good and glorious principle, and we are uniting ourselves together, and continually striving to form a nucleus of power, and getting round us that support that will endure forever; and we will stand shoulder to shoulder, and break in pieces and subdue that which would strive to overcome us, and then plant the principles of righteousness over all the earth. This we will accomplish, for it is given to us to do; and this is the period in which it is to be done, and we will do it. We will gird up our loins and rejoice, in the work given to us, and in erecting constantly around us that which will enable us to increase in wisdom, in experience, and in the knowledge of God.
Brethren and sisters, short sermons is the doctrine of the day; therefore I say, The Lord bless you! And I bless you with all the power that I possess. President Young blesses you, his Counselors bless you, the Twelve Apostles bless you, the Seventies bless you, the High Priests bless you, and we all bless each other; and hence we are a blessed people, inasmuch us we live for each other's good, and the building up of the kingdom of God.
Brethren, who can overcome us? Who can place a stumbling block in the way of our feet as we are wending our way to celestial glory? Is there any need of tears? No, not much. Need we have any fear of the result? No. There is no need of crying and mourning, for we are the saviors of men, appointed to be the kings and queens of the earth. We cannot always do what we would like to do, but we shall have the power to do that which we should do. The Lord will give us the power to do this.
The Lord bless you! Amen.
President Heber C. Kimball
discoursed on the progress of the human mind in knowledge, and the necessity of advancing in the understanding of the principles of truth. Said it was the duty of the Saints to appreciate their gifts and blessings more than they do, and they should appreciate and honor the giver more than the gift. This principle he illustrated by alluding to Jesus being given by his Father to die for the world, and asked if he should appreciate the son or the father the most. He reasoned on the subject of obedience, and said he belongs to that tree of life of which the Eternal Father was the head; that he was a son and an heir of God, and that he knew he should come off victoriously, if he did not do anything worse or more sinful than he had done.
He wished the people to understand that, if a son turned away from his father who is walking in the path of his duty, he turns away from God. He delighted in speaking facts in figures, for by that means he could the more easily get the people to understand the mind and will of our Heavenly Father. He commanded the people to make honorable their election and their endowments. Spoke in strong terms against adultery and lasciviousness, pointing out the punishment of the transgressor. He made some excellent remarks on family government; the importance of union, love, kindness and mutual affection in every household of the Latter Day Saints. Prophesied that the First Presidency and the Twelve will be together in Jackson county, in the flesh, and will help lay off the inheritances of the Saints.
He then made some remarks on the subject of "home manufactures," and the success that had attended his exertions to manufacture linseed oil, by which, he was happy to say, the importation of the foreign adulterated article will be rendered unprofitable, as we could now make a better article at home and sell it at $5.00 per gallon.
discoursed on the progress of the human mind in knowledge, and the necessity of advancing in the understanding of the principles of truth. Said it was the duty of the Saints to appreciate their gifts and blessings more than they do, and they should appreciate and honor the giver more than the gift. This principle he illustrated by alluding to Jesus being given by his Father to die for the world, and asked if he should appreciate the son or the father the most. He reasoned on the subject of obedience, and said he belongs to that tree of life of which the Eternal Father was the head; that he was a son and an heir of God, and that he knew he should come off victoriously, if he did not do anything worse or more sinful than he had done.
He wished the people to understand that, if a son turned away from his father who is walking in the path of his duty, he turns away from God. He delighted in speaking facts in figures, for by that means he could the more easily get the people to understand the mind and will of our Heavenly Father. He commanded the people to make honorable their election and their endowments. Spoke in strong terms against adultery and lasciviousness, pointing out the punishment of the transgressor. He made some excellent remarks on family government; the importance of union, love, kindness and mutual affection in every household of the Latter Day Saints. Prophesied that the First Presidency and the Twelve will be together in Jackson county, in the flesh, and will help lay off the inheritances of the Saints.
He then made some remarks on the subject of "home manufactures," and the success that had attended his exertions to manufacture linseed oil, by which, he was happy to say, the importation of the foreign adulterated article will be rendered unprofitable, as we could now make a better article at home and sell it at $5.00 per gallon.
Appreciation of Divine Gifts and Blessings—Return to Jackson County—Encouragement of Home Manufactures
Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
The remarks of Brother Snow are all very good and brilliant to every intelligent mind. We have to increase the same as a child that goes to school and commences with his A, B, C. When that child obtains a knowledge of the letters of the English language, he can then put them together, and make words and sentences. He then wants a second reader, and by-and-by he will call for a third, and a fourth. Upon the same principle, you and I can improve by degrees; and there is no other way by which any man can improve, except by experience. There is no man in this Church who has lived his religion and walked in the light of truth these twenty-eight years past, but who knows a hundred times more now than he did at the beginning of his career; and that knowledge comes by experience.
We should appreciate our blessings and the gifts that God has conferred upon us, and our affections should be stronger for the Giver of the gifts than they are for the gift. Is it my duty to think more of Jesus, the Son of the living God, than of his Father who gave him as a sacrifice for the sins of the world? Which is the greatest—the Giver of that gift, or the gift? Where people would think more of the gift than the Giver, I have known hundreds of times of those gifts being taken from them because they did not appreciate the Giver. Remember the Father, in the name of Jesus, and then appreciate those men God has given you to be your servants, and you will prosper from this time forth and forever, and all your enemies cannot move you.
Everyone that is not for God is bound for destruction; and if all our enemies combine and come against us with all their armies and munitions of war, they cannot hurt us, for God our Father will fight our battles, as he has done up to this day. He will sustain those who remember the originator of the great work of God in the last days. I am now telling what I know; I am telling what I have experienced. Sometime this month, it will be twenty-nine years since President Young and myself were baptized.
I have been all the time in the midst of this people with the Prophet, and with the Apostles, with Patriarchs, and with sinners; and I know all about the persecutions we have passed through as a people. All this has given me an experience that has proved to a demonstration that the world and all hell combined cannot budge this people one hair, only as they please to go. God dictates them, and that you have seen more particularly within a few years past.
Did that army hurt us? No, not as a people; but there are some persons who are injured, and will be eternally. Who injured them, the army? No: they did it themselves; they fostered the enemy that would have destroyed this whole people and laid the knife to President Young's throat, and to the throats of his friends, and all the friends of God. But the Lord Almighty will make them pay for it. You will feel the rod for this. If it is not in fifty years, it will surely come, and you need not think you will escape it. You may do good works enough to overbalance it, and then perhaps you will not be found wanting.
Those in the days of Joseph who were traitors to him and tampered with the mob are guilty of his death, and they will have to pay the debt some day. You that have not done wrong, happy are ye. Do not do any wrong in the future. You that have done right, continue to do right. You that have not betrayed your brethren, see you do not do it; and you that have not turned away from the Lord and from your covenants, do not do it, but hold them sacred the few more days you have to live in the flesh, and the Lord will let you live many days, and you shall be the ones the Scriptures speak of, to whom the Lord will grant long life, even that child that shall be subject to his father and to his mother. That is the blessing promised to them.
I will say to you, young men, you children of the Saints, and you, young women, Repent of your sins, and turn to your fathers and mothers, and listen to their counsel, if they are good and teach you good principles; and if they are not good, but teach you good principles, cleave unto those principles. When my son turns away from me, he turns away from God; and if he does not turn away from God, he will not turn away from me. I am a son of God; I came from him. I belong to the family of Christ, and I am an heir to all the promises with my Savior Jesus. If I am faithful, and do not do anything worse than I have done, I shall come off victoriously.
A great many may condemn me, and say, I am not as affable and kind as I should be; I do not kiss you and pet you enough, and you condemn me for it, and you would condemn me if I did.
I am a branch of the vine that came out of the root that Jesus dwells in; and when my son or my daughter turns away from me, they turn away from God; and if they do not turn away from God, they will not turn away from me; and when my wife turns away from me, if I am a righteous man, she turns from the tree she is connected to; and if she has done it unrighteously, she turns from God—she transcends her bounds, and the Spirit of the Almighty will not dwell with her; and all you sympathetic persons will fall in with that spirit and condemn me. Let me turn away from President Young and this Church, should I not turn away from God? Of course I should.
It should be with a family as it is with this Church. As this Church is compared to a vine or tree, so a family should be like a tree; they should be one, concentrating their feelings in their head from whence they spring; and if they cannot respect the father they came, from, how can they respect grandfather? I am alluding to fathers and mothers—to the Elders of Israel—to men of God that have been anointed with a holy anointing, to be what? To be Priests of God. Live for it, and honor your present calling, and keep your election sure. If you were not elected in eternity, here is the place to be elected, and to enlist under the banner of Christ; and finally we will all be elected, if we will only take a course that is proper. It is going to be a difficult thing for the elect to be saved, according to the Scriptures, and there will not any of them be saved only by taking a course to do right and by honoring their calling and Priesthood. No man will become a king, only by honoring his calling, and by obtaining a crown by experience, and continuing in well-doing. There is no woman that will ever be a queen except she is a good woman and well attached to a good king.
Now honor that calling and Priesthood, and that sacred endowment that will bring you into the presence of God, if you will observe it. How unrighteously many act that have received a holy and sacred endowment! They will many of them violate those sacred and solemn obligations. They have gone to the nations, and there committed adultery; and those who have been led astray by them think that the First Presidency of this Church and the Twelve Apostles do the same things, and they go down to the pit; but the Lord God Almighty will raise those persons yet, and he will make those men do it, and they will have to pay the debt. They are not going to get through with it in this time any more than those men who fostered that army. They have committed sin; they have kept men and women out of this Church that probably would have been in it. We generally conclude that those who are kept out ought to be out. I tell you that a great many that are out are better than many that are in. And then look at your covenants, ladies! Ye mothers in Israel, cleave unto your husbands; love them more than your lives. If you have a kind, benevolent feeling, bestow it on them; and then, if the brethren have any kind, benevolent, sweet, compassionate feelings, confer them upon your wives, and appreciate your Father and God, who gave you both, more than all the rest.
I can recollect a circumstance of seeing a man and woman who had a very fine son: the father took the son in his arms and wanted to embrace him and carry him around and show him, he delighted so much in his son, and thought everybody else delighted in him. Because he did this, the mother stepped forward and pulled the child out of the arms of his father. I said, God my Father will take that child from your arms quicker than you took him from mine, and not more than ten days afterwards it was in its grave.
Let us put everything in its proper place and nourish it properly. And a good man that is inspired of the Almighty, a good calculator and financier, knows how to govern and minister better than the person who never knew anything, and never will, only to waste and destroy all a man has got. You see things, and I do; but you say in your hearts you do not care for anything, only my dear little self.
Father says, in this book, what joy has a man in bestowing a gift upon a person, when the receiver of the gift has no joy in the giver? The joy should be in the giver as well as in the gift. Take the gift and use it for the purpose for which it was designed, and do not worship it, but worship the giver and the proper authority. Now, we will say, here is an Elder; we will say he is a Teacher, and he says, I respect Brother Heber above all other men on the earth, and I will not submit to anybody else but to him; and here are scores of men between him and me that he ought to submit to; but he runs over everyone of these choice gifts to get to me—what will become of him? He will go down to the pit, as sure as he came out of it. When a man is attached to a tree, he should appreciate, honor, and respect every branch pertaining to that tree that is honoring its calling, living its religion, and receiving the true nourishment from the root.
If you can draw any good conclusions from these few hints, receive them and reflect upon them, if they do come from Brother Heber. He is just as capable of teaching the truth, when he has the Spirit of truth as any man in the world. Supposing I communicate truth to you by a figure, an illustration, or a representation, is it not the more easily understood?
Drs. Sprague, Dunyan, and Hovey are Thomsonians, and I like them the best. I ask them why they put Greek names on their medicines which I am familiar with? Does it change the nature of those herbs by coming here to the mountains? No. Then what do you do it for? They reply, People will appreciate a false name better than a true name; hence we give to one man, at one time, powder-falbin; at another, May-apple; and then mandrake. Why do they not call May-apple ‘mandrake’ at once? The doctor gave it to me every way. It is mandrake, May-apple, and then it is powder-falbin. This is done because people have an itching for something new all the time.
I may be detaining you too long; but, brethren, I feel kind to you. As for blessing you, there is not a day of my life but what I bow before my Father alone and before my family, and I pray, Father, bless all Israel, from the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the last member connected with it, and that tells the whole story. Let us do right, and God will lead us off victoriously.
We are richer now for moving to the south than we should have been if we had not moved. What did we save by it? It saved that difficulty that would have brought you into sorrow, probably, all the days of your life, if you had withstood that army and shed blood. But by that move you saved your blood and the blood of your enemies, and in this you did a good deed. It cost considerable, but Father booked it against them, and he will make them pay the debt.
We might have to do such a thing again. I do not know anything about it, but I am pretty sure of one thing—we shall go to Jackson County, Missouri; that is, those who do right and honor their calling, doing what they have been told to do. You will be blessed, and you will see the day when Presidents Young, Kimball, and Wells, and the Twelve Apostles will be in Jackson County, Missouri, laying out your inheritances. In the flesh? Of course. We should look well without being in the flesh! We shall be there in the flesh, and all our enemies cannot prevent it. Brother Wells, you may write that. You will be there, and Willard will be there, and also Jedediah, and Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and David, and Parley; and the day will be when I will see those men in the general assembly of the Church of the Firstborn, in the great council of God in Jerusalem, too. Will we want you to be along?
I heard Joseph say twice that Brother Brigham and I should be in that council in Jerusalem, when there should be a uniting of the two divisions of God's government. Now, you have got to live for it. What would you not do to attain to those blessings? You would give all you have in the world. You may give all you have got, and then keep it; and if you keep the commandments of God and live faithful, you shall everyone see it, and that is what will bring you to it.
When you are called upon to do a thing, do it with all your heart, and God will add a hundredfold to your glory and exaltation. When seed-wheat is sown, if it is not too thick, one seed will produce thirty stalks, and a head on every stalk. Like the mite that the woman gave, it will increase to you thousands, and much more to them that have more in proportion to the kernel.
You Elders of Israel are the very men that will have to bring the sons and daughters of Israel from afar, and nurse them at your side; and you mothers will have to be those very queens that will have to take care of them when they are gathered, if you will honor your calling. It is the pride of my heart to see this people do right, and to do right myself.
There was a man came into the mill the other day—he is a painter, carpenter, joiner, and everything almost. He said I can tell you how to reduce that oil and mix water with it, and no man can detect it; and, says he, you must do it by adding lye to it. I said I would rather have a clear conscience than all the lies in hell. Said I, You and my brethren shall have the pure oil from the flaxseed, and it shall be as pure and as holy as Brother Brigham's gold. You need to be a pure man to cry holiness to the Lord God Almighty. Have our gold pure, without adulteration, have our silver and brass pure, and you shall have the linseed oil pure from me, as pure as it is in the seed; and I will undersell our merchants. I will do it, if I come down to a dollar a gallon. We will stop that leaching out of our gold, and let all Israel say Amen.
Some said there was not any oil in the flaxseed, because the country is dry; but I can get over a gallon of oil from a bushel of seed. If you have money, I want it, and you shall have the oil. I will supply the Public Works and let Brother Brigham have what he wants; and if the Gentiles bring oil here and sell it at three dollars per gallon, I will undersell them. If you pay me money for oil, I will pay you money for seed. If you do not pay me money, I cannot return the compliment, but I will give you oil for your seed. I am going to send back and get something I cannot make. I will tell you what I am going to sell the oil at—five dollars per gallon, and pay two dollars and a half per bushel for seed, or two quarts of oil. That is fair and honorable—as fair for you as for me. If I make a gallon, I get two quarts, and you two. And that is three dollars per gallon cheaper than that which comes from the States.
I believe Brother Clements is selling linseed oil at six dollars; but he cannot sell long, for he has not got it.
Brother Wells has established a nail machinery, and God has blessed him in the operation. He has introduced the nails into market, and he is now making them by the ton, and has put them at twenty-five dollars per hundred; and at the same time, instead of paying their money and good things to him, some men are carrying their money to the States to buy the nails. Why do you not patronize Brother Wells? Those I am speaking of are men in authority. I am using the hydraulic presses Brother Taylor brought into this country, and they are performing wonders. They will each press equal to a hundred and twelve tons weight.
Now, you go to work, brethren and sisters, and get out something of home manufacture, and be as faithful as President Young and his counsel have been in this matter, and then you shall be blessed more than you are. We admit you are a good people, but you can be more useful; and the more useful you are the better you are. If you can feed ten men, you are better than the man that can only feed himself. Would you not rather have him for a husband, sisters, than the man that could not feed himself?
Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
The remarks of Brother Snow are all very good and brilliant to every intelligent mind. We have to increase the same as a child that goes to school and commences with his A, B, C. When that child obtains a knowledge of the letters of the English language, he can then put them together, and make words and sentences. He then wants a second reader, and by-and-by he will call for a third, and a fourth. Upon the same principle, you and I can improve by degrees; and there is no other way by which any man can improve, except by experience. There is no man in this Church who has lived his religion and walked in the light of truth these twenty-eight years past, but who knows a hundred times more now than he did at the beginning of his career; and that knowledge comes by experience.
We should appreciate our blessings and the gifts that God has conferred upon us, and our affections should be stronger for the Giver of the gifts than they are for the gift. Is it my duty to think more of Jesus, the Son of the living God, than of his Father who gave him as a sacrifice for the sins of the world? Which is the greatest—the Giver of that gift, or the gift? Where people would think more of the gift than the Giver, I have known hundreds of times of those gifts being taken from them because they did not appreciate the Giver. Remember the Father, in the name of Jesus, and then appreciate those men God has given you to be your servants, and you will prosper from this time forth and forever, and all your enemies cannot move you.
Everyone that is not for God is bound for destruction; and if all our enemies combine and come against us with all their armies and munitions of war, they cannot hurt us, for God our Father will fight our battles, as he has done up to this day. He will sustain those who remember the originator of the great work of God in the last days. I am now telling what I know; I am telling what I have experienced. Sometime this month, it will be twenty-nine years since President Young and myself were baptized.
I have been all the time in the midst of this people with the Prophet, and with the Apostles, with Patriarchs, and with sinners; and I know all about the persecutions we have passed through as a people. All this has given me an experience that has proved to a demonstration that the world and all hell combined cannot budge this people one hair, only as they please to go. God dictates them, and that you have seen more particularly within a few years past.
Did that army hurt us? No, not as a people; but there are some persons who are injured, and will be eternally. Who injured them, the army? No: they did it themselves; they fostered the enemy that would have destroyed this whole people and laid the knife to President Young's throat, and to the throats of his friends, and all the friends of God. But the Lord Almighty will make them pay for it. You will feel the rod for this. If it is not in fifty years, it will surely come, and you need not think you will escape it. You may do good works enough to overbalance it, and then perhaps you will not be found wanting.
Those in the days of Joseph who were traitors to him and tampered with the mob are guilty of his death, and they will have to pay the debt some day. You that have not done wrong, happy are ye. Do not do any wrong in the future. You that have done right, continue to do right. You that have not betrayed your brethren, see you do not do it; and you that have not turned away from the Lord and from your covenants, do not do it, but hold them sacred the few more days you have to live in the flesh, and the Lord will let you live many days, and you shall be the ones the Scriptures speak of, to whom the Lord will grant long life, even that child that shall be subject to his father and to his mother. That is the blessing promised to them.
I will say to you, young men, you children of the Saints, and you, young women, Repent of your sins, and turn to your fathers and mothers, and listen to their counsel, if they are good and teach you good principles; and if they are not good, but teach you good principles, cleave unto those principles. When my son turns away from me, he turns away from God; and if he does not turn away from God, he will not turn away from me. I am a son of God; I came from him. I belong to the family of Christ, and I am an heir to all the promises with my Savior Jesus. If I am faithful, and do not do anything worse than I have done, I shall come off victoriously.
A great many may condemn me, and say, I am not as affable and kind as I should be; I do not kiss you and pet you enough, and you condemn me for it, and you would condemn me if I did.
I am a branch of the vine that came out of the root that Jesus dwells in; and when my son or my daughter turns away from me, they turn away from God; and if they do not turn away from God, they will not turn away from me; and when my wife turns away from me, if I am a righteous man, she turns from the tree she is connected to; and if she has done it unrighteously, she turns from God—she transcends her bounds, and the Spirit of the Almighty will not dwell with her; and all you sympathetic persons will fall in with that spirit and condemn me. Let me turn away from President Young and this Church, should I not turn away from God? Of course I should.
It should be with a family as it is with this Church. As this Church is compared to a vine or tree, so a family should be like a tree; they should be one, concentrating their feelings in their head from whence they spring; and if they cannot respect the father they came, from, how can they respect grandfather? I am alluding to fathers and mothers—to the Elders of Israel—to men of God that have been anointed with a holy anointing, to be what? To be Priests of God. Live for it, and honor your present calling, and keep your election sure. If you were not elected in eternity, here is the place to be elected, and to enlist under the banner of Christ; and finally we will all be elected, if we will only take a course that is proper. It is going to be a difficult thing for the elect to be saved, according to the Scriptures, and there will not any of them be saved only by taking a course to do right and by honoring their calling and Priesthood. No man will become a king, only by honoring his calling, and by obtaining a crown by experience, and continuing in well-doing. There is no woman that will ever be a queen except she is a good woman and well attached to a good king.
Now honor that calling and Priesthood, and that sacred endowment that will bring you into the presence of God, if you will observe it. How unrighteously many act that have received a holy and sacred endowment! They will many of them violate those sacred and solemn obligations. They have gone to the nations, and there committed adultery; and those who have been led astray by them think that the First Presidency of this Church and the Twelve Apostles do the same things, and they go down to the pit; but the Lord God Almighty will raise those persons yet, and he will make those men do it, and they will have to pay the debt. They are not going to get through with it in this time any more than those men who fostered that army. They have committed sin; they have kept men and women out of this Church that probably would have been in it. We generally conclude that those who are kept out ought to be out. I tell you that a great many that are out are better than many that are in. And then look at your covenants, ladies! Ye mothers in Israel, cleave unto your husbands; love them more than your lives. If you have a kind, benevolent feeling, bestow it on them; and then, if the brethren have any kind, benevolent, sweet, compassionate feelings, confer them upon your wives, and appreciate your Father and God, who gave you both, more than all the rest.
I can recollect a circumstance of seeing a man and woman who had a very fine son: the father took the son in his arms and wanted to embrace him and carry him around and show him, he delighted so much in his son, and thought everybody else delighted in him. Because he did this, the mother stepped forward and pulled the child out of the arms of his father. I said, God my Father will take that child from your arms quicker than you took him from mine, and not more than ten days afterwards it was in its grave.
Let us put everything in its proper place and nourish it properly. And a good man that is inspired of the Almighty, a good calculator and financier, knows how to govern and minister better than the person who never knew anything, and never will, only to waste and destroy all a man has got. You see things, and I do; but you say in your hearts you do not care for anything, only my dear little self.
Father says, in this book, what joy has a man in bestowing a gift upon a person, when the receiver of the gift has no joy in the giver? The joy should be in the giver as well as in the gift. Take the gift and use it for the purpose for which it was designed, and do not worship it, but worship the giver and the proper authority. Now, we will say, here is an Elder; we will say he is a Teacher, and he says, I respect Brother Heber above all other men on the earth, and I will not submit to anybody else but to him; and here are scores of men between him and me that he ought to submit to; but he runs over everyone of these choice gifts to get to me—what will become of him? He will go down to the pit, as sure as he came out of it. When a man is attached to a tree, he should appreciate, honor, and respect every branch pertaining to that tree that is honoring its calling, living its religion, and receiving the true nourishment from the root.
If you can draw any good conclusions from these few hints, receive them and reflect upon them, if they do come from Brother Heber. He is just as capable of teaching the truth, when he has the Spirit of truth as any man in the world. Supposing I communicate truth to you by a figure, an illustration, or a representation, is it not the more easily understood?
Drs. Sprague, Dunyan, and Hovey are Thomsonians, and I like them the best. I ask them why they put Greek names on their medicines which I am familiar with? Does it change the nature of those herbs by coming here to the mountains? No. Then what do you do it for? They reply, People will appreciate a false name better than a true name; hence we give to one man, at one time, powder-falbin; at another, May-apple; and then mandrake. Why do they not call May-apple ‘mandrake’ at once? The doctor gave it to me every way. It is mandrake, May-apple, and then it is powder-falbin. This is done because people have an itching for something new all the time.
I may be detaining you too long; but, brethren, I feel kind to you. As for blessing you, there is not a day of my life but what I bow before my Father alone and before my family, and I pray, Father, bless all Israel, from the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the last member connected with it, and that tells the whole story. Let us do right, and God will lead us off victoriously.
We are richer now for moving to the south than we should have been if we had not moved. What did we save by it? It saved that difficulty that would have brought you into sorrow, probably, all the days of your life, if you had withstood that army and shed blood. But by that move you saved your blood and the blood of your enemies, and in this you did a good deed. It cost considerable, but Father booked it against them, and he will make them pay the debt.
We might have to do such a thing again. I do not know anything about it, but I am pretty sure of one thing—we shall go to Jackson County, Missouri; that is, those who do right and honor their calling, doing what they have been told to do. You will be blessed, and you will see the day when Presidents Young, Kimball, and Wells, and the Twelve Apostles will be in Jackson County, Missouri, laying out your inheritances. In the flesh? Of course. We should look well without being in the flesh! We shall be there in the flesh, and all our enemies cannot prevent it. Brother Wells, you may write that. You will be there, and Willard will be there, and also Jedediah, and Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and David, and Parley; and the day will be when I will see those men in the general assembly of the Church of the Firstborn, in the great council of God in Jerusalem, too. Will we want you to be along?
I heard Joseph say twice that Brother Brigham and I should be in that council in Jerusalem, when there should be a uniting of the two divisions of God's government. Now, you have got to live for it. What would you not do to attain to those blessings? You would give all you have in the world. You may give all you have got, and then keep it; and if you keep the commandments of God and live faithful, you shall everyone see it, and that is what will bring you to it.
When you are called upon to do a thing, do it with all your heart, and God will add a hundredfold to your glory and exaltation. When seed-wheat is sown, if it is not too thick, one seed will produce thirty stalks, and a head on every stalk. Like the mite that the woman gave, it will increase to you thousands, and much more to them that have more in proportion to the kernel.
You Elders of Israel are the very men that will have to bring the sons and daughters of Israel from afar, and nurse them at your side; and you mothers will have to be those very queens that will have to take care of them when they are gathered, if you will honor your calling. It is the pride of my heart to see this people do right, and to do right myself.
There was a man came into the mill the other day—he is a painter, carpenter, joiner, and everything almost. He said I can tell you how to reduce that oil and mix water with it, and no man can detect it; and, says he, you must do it by adding lye to it. I said I would rather have a clear conscience than all the lies in hell. Said I, You and my brethren shall have the pure oil from the flaxseed, and it shall be as pure and as holy as Brother Brigham's gold. You need to be a pure man to cry holiness to the Lord God Almighty. Have our gold pure, without adulteration, have our silver and brass pure, and you shall have the linseed oil pure from me, as pure as it is in the seed; and I will undersell our merchants. I will do it, if I come down to a dollar a gallon. We will stop that leaching out of our gold, and let all Israel say Amen.
Some said there was not any oil in the flaxseed, because the country is dry; but I can get over a gallon of oil from a bushel of seed. If you have money, I want it, and you shall have the oil. I will supply the Public Works and let Brother Brigham have what he wants; and if the Gentiles bring oil here and sell it at three dollars per gallon, I will undersell them. If you pay me money for oil, I will pay you money for seed. If you do not pay me money, I cannot return the compliment, but I will give you oil for your seed. I am going to send back and get something I cannot make. I will tell you what I am going to sell the oil at—five dollars per gallon, and pay two dollars and a half per bushel for seed, or two quarts of oil. That is fair and honorable—as fair for you as for me. If I make a gallon, I get two quarts, and you two. And that is three dollars per gallon cheaper than that which comes from the States.
I believe Brother Clements is selling linseed oil at six dollars; but he cannot sell long, for he has not got it.
Brother Wells has established a nail machinery, and God has blessed him in the operation. He has introduced the nails into market, and he is now making them by the ton, and has put them at twenty-five dollars per hundred; and at the same time, instead of paying their money and good things to him, some men are carrying their money to the States to buy the nails. Why do you not patronize Brother Wells? Those I am speaking of are men in authority. I am using the hydraulic presses Brother Taylor brought into this country, and they are performing wonders. They will each press equal to a hundred and twelve tons weight.
Now, you go to work, brethren and sisters, and get out something of home manufacture, and be as faithful as President Young and his counsel have been in this matter, and then you shall be blessed more than you are. We admit you are a good people, but you can be more useful; and the more useful you are the better you are. If you can feed ten men, you are better than the man that can only feed himself. Would you not rather have him for a husband, sisters, than the man that could not feed himself?
President Brigham Young
made a few remarks upon the same subject.
Home Manufactures
Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
I have no objections to the tenor of the remarks we have just heard pertaining to our temporal affairs, though they are rather more appropriate, according to custom, in such a meeting as we had last evening with the Bishops, High Priests, &c. I wish to say a few words on the subject last spoken of by Brother Kimball. I think he will be very successful in obtaining oil from flax or linseed. For a beginning, and for persons that never saw oil made before, which is the case with the workmen who are making it—they knew nothing about making oil—I think they have done extraordinary well. If I remember correctly, in the States five quarts of oil from a bushel of seed was considered a good yield. There I was some little acquainted with making oil, and very much acquainted with using it.
Brother Kimball spoke of the oil that is imported to this country. I am doubtful whether there has ever been a gallon of pure linseed oil imported into this Territory; and the person that told Brother Kimball that he could reduce his oil so that the adulteration could not be detected, is mistaken, for I could detect it by rubbing it between my fingers. Before I knew anything of “Mormonism,” I knew how to adulterate oil. Brother Kimball says that alkali is often mixed with linseed oil. In my young days I had to quit the business of painting purely because I had either to be dishonest or quit; and I quit. I will venture to say that, let me have the oil that is made at Brother Kimball's mill, and have pure white lead of our own manufacture, and I will put a coat of paint on to the outside woodwork of buildings that will last twenty years, better than the materials we import and now use for painting will last two years. When you buy the oil that is imported and make putty with it and what is commonly called Spanish white—if you set glass in windows with that putty, in a year or two the glass will be falling out; but when you use the pure oil, in two years you could scarcely get the glass out without the use of a knife or chisel to first cut out the putty. Let it stand ten years, and probably you would have to cut the sash to pieces to let the glass out. The oil we get from the East is worth but little, only for present show. That which we make here will last in this climate.
Our painters tell us that it is the climate that destroys the paint. I do not think there is a painter in this Territory that knows what pure linseed oil is. They tell us that the climate destroys the paint. That is a mistake; the paint is not good. Can you tell whether there is alkali mixed with the linseed oil? I can. I can also tell whether there is Spanish white in the paint. Plaster of Paris (by some called Paris white) is also mixed with white lead, and our houses are painted with it. Other paints are adulterated. I pay from thirty to fifty dollars to have a carriage painted, and in three months it needs painting again. Let it stand six months, and you would hardly suppose that it had been painted in sixteen years.
We ought to have spoken last night in regard to raising flax in this Territory, and I will now say to the brethren that we wish them to return the flax seed they have borrowed at the Tithing Office. We also wish you to raise flax and make linen cloth. We have as good workmen at this business as there are in the world. The American brethren do not generally know how to raise flax for making fine linen, but they can easily learn. Instead of sowing five pecks to the acre, sow five or more bushels, and you will raise flax as soft as silk; from such flax fibers can be hatcheled as fine as spinster's webs. Most of the linen we import is more than half cotton. The flax is put into machines and cut and torn to pieces; it then goes through another rotting process, is then mixed with cotton, carded, spun, and called linen. I once in a while see a genuine piece of linen, which will as well last six years as the most we buy will last six months, if it is not washed to death. This you know, if you have been accustomed to using tow cloth. In clearing out brush, cutting down trees, logging, and all kinds of rough work, the one or two pairs of genuine tow trousers and a couple of tow frocks will last through a summer; but put on that heavy so-called linen you buy in the stores, and do nothing but come into a pulpit, and before you have had it three months it is cut to pieces and entirely done. But I will not detain you longer upon this point.
Brother Kimball mentioned about some of the brethren's sending to the States for nails. Send to the States, go to the stores, buy where you please, and do you think that you can get better nails than you can get at our nail factory? I know what nails are; I have driven a great many. There is not a better nail made at Boston or in Germany than there is at this factory. I never saw a better nail, nor better nail machinery than that which we have running.
We should now make our own iron. We have already spent about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to make iron here, but we have failed, not for want of ore or for want of skill. Where is the difficulty? There has not been union enough in the men who engaged in that work. After we had spent about one hundred thousand dollars, an ingenious man, named Peter Shirts, would have brought out the iron as good as ever was made, and that, too, by means of a small furnace of trifling cost; but they ran him out of the county. The citizens pronounced him a nuisance, confiscated his property, and drove him out. Every man said—“I will have the name and honor of making the first iron made in this Territory, or I will destroy the work.” That is the difficulty. We have the best of iron ore, and we have coal close by it; and some man will go to work, by-and-by, who is not worth fifty dollars, and make iron. Go into Vermont and you will there see a farmer, when he has a little leisure, take his wagon, get the ore, smelt it, hammer it out, and make two or three hundred pounds of iron in a day. He takes care of it, and by-and-by someone comes along and buys it of him. Travel through that country, and you will find hundreds of such little iron forges. Men who do not pretend even to be blacksmiths get some person to teach them how to use a trip hammer to draw out the iron after they have put on their blast and run out some two or three hundred pounds. On a rainy day a farmer has his ore ready and makes iron when he cannot work in the field. We have shown you that we can make nails. I cannot do everything. Who has brought carding machines and other machinery here? Who has entered into every kind of mechanism that has been started in this Territory? Twelve thousand dollars we have spent to get the manufacture of pottery under way. By-and-by some man will come along, not worth fifty dollars, and take the feldspar, which enters so largely into our granite rock, and make the best of chinaware.
We want glass. Some man will come along, by-and-by, and take the quartz rock, rig up a little furnace, and make glass.
Choir sung, "Come, O thou King of kings."
Dismissed by Elder Levi W. Hancock.
The improved state of the weather this morning caused a vast concourse of people to assemble on the Temple Block, and, at the time of meeting, there were over 1,000 persons who could not get into the Tabernacle. On seeing which, the President appointed Elders Orson Hyde and John Taylor to go and preach to the people in the open air.
made a few remarks upon the same subject.
Home Manufactures
Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
I have no objections to the tenor of the remarks we have just heard pertaining to our temporal affairs, though they are rather more appropriate, according to custom, in such a meeting as we had last evening with the Bishops, High Priests, &c. I wish to say a few words on the subject last spoken of by Brother Kimball. I think he will be very successful in obtaining oil from flax or linseed. For a beginning, and for persons that never saw oil made before, which is the case with the workmen who are making it—they knew nothing about making oil—I think they have done extraordinary well. If I remember correctly, in the States five quarts of oil from a bushel of seed was considered a good yield. There I was some little acquainted with making oil, and very much acquainted with using it.
Brother Kimball spoke of the oil that is imported to this country. I am doubtful whether there has ever been a gallon of pure linseed oil imported into this Territory; and the person that told Brother Kimball that he could reduce his oil so that the adulteration could not be detected, is mistaken, for I could detect it by rubbing it between my fingers. Before I knew anything of “Mormonism,” I knew how to adulterate oil. Brother Kimball says that alkali is often mixed with linseed oil. In my young days I had to quit the business of painting purely because I had either to be dishonest or quit; and I quit. I will venture to say that, let me have the oil that is made at Brother Kimball's mill, and have pure white lead of our own manufacture, and I will put a coat of paint on to the outside woodwork of buildings that will last twenty years, better than the materials we import and now use for painting will last two years. When you buy the oil that is imported and make putty with it and what is commonly called Spanish white—if you set glass in windows with that putty, in a year or two the glass will be falling out; but when you use the pure oil, in two years you could scarcely get the glass out without the use of a knife or chisel to first cut out the putty. Let it stand ten years, and probably you would have to cut the sash to pieces to let the glass out. The oil we get from the East is worth but little, only for present show. That which we make here will last in this climate.
Our painters tell us that it is the climate that destroys the paint. I do not think there is a painter in this Territory that knows what pure linseed oil is. They tell us that the climate destroys the paint. That is a mistake; the paint is not good. Can you tell whether there is alkali mixed with the linseed oil? I can. I can also tell whether there is Spanish white in the paint. Plaster of Paris (by some called Paris white) is also mixed with white lead, and our houses are painted with it. Other paints are adulterated. I pay from thirty to fifty dollars to have a carriage painted, and in three months it needs painting again. Let it stand six months, and you would hardly suppose that it had been painted in sixteen years.
We ought to have spoken last night in regard to raising flax in this Territory, and I will now say to the brethren that we wish them to return the flax seed they have borrowed at the Tithing Office. We also wish you to raise flax and make linen cloth. We have as good workmen at this business as there are in the world. The American brethren do not generally know how to raise flax for making fine linen, but they can easily learn. Instead of sowing five pecks to the acre, sow five or more bushels, and you will raise flax as soft as silk; from such flax fibers can be hatcheled as fine as spinster's webs. Most of the linen we import is more than half cotton. The flax is put into machines and cut and torn to pieces; it then goes through another rotting process, is then mixed with cotton, carded, spun, and called linen. I once in a while see a genuine piece of linen, which will as well last six years as the most we buy will last six months, if it is not washed to death. This you know, if you have been accustomed to using tow cloth. In clearing out brush, cutting down trees, logging, and all kinds of rough work, the one or two pairs of genuine tow trousers and a couple of tow frocks will last through a summer; but put on that heavy so-called linen you buy in the stores, and do nothing but come into a pulpit, and before you have had it three months it is cut to pieces and entirely done. But I will not detain you longer upon this point.
Brother Kimball mentioned about some of the brethren's sending to the States for nails. Send to the States, go to the stores, buy where you please, and do you think that you can get better nails than you can get at our nail factory? I know what nails are; I have driven a great many. There is not a better nail made at Boston or in Germany than there is at this factory. I never saw a better nail, nor better nail machinery than that which we have running.
We should now make our own iron. We have already spent about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to make iron here, but we have failed, not for want of ore or for want of skill. Where is the difficulty? There has not been union enough in the men who engaged in that work. After we had spent about one hundred thousand dollars, an ingenious man, named Peter Shirts, would have brought out the iron as good as ever was made, and that, too, by means of a small furnace of trifling cost; but they ran him out of the county. The citizens pronounced him a nuisance, confiscated his property, and drove him out. Every man said—“I will have the name and honor of making the first iron made in this Territory, or I will destroy the work.” That is the difficulty. We have the best of iron ore, and we have coal close by it; and some man will go to work, by-and-by, who is not worth fifty dollars, and make iron. Go into Vermont and you will there see a farmer, when he has a little leisure, take his wagon, get the ore, smelt it, hammer it out, and make two or three hundred pounds of iron in a day. He takes care of it, and by-and-by someone comes along and buys it of him. Travel through that country, and you will find hundreds of such little iron forges. Men who do not pretend even to be blacksmiths get some person to teach them how to use a trip hammer to draw out the iron after they have put on their blast and run out some two or three hundred pounds. On a rainy day a farmer has his ore ready and makes iron when he cannot work in the field. We have shown you that we can make nails. I cannot do everything. Who has brought carding machines and other machinery here? Who has entered into every kind of mechanism that has been started in this Territory? Twelve thousand dollars we have spent to get the manufacture of pottery under way. By-and-by some man will come along, not worth fifty dollars, and take the feldspar, which enters so largely into our granite rock, and make the best of chinaware.
We want glass. Some man will come along, by-and-by, and take the quartz rock, rig up a little furnace, and make glass.
Choir sung, "Come, O thou King of kings."
Dismissed by Elder Levi W. Hancock.
The improved state of the weather this morning caused a vast concourse of people to assemble on the Temple Block, and, at the time of meeting, there were over 1,000 persons who could not get into the Tabernacle. On seeing which, the President appointed Elders Orson Hyde and John Taylor to go and preach to the people in the open air.
Afternoon.
Choir sung, "Before Jehovah's awful throne."
Prayer was offered by Elder W. W. Phelps. Choir sung, "Arise, my soul, arise."
The sacrament was administered by Bishops Hunter, Hardy, Stewart, Kesler, Raleigh and counselor Earl.
Choir sung, "Before Jehovah's awful throne."
Prayer was offered by Elder W. W. Phelps. Choir sung, "Arise, my soul, arise."
The sacrament was administered by Bishops Hunter, Hardy, Stewart, Kesler, Raleigh and counselor Earl.
President Brigham Young
delivered an interesting and instructive discourse, addressed to the Bishops and Presidents from a distance, and also to all who call themselves saints. He spoke of the great blessings that we enjoy in having the ability to build ourselves houses and make ourselves comfortable in this life; of being able to produce everything that we need—the wheat, the apple, the peach, the apricot, the silk, the cotton and all the necessary comforts for this mortal life. He said it was our duty to remember, first of all, the Giver of those gifts, and people who do not do this will meet with losses. The time will come when this people will be obliged to stand isolated from the nations of the earth, hence the propriety of endeavoring to increase our home manufactures.
He told the people that machinery for the manufacture of paper had been brought into the Territory at a great expense, and he wished the sisters to save their cotton and linen rags, and the brethren to grow more flax and hemp, so that we may be able to print our own school books, and also to print the history of Joseph Smith in volumes. He observed that it might seem strange to some that he should speak of such things on the Sabbath day, and when the sacrament was being administered; he would like to speak upon the spiritual things of the kingdom, but this appeared to be the best opportunity of getting the subject before the brethren from the country settlements; and, if we were to neglect our temporal duties, we could not enjoy the spiritual. He urged the brethren to raise more sheep; to take better care of them; and to preserve the wool; make clothes of it; and stop going to foreign markets. He made some appropriate remarks on the subject of domestic economy. Alluded to the attempts to manufacture iron having cost us over $150,000, and said that the only difficulty was—there was a lack of union in those who professed to know how to make it, and instead of uniting their abilities and making the iron that we so much need for the nail factory and other purposes, they all contend for and are determined that they will have the credit of making the first iron in the Territory.
After speaking of the manufacture of sugar, the raising of cane, and tobacco growing, he took up the subjects of the word of wisdom and celestial marriage, the particulars of which will appear in the verbatim report.
delivered an interesting and instructive discourse, addressed to the Bishops and Presidents from a distance, and also to all who call themselves saints. He spoke of the great blessings that we enjoy in having the ability to build ourselves houses and make ourselves comfortable in this life; of being able to produce everything that we need—the wheat, the apple, the peach, the apricot, the silk, the cotton and all the necessary comforts for this mortal life. He said it was our duty to remember, first of all, the Giver of those gifts, and people who do not do this will meet with losses. The time will come when this people will be obliged to stand isolated from the nations of the earth, hence the propriety of endeavoring to increase our home manufactures.
He told the people that machinery for the manufacture of paper had been brought into the Territory at a great expense, and he wished the sisters to save their cotton and linen rags, and the brethren to grow more flax and hemp, so that we may be able to print our own school books, and also to print the history of Joseph Smith in volumes. He observed that it might seem strange to some that he should speak of such things on the Sabbath day, and when the sacrament was being administered; he would like to speak upon the spiritual things of the kingdom, but this appeared to be the best opportunity of getting the subject before the brethren from the country settlements; and, if we were to neglect our temporal duties, we could not enjoy the spiritual. He urged the brethren to raise more sheep; to take better care of them; and to preserve the wool; make clothes of it; and stop going to foreign markets. He made some appropriate remarks on the subject of domestic economy. Alluded to the attempts to manufacture iron having cost us over $150,000, and said that the only difficulty was—there was a lack of union in those who professed to know how to make it, and instead of uniting their abilities and making the iron that we so much need for the nail factory and other purposes, they all contend for and are determined that they will have the credit of making the first iron in the Territory.
After speaking of the manufacture of sugar, the raising of cane, and tobacco growing, he took up the subjects of the word of wisdom and celestial marriage, the particulars of which will appear in the verbatim report.
The Gifts of God—Home Manufactures—Word of Wisdom—Happiness
Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
I wish to speak upon what pertains to our temporal affairs, which I would very well have liked to have been brought before the Bishops' meeting without detaining a congregation like this on such matters. I wish to urge upon the people the necessity of providing for themselves, and not being dependent entirely upon others.
The Lord has given us ability to do a great many things. What a blessing this is! Do you ever think of it? A man has ability to take the raw materials and build a good, comfortable habitation for the accommodation of himself, his wives, and children. The wife can spread a table with wholesome food, and in a manner pleasant to the eye, while the food is gratifying to the palate. They have the ability to provide, if they choose, downy beds upon which to rest their weary bodies. Do you ever think of this? I presume the greater part of the inhabitants of the earth have lived and died without reflecting much upon whence they derived this ability, to whom they were indebted for the ingenuity they possess, or the capability that is organized within them to gather around them the comforts of life. Do you, brethren, think of it?
We have ability to cultivate the earth; we know how to raise stock, how to make clothing, and are not obliged to go naked like the Indians. We are not obliged to lie down in the open air with perhaps a few sage brush around us, as do many of the natives. We have ability to make ourselves comfortable as to the physical wants of this life. Where did we get that ability? Are your hearts lifted to the Donor of those blessings? Do you remember from whence your ability came? Who organized these tabernacles? Who put into them these thinking powers? Who has placed the spirit in the body, and organized them together, and made us capable of reflecting? Where did you get this ability? A well-read historian and geographical scholar can contemplate his antipodes, and in his mind see what they are doing. He can also behold the various exhibitions of human skill in different nations; both in their social and political capacity; for they are in the vision of his mind. Who gave the ability to reflect and to behold the earth and the inhabitants thereof? Is not this a blessing? How cheering, how comforting, how consoling, how exalting! I would be glad if we could realize the blessings we possess.
The Lord has placed in our possession the elements pertaining to this earth. As I told the people, when we first came into this Valley in 1847, there is plenty of silk in the elements here, as much so as in any other part of the earth. Here is also the fine linen. Were there any sheep here when we came first here? No. Were there any silk raisers then here? No. Were there any flax raisers here? No; neither was there a stalk of flax growing, except what was growing wild. The elements are here. Bring the seeds, the eggs of the silkworm, raise the trees for feeding the worms, and let us see if we cannot produce silk here. It is in the elements. We have the elements to produce as good wheat as grows. The elements here will produce the apple, the peach, the pear, the plum, the apricot, the cherry, the currant, and every kind of fruit in abundance, and every variety of plant and vegetable we desire. Have you the ability to bring any of these things forth from the native element? Yes; here are men who know how to raise fruit, and here are the women who know how to dry and cook it. Here are the men who know how to raise sheep, and how to take their fleeces and deliver them into the hands of their families to be manufactured. Here are women who know how to spin, weave, and make the finest of cloth. So with the flax, and so with every material calculated to make us comfortable. Where did we get this ability? We got it from our Father who is in heaven. Be thankful for these precious gifts. As Brother Kimball justly said, “Remember, first of all, the Giver;” worship and adore the Giver. Some will lose a great deal by neglecting the Giver and by worshipping the gift. Such will find that they will meet with losses.
I look forward to no distant period when this people, called Latter-day Saints, will be obliged to sustain themselves. We must prepare to gather around us every necessary of life, to make every implement we may wish to use, and to produce from the earth every grain, vegetable, and fruit that we need, and not go to any other place to buy. Produce every article of clothing that we need, and stop this importation that we are now encumbered with. We must produce all we can enjoy. I expect that I soon shall do so.
I will now make a request of the sisters—one which I wish them to hear, remember, and put in practice. Carefully save all castoff linen and cotton articles of dress, all old shirts, wagon covers, sheets, and every article of cotton and linen fabric, instead of letting them go to waste in your dooryards or in the streets; for we want those rags to supply the paper mill we are now putting up. We have as good machinery for making paper as there is in the United States or in the world. We have brought it here at a heavy expense—it has cost us some twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars. We are now putting it up, and we want the sisters to save rags, and we want the brethren to raise hemp, flax, &c. We want to make our own paper. The inquiry is, “Will it pay cost?” How much paper do we want to use? There is annually imported into and used in this Territory some thirty thousand dollars' worth of paper. Were we making our own paper, much more would be used, for we could then fill the Territory with schoolbooks printed here, and could supply all the paper required throughout the Territory, thereby saving a great many thousand dollars now paid for transportation. We are not able to print a book for want of paper. Now we are prepared to go to work and make our own paper. As I have remarked, we have most excellent machinery; we also have good papermakers; and what hinders our making the best of paper, and all the paper we want to use? Then we can print, in book form, the History of Joseph Smith, and do it in a respectable manner. Then we can print the Church History for ourselves and for the world, and every book we need. To aid in accomplishing so laudable an object, I want the sisters to gather the rags and hand them over to the Bishops, and we will pay for them with paper. We also want hemp, flax, and every material suitable for making good paper.
There are a great many things we wish to talk about; and I do not wish, if we could well avoid it, to bring such things before the Conference, especially on the Sabbath. The sacrament is being administered, and we would like to talk about the spiritual welfare of the people; but if we cannot save ourselves temporally, we may despair of saving ourselves or the people spiritually. The first thing is to save our natural lives and devote them to building up the kingdom of God on the earth.
Place ourselves back ten centuries, read the prophecies, and behold by prophetic vision what the Lord was going to do in the latter days. “The time is coming when the Saints are to be called, and they will assemble themselves together.” “Can it be possible?” “Yes; for the Prophets have foretold it.” “The time is coming when the Lord will speak from the heavens and send his angel to administer to men on earth, when the Priesthood will be restored and bestowed upon the children of men. Look forth in vision and behold these events.” They would appear far more beautiful than they appear to the natural man while acting in them. I sometimes think that we are far beneath our privileges in a spiritual point of view. The Prophets and other ancient holy men saw our day. They did not look at the human family now upon the stage of action in all their weaknesses; they did not see every little trifling affair, every little quarrel that more or less embitters life; they did not see our darkness and contentions, sorrow, pain, anguish, grief, and strife. No; they beheld the glory of God resting upon the people, as we now enjoy it.
Many sects and societies of people have at different times tried to assemble themselves together, because it was in the prophecies that the Saints should be assembled in the latter days—that the Lord God would gather his people. They have tried to gather their societies, but what have they effected? Comparatively nothing. If the Lord had spoken from heaven to them and revealed only this one privilege, and no more, that Christians might assemble themselves together, and live, walk, talk, and commune with each other uninterruptedly, without being obliged to mingle with the world, they would have esteemed it one of the greatest blessings that could have been bestowed upon them.
I shall repeat my request to these my sisters. We wish you to save every article about your house that will make paper, instead of throwing it away. Put the rags in a way that they will get to the paper mill, which is four miles from here. We have taken the Sugar House and converted it into a paper mill, and we will try to make paper, if we did not make sugar. And I urge it upon the brethren to raise sheep, save the wool, and put it in the hands of their wives and daughters. And I enjoin it upon the sister, old and young, to make clothing for their husbands, brothers, children, and themselves, and stop running after imported goods.
In regard to the quality and utility of calico, by some called prints, I can speak from actual knowledge. Take a good seamstress who has four children, and let her sew from Monday morning until Saturday night, and she can scarcely make up the calicos as fast as those four children will wear it out; and let her do her washing to please her, and she will want help in the house, or the children will have to go dirty and ragged. What are these imported rags good for? They are hardly worth making up. There is not half the calico that comes here that is worth making up, if you give it to the people free of charge, if they could do better. Now we can do better.
Raise flax, brethren. There is no place in the world where flax and hemp will grow better than they will here, though they will not do well in every locality. Hunt out places and soil most suitable for flax and hemp, and there let them be grown: also raise and take care of sheep. It is thought by some that this country is unhealthy for sheep, but it is not. There is not a climate or soil better adapted to sheep raising than are these mountains. Some may think that other countries are better, but they are not, so far as I am acquainted. But keep hundreds and hundreds of sheep in a small pen, shut them in there nights, with hardly room to lie down, and let them remain there until ten or eleven o'clock in the day, before they are turned out to grass, as has been done here more or less, and it would kill every sheep in England or Scotland. Let them have plenty of room by day and by night, and they will not become diseased. Give them well-ventilated pens, proper exercise, and proper food, and you will not see them diseased. The disease that is among our sheep is not natural to the climate; it was brought here, and has been fostered by bad management.
When you find the soil that will produce the best and greatest amount of sugar—that best adapted to raising cane, let the cane be raised there, and there let the molasses and sugar be made. Just now we want our quarter-of-an-acre of cane, our quarter-of-an-acre of flax and hemp, our proportion of wheat, corn, and everything else; but by-and-by our labors will be systematized, and we will find the place where we can raise the best cane, and let that place be devoted to raising it, and make sugar, and stop importing it. The English brethren and the brethren from the Eastern and Northern and Western States and from the Canadas know nothing about making sugar from the cane; and when they see newly-made cane sugar, they say it is not good. I have never seen a purer article of sugar made than is made here. Eat the new cane sugar that is made in the Southern States, and it has a very unpleasant taste. Take our sugar and cleanse it as they do, and let it stand until it is ripe for the market, and you will find as good an article of cane sugar as ever was made. The Chinese sugar cane is a better plant to produce sweet than is the cane they raise in the South and on the West India Islands. We can make our own sugar. We send out a large amount of money to buy sugar, and we want this practice stopped. Now, farmers, raise what sugar you want: you can do it as well as not. Go into the business systematically.
You know that we all profess to believe the “Word of Wisdom.” There has been a great deal said about it, more in former than in latter years. We, as Latter-day Saints, care but little about tobacco; but, as “Mormons,” we use a vast quantity of it. As Saints, we use but little; as “Mormons,” we use a great deal. How much do you suppose goes annually from this Territory, and has for ten or twelve years past, in gold and silver, to supply the people with tobacco? I will say $60,000. Brother William H. Hooper, our Delegate in Congress, came here in 1849, and during about eight years he was selling goods; his sales for tobacco alone amounted to over $28,000 a year. At the same time there were other stores that sold their share and drew their share of the money expended yearly, besides what has been brought in by the keg and by the half keg. The traders and passing emigration have sold tons of tobacco, besides what is sold here regularly. I say that $60,000 annually is the smallest figure I can estimate the sales at. Tobacco can be raised here as well as it can be raised in any other place. It wants attention and care. If we use it, let us raise it here. I recommend for some man to go to raising tobacco. One man, who came here last fall, is going to do so; and if he is diligent, he will raise quite a quantity. I want to see some man go to and make a business of raising tobacco and stop sending money out the Territory for that article.
Some of the brethren are very strenuous upon the “Word of Wisdom,” and would like to have me preach upon it, and urge it upon the brethren, and make it a test of fellowship. I do not think that I shall do so. I have never done so. We annually expend only $60,000 to break the “Word of Wisdom,” and we can save the money and still break it, if we will break it. Some would ask Brother Brigham whether he keeps the “Word of Wisdom.” No: and I can say still further, as I told one of the teachers in Nauvoo, I come as near doing so as any man in this generation. It is not using tobacco that particularly breaks the “Word of Wisdom,” nor is that the only bad practice it corrects; but it is profitable in every path of life. If our young persons were manly enough to govern their appetites a little, they would not contract these bad habits; but they must have some weaknesses; they must not be perfect and exactly right in everything. It is a loathsome practice to use tobacco in any way. A doctor told an old lady in New York, when she insisted upon his telling her whether snuff would injure her brain, “It will not hurt the brain: there is no fear of snuff's hurting the brain of anyone, for no person that has brains will take snuff.” I will say that the most filthy way of using tobacco is to smoke it. What is the neat way? If you are going to direct any course for the people to use tobacco, let us know what it is. Cannot you who have used it for years point out a neat, modest, judicious way of using it? The “Word of Wisdom” says that tobacco is good for sick cattle; and when you want another chew, down with it as you would a pill. It may make you vomit a little, but that is soon over, and it is good for sick cattle. That is the neatest way you can use tobacco.
I will now speak a little in regard to people's making themselves happy. We heard something upon that subject today and yesterday; and we frequently hear people preaching about heaven, paradise, and Zion; and if there is a comfort, a felicity, and good feeling, I want to say a few words about them; and I shall begin upon the doctrine so much beloved by Saint and sinner, and that is the plurality of women. The Saints like a plurality of wives, and the sinners like a plurality of men and women. I will say to the sisters that I have heard but very few women, and not a great many men, ever talk sensibly upon the plurality of wives. When they begin to talk about it, they exhibit, almost without an exception, passion instead of principle. Were we to appeal to passions of the people, we should promote the doctrine of a plurality of men and of women. But when we address ourselves to the Saints of the Most High God, it is very different and in a different light. It is for my sisters to be mothers of holy men and holy women—to receive and conceive in the name and by the power of the Holy Ghost—to bring forth their fruits to the praise and honor of the God of heaven. But what are the people doing here? “I want another wife,” and almost universally passion is exhibited instead of principle.
If the plurality of wives is to pander to the low passions of men and women, the sooner it is abolished the better. “How far would you go in abolishing it?” I would say, if the Lord should reveal that it is his will to go so far as to become a Shaking Quaker, Amen to it, and let the sexes have no connection. If so far as for a man to have but one wife, let it be so. The word and will of the Lord is what I want—the will and mind of God. He has revealed his mind and will. The time is coming when the Lord is going to raise up a holy nation. He will bring up a royal Priesthood upon the earth, and he has introduced a plurality of wives for that express purpose, and not to gratify lustful passion in the least. I would rather take my valise in my hand today, and never see a wife or a child again, and preach the Gospel until I go into the grave, than to live as I do, unless God commands it. I never entered into the order of plurality of wives to gratify passion. And were I now asked whether I desired and wanted another wife, my reply would be, It should be one by whom the Spirit will bring forth noble children. I am almost sixty years old; and if I now live for passion, I pray the Lord Almighty to take my life from the earth.
I know the weaknesses of humanity, and I understand the passions of men and women. I am sorry for them. I wish they had grace according to their day, creating such fortitude in them that they would determine to suffer unto death rather than violate a holy command of the Almighty, or transgress the bounds God has set. “Is that the way you have lived?” It is. It is the example I have set before my family from the day the Lord opened my mind to see the Gospel. Ask these sisters (many of them have known me for years), what my life has been in private and in public. It has been like the angel Gabriel's, if he had visited you; and I can live so still. But how are we to be made happy? There is one course—love the Giver more than the gift; love Him that has placed passion in me more than my passions. Let passion lie at the feet of judgment, and let every attribute that God has bestowed on me be devoted to the righteous cause he has commenced upon the earth. This, and this alone, produces happiness. He has brought us forth, and we live and see this day that Prophets, kings, and millions of great and good men have prayed to see, but died without the sight. When they looked at it in vision, it cast a halo, around which was like the dawning of heaven to their souls, and they shouted, “Hallelujah!” beholding the spirit and glory of these times that we now live in. And we yield to passion? I say, Shame on the individual that says passion has anything to do with his life. It is crucified. It lies, as it were, at the foot of the cross. That is my faith, and it has been my life.
How will you be happy? Love the Giver more than the gift. Delight yourselves in your duties, mothers. Here are the middle-aged and the young. I am now almost daily sealing young girls to men of age and experience. Love your duties, sisters. Are you sealed to a good man? Yes, to a man of God. It is for you to bear fruit and bring forth, to the praise of God, the spirits that are born in yonder heavens and are to take tabernacles on the earth. You have the privilege of forming tabernacles for those spirits, instead of their being brought into this wicked world, that God may have a royal Priesthood, a royal people, on the earth. That is what plurality of wives is for, and not to gratify lustful desires. Sisters, do you wish to make yourselves happy? Then what is your duty? It is for you to bear children, in the name of the Lord, that are full of faith and the power of God—to receive, conceive, bear, and bring forth in the name of Israel's God, that you may have the honor of being the mothers of great and good men—of kings, princes, and potentates that shall yet live on the earth and govern and control the nations. Do you look forward to that? Or are you tormenting yourselves by thinking that your husbands do not love you? I would not care whether they loved a particle or not; but I would cry out, like one of old, in the joy of my heart, “I have got a man from the Lord!” “Hallelujah! I am a mother—I have borne an image of God!” Let your prayers ascend to God, and that continually, that he will overshadow the child by the power of the Holy Ghost before and after its birth—that the Holy Ghost may attend it continually. The mother should inquire what her duty is. It is to teach her children holiness, prayer to God, and to trust in Him. Teach them the holy religion and the commandments that are calculated to sanctify the people and bring them into the presence of our Father and God. But no; too often it is passion. If my passion is served, I am in heaven. The fire will have to burn them up. We must live by principle; and if we do, we shall attain to perfection—to being crowned with crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives. I would rather be purified here than to live ten thousand years to attain the same point in another existence. The man that enters into this order by the prompting of passion, and not with a view to honor God and carry out his purposes, the curse of God will rest upon him, and that which he seems to have will be taken from him and given to those that act according to principle. Remember it.
The world cries out against this obnoxious doctrine, that I should have more wives than one. And what would they do? Destroy the virtue of every woman in this community if they had the power. What do they care about virtue? With comparatively few exceptions, no more than do the devils in hell. Most of the officers who have been sent here would have defiled every bed in this Territory, had they have had the power. Tell about this doctrine's being obnoxious to their delicate feelings! Yes, it is, in one sense. It keeps them at bay; it is hell to them; it is burning them up; and I say they may burn up, and they will.
Elders of Israel, have you entered into the doctrine that has been revealed, through passion? If you have, you will find that that course will take that which you seem to have, and the Lord will say—“Let this man, that man, or the other man go, for he has acted on passion, and not on principle. Take that which he seems to have, and give it to him that has been faithful with the five, the two, the three, or the one talent.” That is the way it will be, by-and-by.
Sisters, do not ask whether you can make yourselves happy, but whether you can do your husband's will, if he is a good man. Teach your children; for you are their guardians, to act as father and mother to them until they are out of your care. The teachings and examples of our mothers have formed, to a great extent, our characters and directed our lives. This is their right, when they act by the power of the Priesthood, to direct the child until it is of a proper age, and then hand it over to the husband and father, and into the hands of God, with such faith and such love of virtue and truth, and with such love of God and its parents, that that child can never suppose that it is out of the hand and from under the control of the parent. Do not call it “mine.” Let your maxim be, “This is not mine,” whether you have one child or a dozen. “It is not mine, but the Lord has seen fit to let me bear the souls of the children of men. It is from my Father and God, and I will do my duty and hand it over to him,” and have that faith that the child can never wring itself out of the hands of a good father and mother—can never stray away—no, never. That is the privilege of mothers. It is you who guide the affections and feelings of the child. It is the mothers, after all, that rule the nations of the earth. They form, dictate, and direct the minds of statesmen, and the feelings, course, life, notions, and sentiments of the great and the small, of kings, rulers, governors, and of the people in general.
Now, mothers, act upon principle, and see whether you can do anything to promote happiness in your families; see whether you can guide the minds of your children, teach them their letters, &c. I thought to speak upon the last-named point, but I will omit it. You can, at least, teach your children faith, and pay attention to knitting their stockings, making their clothing, &c.; see that the chickens are taken care of, that the milk is cleanly milked from the cow, and that the children are made comfortable. And if your husband is here or there, do not fret yourselves, whether he leaves you or not. If he is a good man, he can take care of himself, and will safely return to you again. The mother that takes this course will be a happy mother—a happy woman. But where you find women jealous of each other, and “I am watching my husband,” I would ask, Where are your children? They are nearly all the time in the mud, or in some mischief. And what are you doing, mother? You are “watching that man.” “Who is he?” “He is my husband.” I used to tell the sisters in Nauvoo that they did not care where their children were, if they could only keep in sight of their husbands.
A traveler in the Eastern country overtook an old gentleman walking towards a town, and asked him, “Who is the great man of that little town? Who is your leading man? Who is the governor and controlling spirit of that little place?” The old gentleman replied, “I am the king of that little town.” “Really,” says the traveler, “are you the leading man?” “Yes, sir, I am king in that place, and reign as king.” “How do you make this to appear? Are you in affluent circumstances?” “No, I am poor; but in that little village there are so many children. All those children go to my school; I rule the children, and they rule their parents, and that makes me king.” I frequently think of this. Let the children rule the mother, and the mother the father, and that makes the children kings. How frequently you find this. How is it, my brethren? When you call your families together for prayers, where are your children? Were this question asked me, I should say, “I do not know.” Mothers, where are your children? “We do not know; it is as much as we can do to be here.” Why do you not have your children together? It is your duty to look after them; they should not be running at random in the streets. Some mothers will put a ten-dollar frock on a child and let it go straight into the mud, while they are watching the father and trying to keep him in bounds. Take care of your children, clothe them comfortably, and avoid all extravagance.
I am ashamed, not only in my own family, but others, to see the gewgaws that are so often put upon children, when an antelope skin or a piece of blue factory would make much more suitable clothing for them. Dress them in strong, durable cloth, and that, too, made by your own hands. But no; the finest fabrics must be put upon them to play in. Some, if they could get it, would put fifty dollars' worth on a child, and send him into the streets to ride upon rails, climb trees, &c. And when prayer time comes, the husband inquires, “Where are your children?” “I don't know.” It is your duty, mothers, to look after them; and when you have your children in the prayer room, tell them that their father is coming to pray with them. Also, let it be your delight that your children do not waste bread and other food. If you have bread to spare, give it to the poor, and see that your children do not destroy it. Do not let them destroy valuable clothing, but put strong, durable cloth upon them, and save where you can, and give it to gathering the poor. I do not rule my family with an iron hand, as many do, but in kindness and with pleasant words; and if soft words would teach them, they would know as much as any family on this earth. See that your children are taught every principle of goodness and virtue, and do not let them run uncontrolled in the streets, with expensive food in their hands to waste and expensive clothing upon their backs to tear and destroy. If you get a frock worth three dollars when a two-dollar one will answer, and maybe last longer, you might have saved a dollar to give for gathering the poor. Treat your children like children.
Some mothers try to make father believe that a child five years old knows as much as the father. Another great cause of dissatisfaction is that so many women are such noble women, and know so much more than their husbands. They say, “This man is not capable of leading me.” That is a positive proof to me that that man does not know his ability and calling. I will acknowledge that many women are smarter than their husbands. But when people are married, instead of trying to get rid of each other, reflect that you have made your choice, and strive to honor and keep it. Do not manifest that you have acted unwisely, and say that you have made a bad choice, nor let anybody know that you think you have. You made your choice; stick to it, and strive to comfort and assist each other.
There are other things that I would like to speak about, but I will now stop speaking. God bless you! Amen.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1861.
Reported by G. D. Watt.
I wish to speak upon what pertains to our temporal affairs, which I would very well have liked to have been brought before the Bishops' meeting without detaining a congregation like this on such matters. I wish to urge upon the people the necessity of providing for themselves, and not being dependent entirely upon others.
The Lord has given us ability to do a great many things. What a blessing this is! Do you ever think of it? A man has ability to take the raw materials and build a good, comfortable habitation for the accommodation of himself, his wives, and children. The wife can spread a table with wholesome food, and in a manner pleasant to the eye, while the food is gratifying to the palate. They have the ability to provide, if they choose, downy beds upon which to rest their weary bodies. Do you ever think of this? I presume the greater part of the inhabitants of the earth have lived and died without reflecting much upon whence they derived this ability, to whom they were indebted for the ingenuity they possess, or the capability that is organized within them to gather around them the comforts of life. Do you, brethren, think of it?
We have ability to cultivate the earth; we know how to raise stock, how to make clothing, and are not obliged to go naked like the Indians. We are not obliged to lie down in the open air with perhaps a few sage brush around us, as do many of the natives. We have ability to make ourselves comfortable as to the physical wants of this life. Where did we get that ability? Are your hearts lifted to the Donor of those blessings? Do you remember from whence your ability came? Who organized these tabernacles? Who put into them these thinking powers? Who has placed the spirit in the body, and organized them together, and made us capable of reflecting? Where did you get this ability? A well-read historian and geographical scholar can contemplate his antipodes, and in his mind see what they are doing. He can also behold the various exhibitions of human skill in different nations; both in their social and political capacity; for they are in the vision of his mind. Who gave the ability to reflect and to behold the earth and the inhabitants thereof? Is not this a blessing? How cheering, how comforting, how consoling, how exalting! I would be glad if we could realize the blessings we possess.
The Lord has placed in our possession the elements pertaining to this earth. As I told the people, when we first came into this Valley in 1847, there is plenty of silk in the elements here, as much so as in any other part of the earth. Here is also the fine linen. Were there any sheep here when we came first here? No. Were there any silk raisers then here? No. Were there any flax raisers here? No; neither was there a stalk of flax growing, except what was growing wild. The elements are here. Bring the seeds, the eggs of the silkworm, raise the trees for feeding the worms, and let us see if we cannot produce silk here. It is in the elements. We have the elements to produce as good wheat as grows. The elements here will produce the apple, the peach, the pear, the plum, the apricot, the cherry, the currant, and every kind of fruit in abundance, and every variety of plant and vegetable we desire. Have you the ability to bring any of these things forth from the native element? Yes; here are men who know how to raise fruit, and here are the women who know how to dry and cook it. Here are the men who know how to raise sheep, and how to take their fleeces and deliver them into the hands of their families to be manufactured. Here are women who know how to spin, weave, and make the finest of cloth. So with the flax, and so with every material calculated to make us comfortable. Where did we get this ability? We got it from our Father who is in heaven. Be thankful for these precious gifts. As Brother Kimball justly said, “Remember, first of all, the Giver;” worship and adore the Giver. Some will lose a great deal by neglecting the Giver and by worshipping the gift. Such will find that they will meet with losses.
I look forward to no distant period when this people, called Latter-day Saints, will be obliged to sustain themselves. We must prepare to gather around us every necessary of life, to make every implement we may wish to use, and to produce from the earth every grain, vegetable, and fruit that we need, and not go to any other place to buy. Produce every article of clothing that we need, and stop this importation that we are now encumbered with. We must produce all we can enjoy. I expect that I soon shall do so.
I will now make a request of the sisters—one which I wish them to hear, remember, and put in practice. Carefully save all castoff linen and cotton articles of dress, all old shirts, wagon covers, sheets, and every article of cotton and linen fabric, instead of letting them go to waste in your dooryards or in the streets; for we want those rags to supply the paper mill we are now putting up. We have as good machinery for making paper as there is in the United States or in the world. We have brought it here at a heavy expense—it has cost us some twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars. We are now putting it up, and we want the sisters to save rags, and we want the brethren to raise hemp, flax, &c. We want to make our own paper. The inquiry is, “Will it pay cost?” How much paper do we want to use? There is annually imported into and used in this Territory some thirty thousand dollars' worth of paper. Were we making our own paper, much more would be used, for we could then fill the Territory with schoolbooks printed here, and could supply all the paper required throughout the Territory, thereby saving a great many thousand dollars now paid for transportation. We are not able to print a book for want of paper. Now we are prepared to go to work and make our own paper. As I have remarked, we have most excellent machinery; we also have good papermakers; and what hinders our making the best of paper, and all the paper we want to use? Then we can print, in book form, the History of Joseph Smith, and do it in a respectable manner. Then we can print the Church History for ourselves and for the world, and every book we need. To aid in accomplishing so laudable an object, I want the sisters to gather the rags and hand them over to the Bishops, and we will pay for them with paper. We also want hemp, flax, and every material suitable for making good paper.
There are a great many things we wish to talk about; and I do not wish, if we could well avoid it, to bring such things before the Conference, especially on the Sabbath. The sacrament is being administered, and we would like to talk about the spiritual welfare of the people; but if we cannot save ourselves temporally, we may despair of saving ourselves or the people spiritually. The first thing is to save our natural lives and devote them to building up the kingdom of God on the earth.
Place ourselves back ten centuries, read the prophecies, and behold by prophetic vision what the Lord was going to do in the latter days. “The time is coming when the Saints are to be called, and they will assemble themselves together.” “Can it be possible?” “Yes; for the Prophets have foretold it.” “The time is coming when the Lord will speak from the heavens and send his angel to administer to men on earth, when the Priesthood will be restored and bestowed upon the children of men. Look forth in vision and behold these events.” They would appear far more beautiful than they appear to the natural man while acting in them. I sometimes think that we are far beneath our privileges in a spiritual point of view. The Prophets and other ancient holy men saw our day. They did not look at the human family now upon the stage of action in all their weaknesses; they did not see every little trifling affair, every little quarrel that more or less embitters life; they did not see our darkness and contentions, sorrow, pain, anguish, grief, and strife. No; they beheld the glory of God resting upon the people, as we now enjoy it.
Many sects and societies of people have at different times tried to assemble themselves together, because it was in the prophecies that the Saints should be assembled in the latter days—that the Lord God would gather his people. They have tried to gather their societies, but what have they effected? Comparatively nothing. If the Lord had spoken from heaven to them and revealed only this one privilege, and no more, that Christians might assemble themselves together, and live, walk, talk, and commune with each other uninterruptedly, without being obliged to mingle with the world, they would have esteemed it one of the greatest blessings that could have been bestowed upon them.
I shall repeat my request to these my sisters. We wish you to save every article about your house that will make paper, instead of throwing it away. Put the rags in a way that they will get to the paper mill, which is four miles from here. We have taken the Sugar House and converted it into a paper mill, and we will try to make paper, if we did not make sugar. And I urge it upon the brethren to raise sheep, save the wool, and put it in the hands of their wives and daughters. And I enjoin it upon the sister, old and young, to make clothing for their husbands, brothers, children, and themselves, and stop running after imported goods.
In regard to the quality and utility of calico, by some called prints, I can speak from actual knowledge. Take a good seamstress who has four children, and let her sew from Monday morning until Saturday night, and she can scarcely make up the calicos as fast as those four children will wear it out; and let her do her washing to please her, and she will want help in the house, or the children will have to go dirty and ragged. What are these imported rags good for? They are hardly worth making up. There is not half the calico that comes here that is worth making up, if you give it to the people free of charge, if they could do better. Now we can do better.
Raise flax, brethren. There is no place in the world where flax and hemp will grow better than they will here, though they will not do well in every locality. Hunt out places and soil most suitable for flax and hemp, and there let them be grown: also raise and take care of sheep. It is thought by some that this country is unhealthy for sheep, but it is not. There is not a climate or soil better adapted to sheep raising than are these mountains. Some may think that other countries are better, but they are not, so far as I am acquainted. But keep hundreds and hundreds of sheep in a small pen, shut them in there nights, with hardly room to lie down, and let them remain there until ten or eleven o'clock in the day, before they are turned out to grass, as has been done here more or less, and it would kill every sheep in England or Scotland. Let them have plenty of room by day and by night, and they will not become diseased. Give them well-ventilated pens, proper exercise, and proper food, and you will not see them diseased. The disease that is among our sheep is not natural to the climate; it was brought here, and has been fostered by bad management.
When you find the soil that will produce the best and greatest amount of sugar—that best adapted to raising cane, let the cane be raised there, and there let the molasses and sugar be made. Just now we want our quarter-of-an-acre of cane, our quarter-of-an-acre of flax and hemp, our proportion of wheat, corn, and everything else; but by-and-by our labors will be systematized, and we will find the place where we can raise the best cane, and let that place be devoted to raising it, and make sugar, and stop importing it. The English brethren and the brethren from the Eastern and Northern and Western States and from the Canadas know nothing about making sugar from the cane; and when they see newly-made cane sugar, they say it is not good. I have never seen a purer article of sugar made than is made here. Eat the new cane sugar that is made in the Southern States, and it has a very unpleasant taste. Take our sugar and cleanse it as they do, and let it stand until it is ripe for the market, and you will find as good an article of cane sugar as ever was made. The Chinese sugar cane is a better plant to produce sweet than is the cane they raise in the South and on the West India Islands. We can make our own sugar. We send out a large amount of money to buy sugar, and we want this practice stopped. Now, farmers, raise what sugar you want: you can do it as well as not. Go into the business systematically.
You know that we all profess to believe the “Word of Wisdom.” There has been a great deal said about it, more in former than in latter years. We, as Latter-day Saints, care but little about tobacco; but, as “Mormons,” we use a vast quantity of it. As Saints, we use but little; as “Mormons,” we use a great deal. How much do you suppose goes annually from this Territory, and has for ten or twelve years past, in gold and silver, to supply the people with tobacco? I will say $60,000. Brother William H. Hooper, our Delegate in Congress, came here in 1849, and during about eight years he was selling goods; his sales for tobacco alone amounted to over $28,000 a year. At the same time there were other stores that sold their share and drew their share of the money expended yearly, besides what has been brought in by the keg and by the half keg. The traders and passing emigration have sold tons of tobacco, besides what is sold here regularly. I say that $60,000 annually is the smallest figure I can estimate the sales at. Tobacco can be raised here as well as it can be raised in any other place. It wants attention and care. If we use it, let us raise it here. I recommend for some man to go to raising tobacco. One man, who came here last fall, is going to do so; and if he is diligent, he will raise quite a quantity. I want to see some man go to and make a business of raising tobacco and stop sending money out the Territory for that article.
Some of the brethren are very strenuous upon the “Word of Wisdom,” and would like to have me preach upon it, and urge it upon the brethren, and make it a test of fellowship. I do not think that I shall do so. I have never done so. We annually expend only $60,000 to break the “Word of Wisdom,” and we can save the money and still break it, if we will break it. Some would ask Brother Brigham whether he keeps the “Word of Wisdom.” No: and I can say still further, as I told one of the teachers in Nauvoo, I come as near doing so as any man in this generation. It is not using tobacco that particularly breaks the “Word of Wisdom,” nor is that the only bad practice it corrects; but it is profitable in every path of life. If our young persons were manly enough to govern their appetites a little, they would not contract these bad habits; but they must have some weaknesses; they must not be perfect and exactly right in everything. It is a loathsome practice to use tobacco in any way. A doctor told an old lady in New York, when she insisted upon his telling her whether snuff would injure her brain, “It will not hurt the brain: there is no fear of snuff's hurting the brain of anyone, for no person that has brains will take snuff.” I will say that the most filthy way of using tobacco is to smoke it. What is the neat way? If you are going to direct any course for the people to use tobacco, let us know what it is. Cannot you who have used it for years point out a neat, modest, judicious way of using it? The “Word of Wisdom” says that tobacco is good for sick cattle; and when you want another chew, down with it as you would a pill. It may make you vomit a little, but that is soon over, and it is good for sick cattle. That is the neatest way you can use tobacco.
I will now speak a little in regard to people's making themselves happy. We heard something upon that subject today and yesterday; and we frequently hear people preaching about heaven, paradise, and Zion; and if there is a comfort, a felicity, and good feeling, I want to say a few words about them; and I shall begin upon the doctrine so much beloved by Saint and sinner, and that is the plurality of women. The Saints like a plurality of wives, and the sinners like a plurality of men and women. I will say to the sisters that I have heard but very few women, and not a great many men, ever talk sensibly upon the plurality of wives. When they begin to talk about it, they exhibit, almost without an exception, passion instead of principle. Were we to appeal to passions of the people, we should promote the doctrine of a plurality of men and of women. But when we address ourselves to the Saints of the Most High God, it is very different and in a different light. It is for my sisters to be mothers of holy men and holy women—to receive and conceive in the name and by the power of the Holy Ghost—to bring forth their fruits to the praise and honor of the God of heaven. But what are the people doing here? “I want another wife,” and almost universally passion is exhibited instead of principle.
If the plurality of wives is to pander to the low passions of men and women, the sooner it is abolished the better. “How far would you go in abolishing it?” I would say, if the Lord should reveal that it is his will to go so far as to become a Shaking Quaker, Amen to it, and let the sexes have no connection. If so far as for a man to have but one wife, let it be so. The word and will of the Lord is what I want—the will and mind of God. He has revealed his mind and will. The time is coming when the Lord is going to raise up a holy nation. He will bring up a royal Priesthood upon the earth, and he has introduced a plurality of wives for that express purpose, and not to gratify lustful passion in the least. I would rather take my valise in my hand today, and never see a wife or a child again, and preach the Gospel until I go into the grave, than to live as I do, unless God commands it. I never entered into the order of plurality of wives to gratify passion. And were I now asked whether I desired and wanted another wife, my reply would be, It should be one by whom the Spirit will bring forth noble children. I am almost sixty years old; and if I now live for passion, I pray the Lord Almighty to take my life from the earth.
I know the weaknesses of humanity, and I understand the passions of men and women. I am sorry for them. I wish they had grace according to their day, creating such fortitude in them that they would determine to suffer unto death rather than violate a holy command of the Almighty, or transgress the bounds God has set. “Is that the way you have lived?” It is. It is the example I have set before my family from the day the Lord opened my mind to see the Gospel. Ask these sisters (many of them have known me for years), what my life has been in private and in public. It has been like the angel Gabriel's, if he had visited you; and I can live so still. But how are we to be made happy? There is one course—love the Giver more than the gift; love Him that has placed passion in me more than my passions. Let passion lie at the feet of judgment, and let every attribute that God has bestowed on me be devoted to the righteous cause he has commenced upon the earth. This, and this alone, produces happiness. He has brought us forth, and we live and see this day that Prophets, kings, and millions of great and good men have prayed to see, but died without the sight. When they looked at it in vision, it cast a halo, around which was like the dawning of heaven to their souls, and they shouted, “Hallelujah!” beholding the spirit and glory of these times that we now live in. And we yield to passion? I say, Shame on the individual that says passion has anything to do with his life. It is crucified. It lies, as it were, at the foot of the cross. That is my faith, and it has been my life.
How will you be happy? Love the Giver more than the gift. Delight yourselves in your duties, mothers. Here are the middle-aged and the young. I am now almost daily sealing young girls to men of age and experience. Love your duties, sisters. Are you sealed to a good man? Yes, to a man of God. It is for you to bear fruit and bring forth, to the praise of God, the spirits that are born in yonder heavens and are to take tabernacles on the earth. You have the privilege of forming tabernacles for those spirits, instead of their being brought into this wicked world, that God may have a royal Priesthood, a royal people, on the earth. That is what plurality of wives is for, and not to gratify lustful desires. Sisters, do you wish to make yourselves happy? Then what is your duty? It is for you to bear children, in the name of the Lord, that are full of faith and the power of God—to receive, conceive, bear, and bring forth in the name of Israel's God, that you may have the honor of being the mothers of great and good men—of kings, princes, and potentates that shall yet live on the earth and govern and control the nations. Do you look forward to that? Or are you tormenting yourselves by thinking that your husbands do not love you? I would not care whether they loved a particle or not; but I would cry out, like one of old, in the joy of my heart, “I have got a man from the Lord!” “Hallelujah! I am a mother—I have borne an image of God!” Let your prayers ascend to God, and that continually, that he will overshadow the child by the power of the Holy Ghost before and after its birth—that the Holy Ghost may attend it continually. The mother should inquire what her duty is. It is to teach her children holiness, prayer to God, and to trust in Him. Teach them the holy religion and the commandments that are calculated to sanctify the people and bring them into the presence of our Father and God. But no; too often it is passion. If my passion is served, I am in heaven. The fire will have to burn them up. We must live by principle; and if we do, we shall attain to perfection—to being crowned with crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives. I would rather be purified here than to live ten thousand years to attain the same point in another existence. The man that enters into this order by the prompting of passion, and not with a view to honor God and carry out his purposes, the curse of God will rest upon him, and that which he seems to have will be taken from him and given to those that act according to principle. Remember it.
The world cries out against this obnoxious doctrine, that I should have more wives than one. And what would they do? Destroy the virtue of every woman in this community if they had the power. What do they care about virtue? With comparatively few exceptions, no more than do the devils in hell. Most of the officers who have been sent here would have defiled every bed in this Territory, had they have had the power. Tell about this doctrine's being obnoxious to their delicate feelings! Yes, it is, in one sense. It keeps them at bay; it is hell to them; it is burning them up; and I say they may burn up, and they will.
Elders of Israel, have you entered into the doctrine that has been revealed, through passion? If you have, you will find that that course will take that which you seem to have, and the Lord will say—“Let this man, that man, or the other man go, for he has acted on passion, and not on principle. Take that which he seems to have, and give it to him that has been faithful with the five, the two, the three, or the one talent.” That is the way it will be, by-and-by.
Sisters, do not ask whether you can make yourselves happy, but whether you can do your husband's will, if he is a good man. Teach your children; for you are their guardians, to act as father and mother to them until they are out of your care. The teachings and examples of our mothers have formed, to a great extent, our characters and directed our lives. This is their right, when they act by the power of the Priesthood, to direct the child until it is of a proper age, and then hand it over to the husband and father, and into the hands of God, with such faith and such love of virtue and truth, and with such love of God and its parents, that that child can never suppose that it is out of the hand and from under the control of the parent. Do not call it “mine.” Let your maxim be, “This is not mine,” whether you have one child or a dozen. “It is not mine, but the Lord has seen fit to let me bear the souls of the children of men. It is from my Father and God, and I will do my duty and hand it over to him,” and have that faith that the child can never wring itself out of the hands of a good father and mother—can never stray away—no, never. That is the privilege of mothers. It is you who guide the affections and feelings of the child. It is the mothers, after all, that rule the nations of the earth. They form, dictate, and direct the minds of statesmen, and the feelings, course, life, notions, and sentiments of the great and the small, of kings, rulers, governors, and of the people in general.
Now, mothers, act upon principle, and see whether you can do anything to promote happiness in your families; see whether you can guide the minds of your children, teach them their letters, &c. I thought to speak upon the last-named point, but I will omit it. You can, at least, teach your children faith, and pay attention to knitting their stockings, making their clothing, &c.; see that the chickens are taken care of, that the milk is cleanly milked from the cow, and that the children are made comfortable. And if your husband is here or there, do not fret yourselves, whether he leaves you or not. If he is a good man, he can take care of himself, and will safely return to you again. The mother that takes this course will be a happy mother—a happy woman. But where you find women jealous of each other, and “I am watching my husband,” I would ask, Where are your children? They are nearly all the time in the mud, or in some mischief. And what are you doing, mother? You are “watching that man.” “Who is he?” “He is my husband.” I used to tell the sisters in Nauvoo that they did not care where their children were, if they could only keep in sight of their husbands.
A traveler in the Eastern country overtook an old gentleman walking towards a town, and asked him, “Who is the great man of that little town? Who is your leading man? Who is the governor and controlling spirit of that little place?” The old gentleman replied, “I am the king of that little town.” “Really,” says the traveler, “are you the leading man?” “Yes, sir, I am king in that place, and reign as king.” “How do you make this to appear? Are you in affluent circumstances?” “No, I am poor; but in that little village there are so many children. All those children go to my school; I rule the children, and they rule their parents, and that makes me king.” I frequently think of this. Let the children rule the mother, and the mother the father, and that makes the children kings. How frequently you find this. How is it, my brethren? When you call your families together for prayers, where are your children? Were this question asked me, I should say, “I do not know.” Mothers, where are your children? “We do not know; it is as much as we can do to be here.” Why do you not have your children together? It is your duty to look after them; they should not be running at random in the streets. Some mothers will put a ten-dollar frock on a child and let it go straight into the mud, while they are watching the father and trying to keep him in bounds. Take care of your children, clothe them comfortably, and avoid all extravagance.
I am ashamed, not only in my own family, but others, to see the gewgaws that are so often put upon children, when an antelope skin or a piece of blue factory would make much more suitable clothing for them. Dress them in strong, durable cloth, and that, too, made by your own hands. But no; the finest fabrics must be put upon them to play in. Some, if they could get it, would put fifty dollars' worth on a child, and send him into the streets to ride upon rails, climb trees, &c. And when prayer time comes, the husband inquires, “Where are your children?” “I don't know.” It is your duty, mothers, to look after them; and when you have your children in the prayer room, tell them that their father is coming to pray with them. Also, let it be your delight that your children do not waste bread and other food. If you have bread to spare, give it to the poor, and see that your children do not destroy it. Do not let them destroy valuable clothing, but put strong, durable cloth upon them, and save where you can, and give it to gathering the poor. I do not rule my family with an iron hand, as many do, but in kindness and with pleasant words; and if soft words would teach them, they would know as much as any family on this earth. See that your children are taught every principle of goodness and virtue, and do not let them run uncontrolled in the streets, with expensive food in their hands to waste and expensive clothing upon their backs to tear and destroy. If you get a frock worth three dollars when a two-dollar one will answer, and maybe last longer, you might have saved a dollar to give for gathering the poor. Treat your children like children.
Some mothers try to make father believe that a child five years old knows as much as the father. Another great cause of dissatisfaction is that so many women are such noble women, and know so much more than their husbands. They say, “This man is not capable of leading me.” That is a positive proof to me that that man does not know his ability and calling. I will acknowledge that many women are smarter than their husbands. But when people are married, instead of trying to get rid of each other, reflect that you have made your choice, and strive to honor and keep it. Do not manifest that you have acted unwisely, and say that you have made a bad choice, nor let anybody know that you think you have. You made your choice; stick to it, and strive to comfort and assist each other.
There are other things that I would like to speak about, but I will now stop speaking. God bless you! Amen.
Elder Jefferson Hunt
made a few enlivening and interesting remarks.
The conference then adjourned till the 6th day of next October, at 10 a.m.
made a few enlivening and interesting remarks.
The conference then adjourned till the 6th day of next October, at 10 a.m.
President Brigham Young
blessed the people in the name of the Lord, and told them to go in peace, and the blessings of the heavens should go with them.
The choir sung, "The Spirit of God like a fire is burning."
blessed the people in the name of the Lord, and told them to go in peace, and the blessings of the heavens should go with them.
The choir sung, "The Spirit of God like a fire is burning."
The concluding benediction was given by President H. C. Kimball:
O God the Eternal Father, in the name of Jesus Christ thy Son, we thy servants and handmaids, offer up to thee the gratitude of our hearts for thy loving kindness. We thank thee that we still live upon the earth, and have the privilege of coming together at this conference to worship thee, to call upon the name of our Father and God; we also thank thee for the information we have received through thy servants; we pray thee to forgive all our sins, to sanctify our hearts and all that is within us, that our whole spirits and bodies may be subject to thee, and we be in thine hands as the clay is in the hands of the potter, that our whole lives may be spent to the honor and glory of thee, our Father who art in heaven.
Wilt thou endow us with every necessary qualification, that we may honor ourselves, our God and his Son Jesus Christ, that the Holy Ghost may take up his abode with us and dwell with us, that he may be our companion and show us things to come.
We pray that all this people, yea, in all the settlements in the State of Deseret may be filled with the power of God, and that all thine Elders in every land and nation may be filled with the revelations of thy spirit and with desires to do thy will. May thine indignation be against our enemies and the nation that has made war with thee and thy kingdom, in the latter days. Let them be broken to pieces like a potter's vessel.
Now, O Father, bless this land; let thy choicest blessings be upon the hills and mountains; upon the fountains of water; upon the valleys; our wheat; our grass, and the timber that is in the kanyons; and, finally, our Father, let thy blessings be upon our families; upon our wives and children; bless also every person upon the earth that favors Zion and helps to build up the kingdom of God.
Hear us in these things; accept our thanks, and the glory and honor be to God and the Lamb forever and ever: Amen.
J. V. Long,
Clerk of the Conference.
O God the Eternal Father, in the name of Jesus Christ thy Son, we thy servants and handmaids, offer up to thee the gratitude of our hearts for thy loving kindness. We thank thee that we still live upon the earth, and have the privilege of coming together at this conference to worship thee, to call upon the name of our Father and God; we also thank thee for the information we have received through thy servants; we pray thee to forgive all our sins, to sanctify our hearts and all that is within us, that our whole spirits and bodies may be subject to thee, and we be in thine hands as the clay is in the hands of the potter, that our whole lives may be spent to the honor and glory of thee, our Father who art in heaven.
Wilt thou endow us with every necessary qualification, that we may honor ourselves, our God and his Son Jesus Christ, that the Holy Ghost may take up his abode with us and dwell with us, that he may be our companion and show us things to come.
We pray that all this people, yea, in all the settlements in the State of Deseret may be filled with the power of God, and that all thine Elders in every land and nation may be filled with the revelations of thy spirit and with desires to do thy will. May thine indignation be against our enemies and the nation that has made war with thee and thy kingdom, in the latter days. Let them be broken to pieces like a potter's vessel.
Now, O Father, bless this land; let thy choicest blessings be upon the hills and mountains; upon the fountains of water; upon the valleys; our wheat; our grass, and the timber that is in the kanyons; and, finally, our Father, let thy blessings be upon our families; upon our wives and children; bless also every person upon the earth that favors Zion and helps to build up the kingdom of God.
Hear us in these things; accept our thanks, and the glory and honor be to God and the Lamb forever and ever: Amen.
J. V. Long,
Clerk of the Conference.