April 1867
Benson, Ezra T. "Word of Wisdom—Happiness to Be Obtained Only Through Obedience." Journal of Discourses. Volume 11. April 7, 1867: pg. 366-368.
Cannon, George Q. "Necessity of Union and Obedience to Counsel." Journal of Discourses. Volume 12. April 7, 1867: pg. 15-18. Rich, Charles C. "Labor To Build Up The Kingdom." Journal of Discourses. Volume 12. April 8, 1867: pg. 3-5. Smith, George A. "Raising Flax and Wool—Home Manufactures—Church Literature—Folly of Using Tobacco and Liquor." Journal of Discourses. Volume 11. April 7, 1867: pg. 359-366. Taylor, John. "Political and Social Economy." Journal of Discourses. Volume 11. April 6, 1867: pg. 353-359. The Deseret News. "Thirty-Seventh Annual Conference." April 10, 1867: pg. 116-117. Wells, Daniel H. "Discourse." The Deseret News, May 1, 1867: pg. 138-139. Wells, Daniel H. "Schools And School Teachers—Tithing, Etc.." Journal of Discourses. Volume 12. April 8, 1867: pg. 1-3. Woodruff, Wilford. "Necessity of Unity in Faith and Practice." Journal of Discourses. Volume 11. April 7, 1867: pg. 369-371. Young, Brigham. "The Elders to Labor for the Unity of the Saints." Journal of Discourses. Volume 11. April 6, 1867: pg. 347-349. Young, Brigham. "How the Sisters Can Help to Build Up the Kingdom." Journal of Discourses. Volume 11. April 6, 1867: pg. 350-353. Young, Brigham. "Building the Temple—Mormonism Embraces All Truth." Journal of Discourses. Volume 11. April 8, 1867: pg. 371-375. Young, Brigham. "Every Saint on a Mission." Journal of Discourses. Volume 12. April 7, 1867: pg. 18-20. Young, Brigham. "The Word of Wisdom." Journal of Discourses. Volume 12. April 7, 1867: pg. 27-31. Young, Brigham. "Education—Employment of Females." Journal of Discourses. Volume 12. April 8, 1867: pg. 31-32. THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE President Brigham Young The Elders to Labor for the Unity of the Saints President Heber C. Kimball Pres. Brigham Young How the Sisters Can Help to Build Up the Kingdom 2 p.m. Elder John Taylor Political and Social Economy President Daniel H. Wells Discourse Sunday, April 7th, 10 a.m. Elder George A. Smith Raising Flax and Wool—Home Manufactures President Brigham Young The Word of Wisdom 2 p.m. Elder Wilford Woodruff Necessity of Unity in Faith and Practice Elder Ezra T. Benson Word of Wisdom—Happiness to Be Obtained Only Through Obedience Elder George Q. Cannon Necessity of Union and Obedience to Counsel President Brigham Young Every Saint on a Mission Monday, April 8th, 10 a.m. President Heber C. Kimball President Brigham Young Building the Temple—Mormonism Embraces All Truth 2 p.m. Elder Charles C. Rich Labor To Build Up The Kingdom Sustaining of the General Authorities Elder George Q. Cannon President Daniel H. Wells Schools And School Teachers—Tithing, Etc. President Brigham Young Education—Employment of Females |
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THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The Thirty-Seventh Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, convened in the Tabernacle, in this City, on Saturday, 6th inst., at 10 o'clock, President Brigham Young presiding.
There were present on the Stand, Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Daniel H. Wells, the First Presidency;
John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow and George Q. Cannon, of the Twelve Apostles;
John Smith, Patriarch;
Albert P. Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge and John Van Cott of the Presidency of the Seventies;
Samuel W. Richards and Edwin D. Wooley, of the Presidency of the High Priests Quorum;
Daniel Spencer, George B. Wallace and Joseph W. Young, the Presidency of this Stake of Zion;
Edward Hunter, Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little, the Presidency of the Bishopric;
Peter Maughan, presiding Bishop of Cache Co.;
C. W. West, presiding Bishop of Weber Co.;
with a large number of Bishops and leading Elders from various parts of the Territory.
Reporters, David W. Evans, and Edward L. Sloan.
Choir sang "The Morning breaks."
President H. C. Kimball offered up in an impressive manner, the opening prayer; after which the choir again sang.
The Thirty-Seventh Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, convened in the Tabernacle, in this City, on Saturday, 6th inst., at 10 o'clock, President Brigham Young presiding.
There were present on the Stand, Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Daniel H. Wells, the First Presidency;
John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow and George Q. Cannon, of the Twelve Apostles;
John Smith, Patriarch;
Albert P. Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge and John Van Cott of the Presidency of the Seventies;
Samuel W. Richards and Edwin D. Wooley, of the Presidency of the High Priests Quorum;
Daniel Spencer, George B. Wallace and Joseph W. Young, the Presidency of this Stake of Zion;
Edward Hunter, Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little, the Presidency of the Bishopric;
Peter Maughan, presiding Bishop of Cache Co.;
C. W. West, presiding Bishop of Weber Co.;
with a large number of Bishops and leading Elders from various parts of the Territory.
Reporters, David W. Evans, and Edward L. Sloan.
Choir sang "The Morning breaks."
President H. C. Kimball offered up in an impressive manner, the opening prayer; after which the choir again sang.
President B. Young
gave as a text for the Elders, never to cease their efforts and their labors until the Latter-day Saints become of one heart and of one mind. Men pray for the Lord to protect us from the wicked; yet they will seek their society, trade with them and aid their influence, and thus seek to bring about the very thing which they pray God to save them from. The wicked have life and death offered to them, as the righteous have; and while they continue to reject the good, they are not fit society for those who desire to be sanctified before the Lord. A people can never become one while they possess the spirit of the world; yet the Latter-day Saints are to a considerable extent like the world, in matters of business and finances. The course of the world is for a few to obtain wealth, while the many are left in poverty; and they waste their wealth on their lusts, and in gratification of their appetites and desires. Do not many here act in a similar manner? What has been the amount expended by the people here during the fiscal year ending to-day, for tobacco, coffee, tea and liquor consumed by this people? If the means so wasted had been saved for the past year, it would amount to a sum more than sufficient to buy the preemption right to the land claimed and taken up in the Territory, if a land office were established here at once. The people will become of one heart and one mind by practicing the principles of the gospel, and by living so that the spirit of revelation will be within them a continual preacher. We are progressing to this state of perfection; still the labors of the Elders and of the people must be directed towards our becoming truly one in all things, that we may obtain the blessings which the Lord has prepared for His people.
gave as a text for the Elders, never to cease their efforts and their labors until the Latter-day Saints become of one heart and of one mind. Men pray for the Lord to protect us from the wicked; yet they will seek their society, trade with them and aid their influence, and thus seek to bring about the very thing which they pray God to save them from. The wicked have life and death offered to them, as the righteous have; and while they continue to reject the good, they are not fit society for those who desire to be sanctified before the Lord. A people can never become one while they possess the spirit of the world; yet the Latter-day Saints are to a considerable extent like the world, in matters of business and finances. The course of the world is for a few to obtain wealth, while the many are left in poverty; and they waste their wealth on their lusts, and in gratification of their appetites and desires. Do not many here act in a similar manner? What has been the amount expended by the people here during the fiscal year ending to-day, for tobacco, coffee, tea and liquor consumed by this people? If the means so wasted had been saved for the past year, it would amount to a sum more than sufficient to buy the preemption right to the land claimed and taken up in the Territory, if a land office were established here at once. The people will become of one heart and one mind by practicing the principles of the gospel, and by living so that the spirit of revelation will be within them a continual preacher. We are progressing to this state of perfection; still the labors of the Elders and of the people must be directed towards our becoming truly one in all things, that we may obtain the blessings which the Lord has prepared for His people.
The Elders to Labor for the Unity of the Saints
Remarks by President Brigham Young, in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I recollect a few years ago, while we were holding Conference in the Bowery, that the brethren who addressed the congregation were in the habit of turning to the right to preach, and then to the left, and then preaching to those behind them, so that only one portion of the congregation could hear them at once. I set up a mark, and told them to preach to it, right straight ahead, and not turn to the right or to the left, as I wanted all the people to hear. I am now going to set up a mark for the Elders of Israel to preach to. It will not be an old table or a board; but the mark I shall set up for the Elders to preach to is this: Never to cease their labors until they get this people, called Latter-day Saints, to be of one heart and one mind. That is the mark. We hear Elders in Israel praying and praying that the Lord would preserve us from the wicked, and probably within an hour after they will be found coaxing perhaps one of the most ungodly men in the world to trade with them, to rent their houses, or to let them build houses for him, and to be his servant or servants. Such individuals will keep praying to the Lord to preserve us from the wicked when their constant effort is to mingle with, and to call into the midst of this people the wicked and the ungodly; and they are so blind to the mind and will of the Lord that their efforts in this direction would never cease until there was enough of the wicked to overthrow the Kingdom of God, or to break us up and drive us somewhere else. I have very frequently said to the Latter-day Saints that I am willing to try to do my utmost to carry out the designs of Heaven concerning myself, my friends, and the Kingdom of God. Certain ideas arise in our minds, and questions are proposed.
What would you do in such and such cases if the wicked, the ungodly, and those who have persecuted and driven us from our homes, and have consented to the death of the Prophets and the innocent, will still follow us, and will have a place among us? What would you do? I would do, I think, about as the Lord does; He lets them alone to take their own course. They have life and death set before them, and can choose between the two. They can refrain, and turn away from wickedness and become righteous, if they are so disposed; but if they are not, why the Lord permits them to take their own course. Then why are we under the necessity of praying the Lord to shield us in this place and in that place?
Perhaps this application is not agreeable to many, and they wish to be sanctified in the midst of the ungodly and in the most wicked place that can be found. To people of this class we say, just come forward and we will give you a mission to go into the world to live, preach, labor, and toil until you pass into the spirit world, if this is your desire; but do not stay here praying the Lord to deliver you from the wicked, and then get up off your knees, and, precisely like the sectarians, let your acts give the lie to the prayers you have offered to God. You know, among the New School Presbyterians, for instance, and the Reform Baptists and Methodists, and the Wesleyan Methodists, the ministers get into the pulpit and pray for the Lord to come into their midst, and that the Holy Ghost may be shed upon the people; and they will pray most fervently that angels may come and dwell with them, that the heavens may be opened that the people may see and understand aright, and when they get through praying, they will declare in their sermons that there is no Holy Ghost given, and that they worship a god without body, parts, and passions. How in the world can such a god come into their midst? If he could come, what would there be? Nothing. What can they comprehend concerning such a god? Nothing; for there is nothing of him. They will pray most fervently for the Lord to give them revelation, and then will get up and say that no such thing as revelation is needed. Do not their sermons give the lie to their prayers? And do not the lives of the Elders of Israel, in many instances, give the lie to their faith and prayers? They do. Can you go to work and make a people of one heart and mind while they are possessed of the spirit of the world? You cannot. Can they feel the same interest in the Kingdom of God while possessing the spirit of the world that they would if they were filled with the Spirit of Christ? They cannot. How can they devote their lives to the building up of the Kingdom of God when they do not delight in it, but delight in building themselves up, in making gain, and in gathering around them the riches of the world? The Latter-day Saints, in their conduct and acts with regard to financial matters, are like the rest of the world. The course pursued by men of business in the world has a tendency to make a few rich, and to sink the masses of the people in poverty and degradation. Too many of the Elders of Israel take this course. No matter what comes they are for gain—for gathering around them riches; and when they get rich how are those riches used? Spent on the lusts of the flesh, wasted as a thing of nought, and they who were once rich are left in poverty, as they are this day.
To give an example: Suppose that one year ago today—the 6th of April, 1866—we had asked the brethren and sisters at the head of families, and then asked those who were not heads of families, to sit down and make an estimate of what it cost them through the fiscal year 1865-6 for the tobacco they chewed, and the tea, coffee, and liquor they drank; and after footing it up in round numbers, and seeing what it amounted to, suppose the proclamation had been made that we must all observe the Word of Wisdom, and that in consequence of that proclamation we each of us had said that for the year to come—the fiscal year of 1866-67—I will lay by in the drawer the money that it costs me for tobacco, tea, coffee, and liquor. If we had each adopted this course we would have seen a people at this Conference—April, 1867—with means enough to have purchased and secured their pre-emption right to the land in this Territory, provided that we were permitted to do so. But how is it today? Suppose that today news were to come by telegraph that within six weeks a Land Office for this Territory would be established in Great Salt Lake City, whereby actual settlers would have the privilege of paying the pre-emption payment and obtaining the Government title to their land, and thus securing their inheritance, who is there amongst us that could buy the first section or quarter-section? There are very few in the Territory who could do so.
I merely mention this to illustrate my ideas, so that you can see for yourselves where we are. Instead of being united in our feelings to build up all, each one takes his own course; whereas, if we were united, we would get rich ten times faster than we do now. How are you going to bring a people to that point when they will all be united in the things of this life? By no other means than prevailing upon them to live their religion that they all may possess the Holy Ghost, the spirit of revelation, the light of Christ, which will enable them to see eye to eye. Then their acts and all their dealings would be so connected that they would pull together, as Joseph used to say: “A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together.” This point gained, we could bear off the Kingdom victoriously, and we could do what we pleased; but there is no doctrine in existence, short of the gospel of the Son of God, by which a people can be brought to a oneness in their temporal matters. We are approaching this happy period, this delightful state of society; but to enjoy it in its fulness we must live so that the spirit of revelation will be within us a living preacher by day and by night continually, that we may be taught, led, governed, and controlled thereby. We must not get down and pray, and then get right up and let our actions say we do not believe a word of our prayer; but all the acts of our lives must be concentrated on the building up of the Kingdom of God, then we shall be His disciples in very deed.
We will have a good many things to lay before the Conference; but I think I have given my brethren a mark to preach to. You may shoot when you please, and shoot from whatever point you please; but shoot at that mark. You may use what gun you please. I do not care, comparatively, whether it is a Henry's rifle, a shot gun, an old Kentucky rifle, or an old musket, but shoot at that mark, and in all your preaching let this thread—the oneness of the people of God—be preserved.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I recollect a few years ago, while we were holding Conference in the Bowery, that the brethren who addressed the congregation were in the habit of turning to the right to preach, and then to the left, and then preaching to those behind them, so that only one portion of the congregation could hear them at once. I set up a mark, and told them to preach to it, right straight ahead, and not turn to the right or to the left, as I wanted all the people to hear. I am now going to set up a mark for the Elders of Israel to preach to. It will not be an old table or a board; but the mark I shall set up for the Elders to preach to is this: Never to cease their labors until they get this people, called Latter-day Saints, to be of one heart and one mind. That is the mark. We hear Elders in Israel praying and praying that the Lord would preserve us from the wicked, and probably within an hour after they will be found coaxing perhaps one of the most ungodly men in the world to trade with them, to rent their houses, or to let them build houses for him, and to be his servant or servants. Such individuals will keep praying to the Lord to preserve us from the wicked when their constant effort is to mingle with, and to call into the midst of this people the wicked and the ungodly; and they are so blind to the mind and will of the Lord that their efforts in this direction would never cease until there was enough of the wicked to overthrow the Kingdom of God, or to break us up and drive us somewhere else. I have very frequently said to the Latter-day Saints that I am willing to try to do my utmost to carry out the designs of Heaven concerning myself, my friends, and the Kingdom of God. Certain ideas arise in our minds, and questions are proposed.
What would you do in such and such cases if the wicked, the ungodly, and those who have persecuted and driven us from our homes, and have consented to the death of the Prophets and the innocent, will still follow us, and will have a place among us? What would you do? I would do, I think, about as the Lord does; He lets them alone to take their own course. They have life and death set before them, and can choose between the two. They can refrain, and turn away from wickedness and become righteous, if they are so disposed; but if they are not, why the Lord permits them to take their own course. Then why are we under the necessity of praying the Lord to shield us in this place and in that place?
Perhaps this application is not agreeable to many, and they wish to be sanctified in the midst of the ungodly and in the most wicked place that can be found. To people of this class we say, just come forward and we will give you a mission to go into the world to live, preach, labor, and toil until you pass into the spirit world, if this is your desire; but do not stay here praying the Lord to deliver you from the wicked, and then get up off your knees, and, precisely like the sectarians, let your acts give the lie to the prayers you have offered to God. You know, among the New School Presbyterians, for instance, and the Reform Baptists and Methodists, and the Wesleyan Methodists, the ministers get into the pulpit and pray for the Lord to come into their midst, and that the Holy Ghost may be shed upon the people; and they will pray most fervently that angels may come and dwell with them, that the heavens may be opened that the people may see and understand aright, and when they get through praying, they will declare in their sermons that there is no Holy Ghost given, and that they worship a god without body, parts, and passions. How in the world can such a god come into their midst? If he could come, what would there be? Nothing. What can they comprehend concerning such a god? Nothing; for there is nothing of him. They will pray most fervently for the Lord to give them revelation, and then will get up and say that no such thing as revelation is needed. Do not their sermons give the lie to their prayers? And do not the lives of the Elders of Israel, in many instances, give the lie to their faith and prayers? They do. Can you go to work and make a people of one heart and mind while they are possessed of the spirit of the world? You cannot. Can they feel the same interest in the Kingdom of God while possessing the spirit of the world that they would if they were filled with the Spirit of Christ? They cannot. How can they devote their lives to the building up of the Kingdom of God when they do not delight in it, but delight in building themselves up, in making gain, and in gathering around them the riches of the world? The Latter-day Saints, in their conduct and acts with regard to financial matters, are like the rest of the world. The course pursued by men of business in the world has a tendency to make a few rich, and to sink the masses of the people in poverty and degradation. Too many of the Elders of Israel take this course. No matter what comes they are for gain—for gathering around them riches; and when they get rich how are those riches used? Spent on the lusts of the flesh, wasted as a thing of nought, and they who were once rich are left in poverty, as they are this day.
To give an example: Suppose that one year ago today—the 6th of April, 1866—we had asked the brethren and sisters at the head of families, and then asked those who were not heads of families, to sit down and make an estimate of what it cost them through the fiscal year 1865-6 for the tobacco they chewed, and the tea, coffee, and liquor they drank; and after footing it up in round numbers, and seeing what it amounted to, suppose the proclamation had been made that we must all observe the Word of Wisdom, and that in consequence of that proclamation we each of us had said that for the year to come—the fiscal year of 1866-67—I will lay by in the drawer the money that it costs me for tobacco, tea, coffee, and liquor. If we had each adopted this course we would have seen a people at this Conference—April, 1867—with means enough to have purchased and secured their pre-emption right to the land in this Territory, provided that we were permitted to do so. But how is it today? Suppose that today news were to come by telegraph that within six weeks a Land Office for this Territory would be established in Great Salt Lake City, whereby actual settlers would have the privilege of paying the pre-emption payment and obtaining the Government title to their land, and thus securing their inheritance, who is there amongst us that could buy the first section or quarter-section? There are very few in the Territory who could do so.
I merely mention this to illustrate my ideas, so that you can see for yourselves where we are. Instead of being united in our feelings to build up all, each one takes his own course; whereas, if we were united, we would get rich ten times faster than we do now. How are you going to bring a people to that point when they will all be united in the things of this life? By no other means than prevailing upon them to live their religion that they all may possess the Holy Ghost, the spirit of revelation, the light of Christ, which will enable them to see eye to eye. Then their acts and all their dealings would be so connected that they would pull together, as Joseph used to say: “A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together.” This point gained, we could bear off the Kingdom victoriously, and we could do what we pleased; but there is no doctrine in existence, short of the gospel of the Son of God, by which a people can be brought to a oneness in their temporal matters. We are approaching this happy period, this delightful state of society; but to enjoy it in its fulness we must live so that the spirit of revelation will be within us a living preacher by day and by night continually, that we may be taught, led, governed, and controlled thereby. We must not get down and pray, and then get right up and let our actions say we do not believe a word of our prayer; but all the acts of our lives must be concentrated on the building up of the Kingdom of God, then we shall be His disciples in very deed.
We will have a good many things to lay before the Conference; but I think I have given my brethren a mark to preach to. You may shoot when you please, and shoot from whatever point you please; but shoot at that mark. You may use what gun you please. I do not care, comparatively, whether it is a Henry's rifle, a shot gun, an old Kentucky rifle, or an old musket, but shoot at that mark, and in all your preaching let this thread—the oneness of the people of God—be preserved.
President H. C. Kimball
urged the imperative necessity of the Saints being in possession of the Spirit of God. The light and truth which it reveals shows us what we are, and gives us understanding to walk right before the Lord. We are of the earth, earthy; we have to sanctify ourselves and become pure, and teach our families to be holy in the sight of Heaven. Thirty-four years ago the Lord commanded the leading Elders among His people, and all the Church to set their houses in order; and they who did not abide that commandment suffered the threatened penalty. The speaker inculcated the importance of our being self-sustaining in all things, obeying the Word of Wisdom, and with strictness and utmost care keeping our children from acquiring the same injurious habits which many of us have learned from our forefathers. He recommended to encourage home manufactures, to buy "home-made" from those who make it where individuals do not make it themselves, and to live within our means, gaining strength, prosperity and power by wisdom and economy. He pointed out the folly of people thinking to obtain the blessings of God, while living in violation of his commandments. Some, to gratify certain desires and lusts, rob themselves of the very blessings which they seek to obtain. We have to prepare ourselves for accomplishing the purposes of the Lord, according to the revelations; and the work commenced in Jackson County, is as applicable to us here as it was there, and is necessary before we can be fully prepared to go back there.
urged the imperative necessity of the Saints being in possession of the Spirit of God. The light and truth which it reveals shows us what we are, and gives us understanding to walk right before the Lord. We are of the earth, earthy; we have to sanctify ourselves and become pure, and teach our families to be holy in the sight of Heaven. Thirty-four years ago the Lord commanded the leading Elders among His people, and all the Church to set their houses in order; and they who did not abide that commandment suffered the threatened penalty. The speaker inculcated the importance of our being self-sustaining in all things, obeying the Word of Wisdom, and with strictness and utmost care keeping our children from acquiring the same injurious habits which many of us have learned from our forefathers. He recommended to encourage home manufactures, to buy "home-made" from those who make it where individuals do not make it themselves, and to live within our means, gaining strength, prosperity and power by wisdom and economy. He pointed out the folly of people thinking to obtain the blessings of God, while living in violation of his commandments. Some, to gratify certain desires and lusts, rob themselves of the very blessings which they seek to obtain. We have to prepare ourselves for accomplishing the purposes of the Lord, according to the revelations; and the work commenced in Jackson County, is as applicable to us here as it was there, and is necessary before we can be fully prepared to go back there.
Pres. B. Young
briefly and pointedly addressed the sisters on the use of tea and coffee, showing that the means so expended might be applied to better purposes; and that increased health would be the result of abstaining from their use. The poorest in dollars and cents can do good, and aid in strengthening the interests of righteousness. He instructed the sisters to practice industry, teach their daughters to be industrious, to be economical and good housewives, competent and efficient in the performance of the varied duties devolving upon a wife and a mother; and showed that in this way they can do a great amount of good. Much of the means that might be saved by knitting, weaving, hat making, and other things, now neglected by the bulk of the people, might go to assist the perpetual emigration fund, or to support the families of the Elders who are on missions. He enjoined upon them to teach their daughters and sons not to use tea and coffee; and for all to be saving, neat, and active, making the articles worn by themselves and their families; and in all things seeking to do good to themselves and their families, their husbands, and their brethren and sisters in the kingdom of God.
briefly and pointedly addressed the sisters on the use of tea and coffee, showing that the means so expended might be applied to better purposes; and that increased health would be the result of abstaining from their use. The poorest in dollars and cents can do good, and aid in strengthening the interests of righteousness. He instructed the sisters to practice industry, teach their daughters to be industrious, to be economical and good housewives, competent and efficient in the performance of the varied duties devolving upon a wife and a mother; and showed that in this way they can do a great amount of good. Much of the means that might be saved by knitting, weaving, hat making, and other things, now neglected by the bulk of the people, might go to assist the perpetual emigration fund, or to support the families of the Elders who are on missions. He enjoined upon them to teach their daughters and sons not to use tea and coffee; and for all to be saving, neat, and active, making the articles worn by themselves and their families; and in all things seeking to do good to themselves and their families, their husbands, and their brethren and sisters in the kingdom of God.
How the Sisters Can Help to Build Up the Kingdom
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I think I will preach a short sermon to the sisters. “I want to do good; I want to do something to build up the Kingdom of God; I wish I was in a position to do something for this work. I would delight in doing something for the building up of this kingdom if I had it in my power.” These expressions are in the mouth of every sister who has embraced the gospel in her heart. I want to preach them a short sermon. Brother Heber has, in part, touched some of the items, to which I will now more particularly call your attention. I will ask if there is a sister in this Church who is too poor, when we come to dollars and cents, to get tea to drink if she wants to? No, not one. Is there a sister who does not have her cup of coffee to drink? No, not one. Then we are not so poor as to suffer materially after all. Now, I will ask the question: Sisters, if each of you were to save the price of these cups of tea and coffee for one month, what do you suppose the sum in each case would amount to? We will say a shilling, a dime, a quarter dollar, a half dollar, a dollar, or two dollars, as the case may be. Now, say the sisters: “We will cease drinking this tea and coffee, and we will give the money to some of the Elders who are called to preach the gospel, either in the Territory or abroad in the nations of the earth, or who are called on an Indian expedition; or we will give this means to help to bring the poor from the old country.” Would you be doing anything for the Kingdom or would you not? Is there an individual sister in this Church out of the reach of doing good? Not one. “Why,” exclaims a sister, “I am sick, weary, diseased; I cannot work—I cannot do anything.” Is doing good beyond her reach? No; that sister who is sick and unable to cook her own food, wash her own clothing, or to knit or mend her stockings, can give good counsel to her brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, to the members of the family in which she lives, to her neighbors, and to all with whom she may associate. Says she: “I am sick and feeble, but I do not drink any tea. My husband or my bishop would find it for me, if I would drink it; but I tell them to take that sixpence, dime, or dollar, and put it by to help to bring the poor.” She can teach her children to let such things alone. “You must not have any tea or coffee this morning, children; if you feel as though you need it, take a little water porridge.” There is more strength and nutriment in a bowl of water gruel than there is in tea; and there is no unhealthy influence in the water gruel, but there is in tea and coffee.
There is not a person in the world that cannot do good; even the mother who is too feeble to work; she can teach her daughters to work instead of permitting them to patrol these streets; she can teach her children to refrain from drinking tea and coffee, to take care of their clothing. Instead of our girls walking the streets or playing, instead of sliding on the carpets or climbing the peach trees and fences and tearing their clothes they should learn to make their frocks, their aprons, and all their clothing, and to knit their stockings; and when they have cloth to make up, instead of hiring help into the house and getting all the sewing machines that are peddled off in the United States, why not they sit down and make it up themselves? This would be far more economical than to hire women to work your sewing machines when you have them. “But,” says one, “I must have a woman to knit my stockings, to make my underclothing and my children's clothing, and I must have a woman to wash and iron for me.”
If our mothers want to do good, why do they not sit down, take the wool and card it and spin it—if they cannot get it carded by machine—and knit stockings to put on these men and boys who are working on the Tabernacle, the Temple, and the canal, and help to save your husbands' shillings and dollars, and not ask for three or four hired women to do the washing and cooking, that you may idle away your time? Why not take hold and attend to your household affairs, and thus help to build up the Kingdom of God? Every dime thus saved can go to gather the poor and to help to support the families of the elders who are abroad preaching. But the cry now is, “You must go to Bro. Brigham or the bishop; I can do nothing for you. I want a ribbon, or my daughter wants a new hat.” How many have you had in the course of the season? “I do not know.” “How many pairs of shoes have you had through the winter my daughter, or my little boy?” “I do not know; ask mother.” “Mother, how many pairs of shoes has your boy had through the winter?” “I do not know.” Does the mother see to the children? She will let them run about and wade here and there until their shoes are wet through, then they are put under the stove and spoiled; a new pair must be procured by the husband or father. Is good beyond your reach, sisters? You say, “We want to do good.” No; there are many who do not; they want to waste everything they put their hands upon. It is the great ignorance which is among the people that prevents their doing better.
What do the sisters want so many hired women for? “O, I want a seamstress, or I want somebody or other to clean the house and the carpets and to wait upon me, to bring the water to wash me, and to wash my neck or my feet; and I have so much cloth to make up, and I want help to make it up.” If there are women who want to do good, let them do their own work, and save their sixpences and dollars for the building of temples, tabernacles, meetinghouses, schoolhouses, educating the youth, preaching the gospel, and gathering the poor. Put something in the Perpetual Emigration Fund. We have done a great deal to bring the poor here. When we get the poor here, they say they want to do good; but their actions give the lie to their words. Their wives want hired women or girls to do their work for them; instead of knitting their own stockings, they want to be waited upon; instead of spending their time to the best advantage, they waste it, and let their daughters do the same, and their children imbibe habits that grow upon them, and which tend to evil.
Now mothers, if you want to do good, do not let your sons and daughters drink either tea or coffee while under your protection. Save the money to gather the poor, to preach the gospel, to build temples, and to sustain the Priesthood. Make your own drawers, your own shirts, knit your stockings, make your frocks, your bonnets, and hats. I had a very beautiful hat presented to me last evening by one of the wives of Judge Phelps. I believe one of the sisters Pratt sewed it. Now, suppose we set the girls to cutting straw when it is ripe enough, and teach them to cure it, and how to split and open it, and then prepare it with a machine for braiding, and teach them to braid; and then, instead of permitting them to gad around, keep them at home and teach them to do a little good.
I will ask—is doing good out of the reach of any person living who is able to talk? No; it is not. Every woman in this Church can be useful to the Church if she has a mind to be. There are none but what can do good, not one, as long as they can talk to their neighbors or to their children, and teach them how to be saving, and set them an example worthy of imitation.
In speaking in this wise I do not wish the people to be as some are—filthy and dirty. That will not do. We must be neat and clean. If we have only a tow frock and a coarse straw hat to wear let them be kept neat and clean; there is water enough, plenty of it. If you have nothing but a homemade ribbon, woven by yourselves out of the flax that your husbands or neighbors have raised and dressed, you can get logwood, mountain mahogany, or a little of this stuff that grows by the creeks and on the mountains to color it up; and, when it is made, and you are prepared to put on your garments, let them be clean, neat, and nice; and let the beauty of your garments be the work of your own hands. But as matters are now, you must run and buy here and there, and it makes me think of the old saying—“That which is dear bought and far fetched is fit for the ladies.” We must stop this, and if we want to be useful we must begin to teach our children how to save. “My little boy, do not put your shoes under the stove to burn up, and when you undress at night do not fling your hat one way, your jacket another, your breeches under foot, and your stockings under the stove, on the stove, or out of doors, but have a place for everything, and everything in its place;” and when your boys come in show them a place for their hats where they will not be trampled under foot; and when they take off their coats let them be put in the wardrobe or on hooks prepared for that purpose, and take care of them and not have them under foot. The waste that there is in the midst of this people is enough to support a small nation.
Now, sisters, do you want to be useful? If you do, take a course to be so, for this will bring us to the point where we can build up Zion and be of one heart and of one mind, and it will lead us to do all that we do in the name, in the love, and in the fear of our God. By so doing, if the fear of God is upon us, and we work with an eye single to the building up of Zion, our labors will be blessed.
Can we do good? Yes; we can do good by teaching that little girl not to drink tea and coffee, and to take care of her clothing, and as soon as she is big enough teach her to knit her stockings, and her garters, and her nubias. She may learn to do all this just as well as going to the store to buy them. The foolishness of the people here has waxed so strong that unless they get something that is bought in New York it is not good for anything. It makes me think of our brethren, the school teachers. We have brethren here who understand the languages of the nations of the earth, and the various branches of education taught in the world, as well as any man or men out of the Church. But if the man possessing the best talent we have among us were to go to some of our Bishops and say, “Can I keep your school?” The answer would be, “Yes, if you will work for nothing, find yourself, and pay the children for going.” But bring a poor, miserable, rotten-hearted, cursed Gentile, and they will lick the dust off his shoes to have him keep school, when he does not know half as much as the Elders in Israel know. This would not apply to every case, but it does to a great many. You go to our brethren, and ask them if they can get their pay for keeping school, and they will tell you they cannot. Ask them if they can get a school, and they will reply, “No, we are looked down upon as something inferior.” Why is this? Because the folly and wickedness of the people have waxen so strong that nothing is of any account unless it is imported. It is strange; it is astonishing! Why not seek to be one in building up and sustaining the Kingdom of God, instead of sustaining wickedness upon the earth? It is time to close. Now, this is a short sermon to the sisters.
Elder George Teasdale sang "The Saints are marching on victorious."
Pres. D. H. Wells pronounced the benediction.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I think I will preach a short sermon to the sisters. “I want to do good; I want to do something to build up the Kingdom of God; I wish I was in a position to do something for this work. I would delight in doing something for the building up of this kingdom if I had it in my power.” These expressions are in the mouth of every sister who has embraced the gospel in her heart. I want to preach them a short sermon. Brother Heber has, in part, touched some of the items, to which I will now more particularly call your attention. I will ask if there is a sister in this Church who is too poor, when we come to dollars and cents, to get tea to drink if she wants to? No, not one. Is there a sister who does not have her cup of coffee to drink? No, not one. Then we are not so poor as to suffer materially after all. Now, I will ask the question: Sisters, if each of you were to save the price of these cups of tea and coffee for one month, what do you suppose the sum in each case would amount to? We will say a shilling, a dime, a quarter dollar, a half dollar, a dollar, or two dollars, as the case may be. Now, say the sisters: “We will cease drinking this tea and coffee, and we will give the money to some of the Elders who are called to preach the gospel, either in the Territory or abroad in the nations of the earth, or who are called on an Indian expedition; or we will give this means to help to bring the poor from the old country.” Would you be doing anything for the Kingdom or would you not? Is there an individual sister in this Church out of the reach of doing good? Not one. “Why,” exclaims a sister, “I am sick, weary, diseased; I cannot work—I cannot do anything.” Is doing good beyond her reach? No; that sister who is sick and unable to cook her own food, wash her own clothing, or to knit or mend her stockings, can give good counsel to her brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, to the members of the family in which she lives, to her neighbors, and to all with whom she may associate. Says she: “I am sick and feeble, but I do not drink any tea. My husband or my bishop would find it for me, if I would drink it; but I tell them to take that sixpence, dime, or dollar, and put it by to help to bring the poor.” She can teach her children to let such things alone. “You must not have any tea or coffee this morning, children; if you feel as though you need it, take a little water porridge.” There is more strength and nutriment in a bowl of water gruel than there is in tea; and there is no unhealthy influence in the water gruel, but there is in tea and coffee.
There is not a person in the world that cannot do good; even the mother who is too feeble to work; she can teach her daughters to work instead of permitting them to patrol these streets; she can teach her children to refrain from drinking tea and coffee, to take care of their clothing. Instead of our girls walking the streets or playing, instead of sliding on the carpets or climbing the peach trees and fences and tearing their clothes they should learn to make their frocks, their aprons, and all their clothing, and to knit their stockings; and when they have cloth to make up, instead of hiring help into the house and getting all the sewing machines that are peddled off in the United States, why not they sit down and make it up themselves? This would be far more economical than to hire women to work your sewing machines when you have them. “But,” says one, “I must have a woman to knit my stockings, to make my underclothing and my children's clothing, and I must have a woman to wash and iron for me.”
If our mothers want to do good, why do they not sit down, take the wool and card it and spin it—if they cannot get it carded by machine—and knit stockings to put on these men and boys who are working on the Tabernacle, the Temple, and the canal, and help to save your husbands' shillings and dollars, and not ask for three or four hired women to do the washing and cooking, that you may idle away your time? Why not take hold and attend to your household affairs, and thus help to build up the Kingdom of God? Every dime thus saved can go to gather the poor and to help to support the families of the elders who are abroad preaching. But the cry now is, “You must go to Bro. Brigham or the bishop; I can do nothing for you. I want a ribbon, or my daughter wants a new hat.” How many have you had in the course of the season? “I do not know.” “How many pairs of shoes have you had through the winter my daughter, or my little boy?” “I do not know; ask mother.” “Mother, how many pairs of shoes has your boy had through the winter?” “I do not know.” Does the mother see to the children? She will let them run about and wade here and there until their shoes are wet through, then they are put under the stove and spoiled; a new pair must be procured by the husband or father. Is good beyond your reach, sisters? You say, “We want to do good.” No; there are many who do not; they want to waste everything they put their hands upon. It is the great ignorance which is among the people that prevents their doing better.
What do the sisters want so many hired women for? “O, I want a seamstress, or I want somebody or other to clean the house and the carpets and to wait upon me, to bring the water to wash me, and to wash my neck or my feet; and I have so much cloth to make up, and I want help to make it up.” If there are women who want to do good, let them do their own work, and save their sixpences and dollars for the building of temples, tabernacles, meetinghouses, schoolhouses, educating the youth, preaching the gospel, and gathering the poor. Put something in the Perpetual Emigration Fund. We have done a great deal to bring the poor here. When we get the poor here, they say they want to do good; but their actions give the lie to their words. Their wives want hired women or girls to do their work for them; instead of knitting their own stockings, they want to be waited upon; instead of spending their time to the best advantage, they waste it, and let their daughters do the same, and their children imbibe habits that grow upon them, and which tend to evil.
Now mothers, if you want to do good, do not let your sons and daughters drink either tea or coffee while under your protection. Save the money to gather the poor, to preach the gospel, to build temples, and to sustain the Priesthood. Make your own drawers, your own shirts, knit your stockings, make your frocks, your bonnets, and hats. I had a very beautiful hat presented to me last evening by one of the wives of Judge Phelps. I believe one of the sisters Pratt sewed it. Now, suppose we set the girls to cutting straw when it is ripe enough, and teach them to cure it, and how to split and open it, and then prepare it with a machine for braiding, and teach them to braid; and then, instead of permitting them to gad around, keep them at home and teach them to do a little good.
I will ask—is doing good out of the reach of any person living who is able to talk? No; it is not. Every woman in this Church can be useful to the Church if she has a mind to be. There are none but what can do good, not one, as long as they can talk to their neighbors or to their children, and teach them how to be saving, and set them an example worthy of imitation.
In speaking in this wise I do not wish the people to be as some are—filthy and dirty. That will not do. We must be neat and clean. If we have only a tow frock and a coarse straw hat to wear let them be kept neat and clean; there is water enough, plenty of it. If you have nothing but a homemade ribbon, woven by yourselves out of the flax that your husbands or neighbors have raised and dressed, you can get logwood, mountain mahogany, or a little of this stuff that grows by the creeks and on the mountains to color it up; and, when it is made, and you are prepared to put on your garments, let them be clean, neat, and nice; and let the beauty of your garments be the work of your own hands. But as matters are now, you must run and buy here and there, and it makes me think of the old saying—“That which is dear bought and far fetched is fit for the ladies.” We must stop this, and if we want to be useful we must begin to teach our children how to save. “My little boy, do not put your shoes under the stove to burn up, and when you undress at night do not fling your hat one way, your jacket another, your breeches under foot, and your stockings under the stove, on the stove, or out of doors, but have a place for everything, and everything in its place;” and when your boys come in show them a place for their hats where they will not be trampled under foot; and when they take off their coats let them be put in the wardrobe or on hooks prepared for that purpose, and take care of them and not have them under foot. The waste that there is in the midst of this people is enough to support a small nation.
Now, sisters, do you want to be useful? If you do, take a course to be so, for this will bring us to the point where we can build up Zion and be of one heart and of one mind, and it will lead us to do all that we do in the name, in the love, and in the fear of our God. By so doing, if the fear of God is upon us, and we work with an eye single to the building up of Zion, our labors will be blessed.
Can we do good? Yes; we can do good by teaching that little girl not to drink tea and coffee, and to take care of her clothing, and as soon as she is big enough teach her to knit her stockings, and her garters, and her nubias. She may learn to do all this just as well as going to the store to buy them. The foolishness of the people here has waxed so strong that unless they get something that is bought in New York it is not good for anything. It makes me think of our brethren, the school teachers. We have brethren here who understand the languages of the nations of the earth, and the various branches of education taught in the world, as well as any man or men out of the Church. But if the man possessing the best talent we have among us were to go to some of our Bishops and say, “Can I keep your school?” The answer would be, “Yes, if you will work for nothing, find yourself, and pay the children for going.” But bring a poor, miserable, rotten-hearted, cursed Gentile, and they will lick the dust off his shoes to have him keep school, when he does not know half as much as the Elders in Israel know. This would not apply to every case, but it does to a great many. You go to our brethren, and ask them if they can get their pay for keeping school, and they will tell you they cannot. Ask them if they can get a school, and they will reply, “No, we are looked down upon as something inferior.” Why is this? Because the folly and wickedness of the people have waxen so strong that nothing is of any account unless it is imported. It is strange; it is astonishing! Why not seek to be one in building up and sustaining the Kingdom of God, instead of sustaining wickedness upon the earth? It is time to close. Now, this is a short sermon to the sisters.
Elder George Teasdale sang "The Saints are marching on victorious."
Pres. D. H. Wells pronounced the benediction.
2 p.m.
The house was crowded to excess, great numbers being unable to obtain admission.
Singing by the choir; prayer by Elder John Taylor; anthem by the choir.
The house was crowded to excess, great numbers being unable to obtain admission.
Singing by the choir; prayer by Elder John Taylor; anthem by the choir.
Political and Social Economy
Discourse by Elder John Taylor, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
We have met together on the present occasion to attend our annual Conference. The object of our meeting is not altogether for religious purposes, but to consult upon all matters for the interest of the Church and Kingdom of God upon the earth. On these occasions it is quite common for missionaries to be appointed to the different nations of the earth, and it is also usual to discuss the principles and doctrines that we believe in, and to attend to any business that may have to be presented from the different parts of this Territory, and from all parts of the earth; and we try to build up the people in their most holy faith. We meet also to consult upon the best course for us to pursue with regard to temporal things as well as spiritual things. For as we possess bodies as well as spirits, and have to live by eating, drinking, and wearing, it becomes necessary that temporal matters should be considered and discussed in our Conferences, and that we should deliberate upon all things that are calculated to benefit, bless, and exalt the Saints of God, whether they refer to our spiritual affairs or to our avocations and duties in life as husbands and wives, as parents and children, as masters and servants; whether they refer to the policy we should pursue in our commercial relations, to protecting ourselves against the incursions of savages, or to any other matter affecting us as human beings composing part of the body politic of this nation or as citizens of the world. The idea of strictly religious feelings with us, and nothing else, is out of the question; yet we do everything in the fear of God. Our religion is more comprehensive than that of the world; it does not prompt its votaries with the desire to “sit and sing themselves away to everlasting bliss,” but it embraces all the interests of humanity in every conceivable phase, and every truth in the world comes within its scope. The Lord is making a great experiment, and we are trying to help Him. Through the instrumentality of His servants He has inaugurated the greatest work ever commenced on earth. We are taking a stand to revolutionize the ideas of ages, to overturn the fallacies of centuries, and to root out and destroy the corruptions of past generations by introducing the law of the most high God. Standing upon this elevated platform, having the world as it was, is, and as it will be before us, we feel the responsibility resting upon us to be true and faithful to the calling which the great God has placed upon us. As Jesus said he came not to do his own will, so we are not here to do our own will, to accomplish any favorite project, or to introduce any fanciful creed, notion, or idea. We are not here to propagate any favorite or pleasant dogma, but our object is to make known the laws of life and the designs of the great Eloheim with regard to the earth and its inhabitants.
As President Young remarked this morning, “our object is not to elevate the few at the expense of the many, but to elevate and exalt the whole; to pour health, wealth, and life upon all who will receive our teachings.” Consequently, when we assemble on occasions like this, all these interests present themselves for our consideration and reflection. Before we came into this Church many of us belonged to the various churches of the day—the Roman Catholic, the Greek, and Episcopal, and to the various dissenting bodies, and we had our peculiar creeds and articles of religious faith. But we have laid those doctrines aside, and now we are Latter-day Saints, and we believe in their doctrines. We believe that God has spoken, that the heavens have been opened, that holy angels have appeared, that the truths of God, which for ages have slumbered, have again burst forth upon us, and that man, once more, is brought into communion with his Maker. Before entering this Church we were ignorant in regard to the past and the future, but now we comprehend them in part. We have laid aside our religious dogmas, theories, follies, and nonsense; and we have one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one hope of our calling, one idea in relation to what we were, what we are, and what we are going to be, and that idea is in accordance with what God has revealed through the Priesthood. I was unable to comprehend religion until it was taught me by the Priesthood; and anything in opposition to their teachings is not worth the ashes of a rye straw. Like Moses' serpent, which swallowed up all other serpents, “Mormonism” has banished all our preconceived notions of religion, and has made us one. Why do we believe and feel as we do on these points? Because God has spoken, and we have believed Him. We are aiming at something more than religious unity. We have a political existence that none can ignore nor destroy; they think they can, but they cannot. They cannot make us mingle with the confusion of Babylon any more than they can make oil and water coalesce. There is no affinity between us. They profess very little faith in God, and know nothing about him; while we profess faith in God, and do know that He lives and speaks to His people; hence unity between them and us is impossible.
I referred just now to our political existence, but before I dwell upon that let us touch a little on our social ideas. They are very different from those of the world. We differ very materially, for instance, with them on the relationship that exists between the sexes. They say the course we pursue has a tendency to degrade women; we think it has a tendency to elevate them, and the course pursued by the world is one of the most damnably corrupt and oppressive that it is possible to conceive of. It is true they will marry their wives until death parts them. But what of their mistresses? By thousands and hundreds of thousands they are seduced and deceived and are being dragged down to death and perdition. Their bodies are weak, corrupt, and emaciated, and they are without pleasure in life and without hope in the future. Yet men who are steeped to the lips in such foul depravity and horrid practices will preach to us about purity and morality, and would have us embrace a system so deeply damned as theirs. It is enough to make a man vomit to hear them. No, sirs, we have come out from that, and are trying to carry out the principle which God has revealed—which is, to make all women wives, to respect, honor, and bless them while they live on the earth, and to exalt them to thrones in the celestial kingdom of God hereafter. Is there anything low, groveling, or calculated to humble or destroy in that? It is the most blessed, most noble, most exalted principle that ever God revealed to man. Who desires the world to continue in its present course of hypocrisy and corruption? Can the religion or politics of the day stem the evils that everywhere prevail, root out this corroding, fetid, moral curse, and establish pure, correct, and virtuous principles? If they had the wish to do so they have not the power. Nothing short of the power and intelligence of God can ever accomplish that. We are striving to introduce correct moral principles to the people, that men and women may understand their proper relationship to each other, that they may fill the measure of their creation and stand pure and uncontaminated before God, angels, and men, that when they have done with the things of time they may be transplanted to a celestial kingdom and be associated with the Gods in the eternal world.
In political matters we are pretty well united. At our elections we generally vote as a unit. This, we know, is contrary to the general custom, and because we do not disagree and contend as the world do, they say that we are wrong. If we had intended to do as they do we should not have left them. We have long ago weighed them in the balances and found them wanting. We have no desire to be affiliated with them; but in politics as in everything else we want to know the will of God, and then to do it. It is true that a little of the old leaven will manifest itself once in a while. Sometimes some little consequential persons who want to be somebody will gather here and seek to exalt themselves, but our opinion is that it is time enough for men to be somebody when God makes them so, and that manmade men are only poor miserable creatures at the best.
Do we not believe in the voice of the people? Yes; but we believe in the voice of God first, in the middle, and in the end. God says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last;” and we want to be governed by Him in everything—firstly, secondly, thirdly, and lastly. We do not think we have wisdom to manage our political affairs without the interposition of the Most High. Sometime ago we had an army sent against us by the United States. How did we conquer it? Perhaps you will say we did not conquer it; perhaps we did not, but no matter about that. Why did not they conquer us? Because our trust was in the living God, and He has told us that it was His “business to take care of His Saints.” We believed Him; we asked Him to take care of us, and He did. He took care of them, too, and after a while they went sneaking off as they came, and did nothing. We have had difficulties in the south of our Territory with Indians; we have today. What is the best course for us to take in regard to them? Who can dictate us in these matters? If the Lord does not, I am sure I do not know who can. I consider that we are all in the hands of God. He could let the red men upon us to chastise us if He saw proper; and He could say to them “Hold, be still,” and they would be as still as mice. It is so with the United States—they are in His hands as well as we; and when any man or set of men seek to interfere with us or our rights it is just as easy for Him to say to them, as to the waves of Jordan, “Hither shall ye come, and no further.” It is necessary for us to understand this; and to realize our position, and also to be united in carrying out any enterprise or policy that the Lord shall dictate to us through His servants. In relation to what may be called political economy the people think “we have the right to do as we please.” I do not know so much about that. You had a right to become “Mormons” or to let “Mormonism” alone, and you had the right to gather to Zion or to stay where you were. You have the right to be “Mormons” here or not, as you please; but I very much doubt the right of men to do as they please when they profess to be Latter-day Saints; because we have covenanted together to keep the commandments of God and obey the holy priesthood, and in this and other Conferences vote to uphold them and not to destroy, plot against, and overturn the power of the priesthood, or individuals, or nations, but to uphold righteousness, maintain truth, establish justice, and spread peace throughout the earth. That is what we plot, contrive, and pray for, and that has been the head and front of our offending from the organization of the Church till the present day. Well, but would we like to have our own way? Yes; and we do to a great extent. But when we do have so much of it we do not get along quite so well. Have you never heard President Young tell the story about the dog that was so very obedient? Said its master, “that dog will obey me in everything;” and to prove his assertion, said he, “Caesar, go out!” But Caesar did not go out, he went under the bed. “Well,” said his master, “if you will not go out, go under the bed, then, you shall obey me.” President Young feels a good deal like this with the Saints. They like their own way, and says he, “Well, if you will not do as the Lord wants you, why, do so and so, for you shall obey me.” What does this feature show? It shows that we are not very strong in the faith, that we are not living up to the privileges that God has given, and that we are not treading in the steps of our file leader as good men and women do.
We could progress a great deal faster, and could prosper a thousand times more than we do if we would be one in carrying out the counsels given us by the Lord through His servants. What did Jesus pray for when about leaving His disciples? “Father, I pray for these whom thou hast given me that they may be one, even as thou and I, Father, are one, that they may be one in us. Neither pray I for these alone, but for all who shall believe in me through their words, that they all may be one.” One in what? In everything. What did President Young say this morning when speaking of some of these things? That we would ask the Lord to bless us and preserve us from our enemies, and the very next step we were hand and glove with them in everything. If we do not feel ashamed when we hear such things we ought to be. What has been the teachings to this people for years? To be self-sustaining. What a poor miserable effort some of us would have made of it if we had lived in Adam's day! The Lord placed him on the earth and told him to be “fruitful, to multiply and replenish the earth, and to subdue it.” Now, Adam never thought of sending to the States for merchandise. If he wanted a coat he had to be his own tailor. The Lord showed him how to make his clothes. I expect He is a good hand, and understands all about these things. The Lord has brought us out here, and has given us a good land, which we have been cultivating for a number of years, and we have done pretty well.
A few days ago I came across a man of the name of Ivins, whose father apostatized in Nauvoo. The son has been around in the mines. I asked him who were the best off—the people here or those following mining pursuits? He said that we were a long way ahead of them. The reason is that we have not been following a vague phantom; but, we have been cultivating the earth, raising sheep and cattle, and the result is that most of us have our houses, gardens, farms, cattle, and sheep, and are comparatively well off; and my opinion is that no community in the world with our numbers are so prosperous as the people of Utah. There are places where there are richer men than you can find amongst us, but there are great numbers steeped in poverty. Have we any among us who are crying for bread? Can you find widows and orphans in our midst who are destitute? Here are men present from all parts of this Territory, can you tell of any such cases? I know of none myself. Can such a state of things be found in any other country? I have never met with it in any country where I have traveled. Why is this? Because the Lord has taught us principles that prompt us to provide for all, hence we do not allow any among us to suffer. But if we were obedient in all things we should be a great deal better off than we are, and would have less care and anxiety than we now have.
I was traveling south a while ago, and as I went along I made inquiries whether the people had all the grain they needed till harvest. I learned that a great many of them had not, the reason being that many had traded it off to the stores, some had bills to meet, and, owing to the fall in the price of grain, it took a great deal more to pay them than was anticipated. Is there any need for this? Not a particle. I was talking not long since with a brother on this subject. He was referring to Sanpete. He said—“It cost about as much to haul the grain from Sanpete to this city as it is worth, and, consequently, the people get nothing for their grain but the pay for hauling it.” Said I—“What is the matter? There is something wrong.” Is there any necessity that the people should bring their grain here or carry it anywhere else and get nothing for it but the pay for hauling? I do not know why it should be so, nor why the people should be so anxious to get rid of everything they have. I do not understand it.
Suppose the people in Sanpete, or any other county, were to establish a small woollen factory in each settlement, if they could not afford more than one or two carding machines, with a sufficient number of spindles to spin up the rolls, and had weavers to make it into cloth and other material necessary for the stockings, pants, vests, coats, dresses, shawls, nubias, &c., that they required, they would have no need, hereafter, to haul their grain to this city or elsewhere to pay for such things; but they might manufacture all the woollen fabric they need and still raise as much grain as they do now.
Let the people take care of their sheep and manufacture their wool, and there would be no uneasiness about their coats wearing out, or their shawls and dresses getting threadbare, for they would know there were plenty more growing.
Another branch of home manufacture that should be more generally encouraged is tanning. I have been told that a good many of the boots and shoes we wear now are made of gum and paper. I will guarantee that there are hides enough rotting around this city to shoe half this people, and I presume it is the case in other places. The effort of the people should be to establish a tannery, where none exists, to tan these hides into leather, and let the farmers haul bark for the tanners and exchange it for leather to shoe their families, and so manufacture leather enough to supply their wants, and if there was any surplus all the better. By adopting this course, boots and shoes for men, women, and children might be made of the hides from our cattle, while the stockings, pants, vests, coats, shawls, dresses, and nubias would come from the sheep. Then there is an article called flax that grows in this country, and if I were looking after the interests of a people I should require them to cultivate it and manufacture it into linen for towels, table cloths, and bed quilts; then if I could not manage to raise cotton enough from any source to make a shirt, I could, on a pinch, wear a linen one. With regard to hats, our hatters should be employed to make them at home, and the ladies could make hats of straw, as was spoken of by President Young this morning. If we procured machinery to do it, it would ease up on the ladies a little, and the work could be done better and more expeditiously. Nine-tenths of the people's wants could be supplied in this way, and you would still have your grain. Then the farmer, shoemaker, tailor, weaver, and so on through the whole people, could have their bins filled, and have on hand one, two, or three years' supply. By and by if somebody came along and said the grasshoppers or the crickets are coming, the feeling would be, “let them ‘crick,’ we do not care, we are safe, our grain is laid up.” That would make the people feel free, easy, and independent, and it ought to be their position today.
Well, so much for the political economy that ought to exist in our midst, and by which we as a people ought to be governed. I believe it is the duty of the Bishops and of all our leading men to see these things carried out. I know it is the wish of President Young and of the Lord. We profess to be the people of God, let us subject ourselves to His sway and carry out His designs. We have laid aside our old religion, morals, and politics long ago, and have got a better kind. Let us lay aside our old political economy and get one that is calculated to sustain us in every position in life and be one in that as in other things. I see I am talking too long. May the Lord bless and guide us and help us to be one, that we may be one with Him in His kingdom, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Discourse by Elder John Taylor, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
We have met together on the present occasion to attend our annual Conference. The object of our meeting is not altogether for religious purposes, but to consult upon all matters for the interest of the Church and Kingdom of God upon the earth. On these occasions it is quite common for missionaries to be appointed to the different nations of the earth, and it is also usual to discuss the principles and doctrines that we believe in, and to attend to any business that may have to be presented from the different parts of this Territory, and from all parts of the earth; and we try to build up the people in their most holy faith. We meet also to consult upon the best course for us to pursue with regard to temporal things as well as spiritual things. For as we possess bodies as well as spirits, and have to live by eating, drinking, and wearing, it becomes necessary that temporal matters should be considered and discussed in our Conferences, and that we should deliberate upon all things that are calculated to benefit, bless, and exalt the Saints of God, whether they refer to our spiritual affairs or to our avocations and duties in life as husbands and wives, as parents and children, as masters and servants; whether they refer to the policy we should pursue in our commercial relations, to protecting ourselves against the incursions of savages, or to any other matter affecting us as human beings composing part of the body politic of this nation or as citizens of the world. The idea of strictly religious feelings with us, and nothing else, is out of the question; yet we do everything in the fear of God. Our religion is more comprehensive than that of the world; it does not prompt its votaries with the desire to “sit and sing themselves away to everlasting bliss,” but it embraces all the interests of humanity in every conceivable phase, and every truth in the world comes within its scope. The Lord is making a great experiment, and we are trying to help Him. Through the instrumentality of His servants He has inaugurated the greatest work ever commenced on earth. We are taking a stand to revolutionize the ideas of ages, to overturn the fallacies of centuries, and to root out and destroy the corruptions of past generations by introducing the law of the most high God. Standing upon this elevated platform, having the world as it was, is, and as it will be before us, we feel the responsibility resting upon us to be true and faithful to the calling which the great God has placed upon us. As Jesus said he came not to do his own will, so we are not here to do our own will, to accomplish any favorite project, or to introduce any fanciful creed, notion, or idea. We are not here to propagate any favorite or pleasant dogma, but our object is to make known the laws of life and the designs of the great Eloheim with regard to the earth and its inhabitants.
As President Young remarked this morning, “our object is not to elevate the few at the expense of the many, but to elevate and exalt the whole; to pour health, wealth, and life upon all who will receive our teachings.” Consequently, when we assemble on occasions like this, all these interests present themselves for our consideration and reflection. Before we came into this Church many of us belonged to the various churches of the day—the Roman Catholic, the Greek, and Episcopal, and to the various dissenting bodies, and we had our peculiar creeds and articles of religious faith. But we have laid those doctrines aside, and now we are Latter-day Saints, and we believe in their doctrines. We believe that God has spoken, that the heavens have been opened, that holy angels have appeared, that the truths of God, which for ages have slumbered, have again burst forth upon us, and that man, once more, is brought into communion with his Maker. Before entering this Church we were ignorant in regard to the past and the future, but now we comprehend them in part. We have laid aside our religious dogmas, theories, follies, and nonsense; and we have one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one hope of our calling, one idea in relation to what we were, what we are, and what we are going to be, and that idea is in accordance with what God has revealed through the Priesthood. I was unable to comprehend religion until it was taught me by the Priesthood; and anything in opposition to their teachings is not worth the ashes of a rye straw. Like Moses' serpent, which swallowed up all other serpents, “Mormonism” has banished all our preconceived notions of religion, and has made us one. Why do we believe and feel as we do on these points? Because God has spoken, and we have believed Him. We are aiming at something more than religious unity. We have a political existence that none can ignore nor destroy; they think they can, but they cannot. They cannot make us mingle with the confusion of Babylon any more than they can make oil and water coalesce. There is no affinity between us. They profess very little faith in God, and know nothing about him; while we profess faith in God, and do know that He lives and speaks to His people; hence unity between them and us is impossible.
I referred just now to our political existence, but before I dwell upon that let us touch a little on our social ideas. They are very different from those of the world. We differ very materially, for instance, with them on the relationship that exists between the sexes. They say the course we pursue has a tendency to degrade women; we think it has a tendency to elevate them, and the course pursued by the world is one of the most damnably corrupt and oppressive that it is possible to conceive of. It is true they will marry their wives until death parts them. But what of their mistresses? By thousands and hundreds of thousands they are seduced and deceived and are being dragged down to death and perdition. Their bodies are weak, corrupt, and emaciated, and they are without pleasure in life and without hope in the future. Yet men who are steeped to the lips in such foul depravity and horrid practices will preach to us about purity and morality, and would have us embrace a system so deeply damned as theirs. It is enough to make a man vomit to hear them. No, sirs, we have come out from that, and are trying to carry out the principle which God has revealed—which is, to make all women wives, to respect, honor, and bless them while they live on the earth, and to exalt them to thrones in the celestial kingdom of God hereafter. Is there anything low, groveling, or calculated to humble or destroy in that? It is the most blessed, most noble, most exalted principle that ever God revealed to man. Who desires the world to continue in its present course of hypocrisy and corruption? Can the religion or politics of the day stem the evils that everywhere prevail, root out this corroding, fetid, moral curse, and establish pure, correct, and virtuous principles? If they had the wish to do so they have not the power. Nothing short of the power and intelligence of God can ever accomplish that. We are striving to introduce correct moral principles to the people, that men and women may understand their proper relationship to each other, that they may fill the measure of their creation and stand pure and uncontaminated before God, angels, and men, that when they have done with the things of time they may be transplanted to a celestial kingdom and be associated with the Gods in the eternal world.
In political matters we are pretty well united. At our elections we generally vote as a unit. This, we know, is contrary to the general custom, and because we do not disagree and contend as the world do, they say that we are wrong. If we had intended to do as they do we should not have left them. We have long ago weighed them in the balances and found them wanting. We have no desire to be affiliated with them; but in politics as in everything else we want to know the will of God, and then to do it. It is true that a little of the old leaven will manifest itself once in a while. Sometimes some little consequential persons who want to be somebody will gather here and seek to exalt themselves, but our opinion is that it is time enough for men to be somebody when God makes them so, and that manmade men are only poor miserable creatures at the best.
Do we not believe in the voice of the people? Yes; but we believe in the voice of God first, in the middle, and in the end. God says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last;” and we want to be governed by Him in everything—firstly, secondly, thirdly, and lastly. We do not think we have wisdom to manage our political affairs without the interposition of the Most High. Sometime ago we had an army sent against us by the United States. How did we conquer it? Perhaps you will say we did not conquer it; perhaps we did not, but no matter about that. Why did not they conquer us? Because our trust was in the living God, and He has told us that it was His “business to take care of His Saints.” We believed Him; we asked Him to take care of us, and He did. He took care of them, too, and after a while they went sneaking off as they came, and did nothing. We have had difficulties in the south of our Territory with Indians; we have today. What is the best course for us to take in regard to them? Who can dictate us in these matters? If the Lord does not, I am sure I do not know who can. I consider that we are all in the hands of God. He could let the red men upon us to chastise us if He saw proper; and He could say to them “Hold, be still,” and they would be as still as mice. It is so with the United States—they are in His hands as well as we; and when any man or set of men seek to interfere with us or our rights it is just as easy for Him to say to them, as to the waves of Jordan, “Hither shall ye come, and no further.” It is necessary for us to understand this; and to realize our position, and also to be united in carrying out any enterprise or policy that the Lord shall dictate to us through His servants. In relation to what may be called political economy the people think “we have the right to do as we please.” I do not know so much about that. You had a right to become “Mormons” or to let “Mormonism” alone, and you had the right to gather to Zion or to stay where you were. You have the right to be “Mormons” here or not, as you please; but I very much doubt the right of men to do as they please when they profess to be Latter-day Saints; because we have covenanted together to keep the commandments of God and obey the holy priesthood, and in this and other Conferences vote to uphold them and not to destroy, plot against, and overturn the power of the priesthood, or individuals, or nations, but to uphold righteousness, maintain truth, establish justice, and spread peace throughout the earth. That is what we plot, contrive, and pray for, and that has been the head and front of our offending from the organization of the Church till the present day. Well, but would we like to have our own way? Yes; and we do to a great extent. But when we do have so much of it we do not get along quite so well. Have you never heard President Young tell the story about the dog that was so very obedient? Said its master, “that dog will obey me in everything;” and to prove his assertion, said he, “Caesar, go out!” But Caesar did not go out, he went under the bed. “Well,” said his master, “if you will not go out, go under the bed, then, you shall obey me.” President Young feels a good deal like this with the Saints. They like their own way, and says he, “Well, if you will not do as the Lord wants you, why, do so and so, for you shall obey me.” What does this feature show? It shows that we are not very strong in the faith, that we are not living up to the privileges that God has given, and that we are not treading in the steps of our file leader as good men and women do.
We could progress a great deal faster, and could prosper a thousand times more than we do if we would be one in carrying out the counsels given us by the Lord through His servants. What did Jesus pray for when about leaving His disciples? “Father, I pray for these whom thou hast given me that they may be one, even as thou and I, Father, are one, that they may be one in us. Neither pray I for these alone, but for all who shall believe in me through their words, that they all may be one.” One in what? In everything. What did President Young say this morning when speaking of some of these things? That we would ask the Lord to bless us and preserve us from our enemies, and the very next step we were hand and glove with them in everything. If we do not feel ashamed when we hear such things we ought to be. What has been the teachings to this people for years? To be self-sustaining. What a poor miserable effort some of us would have made of it if we had lived in Adam's day! The Lord placed him on the earth and told him to be “fruitful, to multiply and replenish the earth, and to subdue it.” Now, Adam never thought of sending to the States for merchandise. If he wanted a coat he had to be his own tailor. The Lord showed him how to make his clothes. I expect He is a good hand, and understands all about these things. The Lord has brought us out here, and has given us a good land, which we have been cultivating for a number of years, and we have done pretty well.
A few days ago I came across a man of the name of Ivins, whose father apostatized in Nauvoo. The son has been around in the mines. I asked him who were the best off—the people here or those following mining pursuits? He said that we were a long way ahead of them. The reason is that we have not been following a vague phantom; but, we have been cultivating the earth, raising sheep and cattle, and the result is that most of us have our houses, gardens, farms, cattle, and sheep, and are comparatively well off; and my opinion is that no community in the world with our numbers are so prosperous as the people of Utah. There are places where there are richer men than you can find amongst us, but there are great numbers steeped in poverty. Have we any among us who are crying for bread? Can you find widows and orphans in our midst who are destitute? Here are men present from all parts of this Territory, can you tell of any such cases? I know of none myself. Can such a state of things be found in any other country? I have never met with it in any country where I have traveled. Why is this? Because the Lord has taught us principles that prompt us to provide for all, hence we do not allow any among us to suffer. But if we were obedient in all things we should be a great deal better off than we are, and would have less care and anxiety than we now have.
I was traveling south a while ago, and as I went along I made inquiries whether the people had all the grain they needed till harvest. I learned that a great many of them had not, the reason being that many had traded it off to the stores, some had bills to meet, and, owing to the fall in the price of grain, it took a great deal more to pay them than was anticipated. Is there any need for this? Not a particle. I was talking not long since with a brother on this subject. He was referring to Sanpete. He said—“It cost about as much to haul the grain from Sanpete to this city as it is worth, and, consequently, the people get nothing for their grain but the pay for hauling it.” Said I—“What is the matter? There is something wrong.” Is there any necessity that the people should bring their grain here or carry it anywhere else and get nothing for it but the pay for hauling? I do not know why it should be so, nor why the people should be so anxious to get rid of everything they have. I do not understand it.
Suppose the people in Sanpete, or any other county, were to establish a small woollen factory in each settlement, if they could not afford more than one or two carding machines, with a sufficient number of spindles to spin up the rolls, and had weavers to make it into cloth and other material necessary for the stockings, pants, vests, coats, dresses, shawls, nubias, &c., that they required, they would have no need, hereafter, to haul their grain to this city or elsewhere to pay for such things; but they might manufacture all the woollen fabric they need and still raise as much grain as they do now.
Let the people take care of their sheep and manufacture their wool, and there would be no uneasiness about their coats wearing out, or their shawls and dresses getting threadbare, for they would know there were plenty more growing.
Another branch of home manufacture that should be more generally encouraged is tanning. I have been told that a good many of the boots and shoes we wear now are made of gum and paper. I will guarantee that there are hides enough rotting around this city to shoe half this people, and I presume it is the case in other places. The effort of the people should be to establish a tannery, where none exists, to tan these hides into leather, and let the farmers haul bark for the tanners and exchange it for leather to shoe their families, and so manufacture leather enough to supply their wants, and if there was any surplus all the better. By adopting this course, boots and shoes for men, women, and children might be made of the hides from our cattle, while the stockings, pants, vests, coats, shawls, dresses, and nubias would come from the sheep. Then there is an article called flax that grows in this country, and if I were looking after the interests of a people I should require them to cultivate it and manufacture it into linen for towels, table cloths, and bed quilts; then if I could not manage to raise cotton enough from any source to make a shirt, I could, on a pinch, wear a linen one. With regard to hats, our hatters should be employed to make them at home, and the ladies could make hats of straw, as was spoken of by President Young this morning. If we procured machinery to do it, it would ease up on the ladies a little, and the work could be done better and more expeditiously. Nine-tenths of the people's wants could be supplied in this way, and you would still have your grain. Then the farmer, shoemaker, tailor, weaver, and so on through the whole people, could have their bins filled, and have on hand one, two, or three years' supply. By and by if somebody came along and said the grasshoppers or the crickets are coming, the feeling would be, “let them ‘crick,’ we do not care, we are safe, our grain is laid up.” That would make the people feel free, easy, and independent, and it ought to be their position today.
Well, so much for the political economy that ought to exist in our midst, and by which we as a people ought to be governed. I believe it is the duty of the Bishops and of all our leading men to see these things carried out. I know it is the wish of President Young and of the Lord. We profess to be the people of God, let us subject ourselves to His sway and carry out His designs. We have laid aside our old religion, morals, and politics long ago, and have got a better kind. Let us lay aside our old political economy and get one that is calculated to sustain us in every position in life and be one in that as in other things. I see I am talking too long. May the Lord bless and guide us and help us to be one, that we may be one with Him in His kingdom, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President D. H. Wells,
in referring to those who desire to destroy us, said that if they wish to overcome "Mormonism," they would act more in the spirit of fairness by trying to bring against it mightier truths than can be presented in its favor, instead of seeking to crush it out with brute force. The kingdom of God will endure forever; it is a temporal kingdom and an eternal one; and the principles which are taught in connection with its establishment have a bearing upon our every interest whether called temporal or spiritual. He treated upon and urged obedience to the Word of Wisdom, and referred to wool raising and home manufactures, showing their great importance. To be successful in this as in everything else, unity of effort is the lever that moves the labor with ease and power; hence we should be united, obedient to the principles of heaven which may be enjoyed by all who desire to do right. He spoke of the faith we have in the revelations of God, and the knowledge and testimony which the Lord has bestowed upon us. And contrasted our social and political condition with that of the world. Obedience to God has given us the happiness and prosperity which we now enjoy, and more perfect obedience will increase blessings upon us. He also advocated home manufactures, impressing their importance upon the congregation.
in referring to those who desire to destroy us, said that if they wish to overcome "Mormonism," they would act more in the spirit of fairness by trying to bring against it mightier truths than can be presented in its favor, instead of seeking to crush it out with brute force. The kingdom of God will endure forever; it is a temporal kingdom and an eternal one; and the principles which are taught in connection with its establishment have a bearing upon our every interest whether called temporal or spiritual. He treated upon and urged obedience to the Word of Wisdom, and referred to wool raising and home manufactures, showing their great importance. To be successful in this as in everything else, unity of effort is the lever that moves the labor with ease and power; hence we should be united, obedient to the principles of heaven which may be enjoyed by all who desire to do right. He spoke of the faith we have in the revelations of God, and the knowledge and testimony which the Lord has bestowed upon us. And contrasted our social and political condition with that of the world. Obedience to God has given us the happiness and prosperity which we now enjoy, and more perfect obedience will increase blessings upon us. He also advocated home manufactures, impressing their importance upon the congregation.
Discourse
By President D. H. Wells
It is with pleasure, brethren and sisters, that I rise before so goodly a congregation, realizing, as I do, that at least a great majority of them are those whose bosoms throb responsive to my own in regard to the interests of the great work of the last days, and the principles of life and salvation which we have received. I feel thankful to meet with so many whose aims are the same as mine, who have enlisted under the same banner, and who have covenanted that they will bear off the kingdom, and walk in obedience to the laws of life and salvation which the Lord has revealed in the last days for the guidance of the children of men. Have we not taken upon ourselves these covenants and obligations? Have we not, as Latter-day Saints, received the truth, and entered into covenant with the Lord that come what may we will obey Him, and thus prove to Him that we are His children? If I understand the principles of "Mormonism," which we have espoused, we have incurred these obligations. All who have gone into the waters of baptism have undertaken to walk in obedience to the principles of the gospel of salvation. If it is not this that has brought us together, and that has made us a people and a power in the world, I would like to know what it is. Herein, I apprehend, is the great mistake which our enemies make, who seek our overthrow. They regard our faith as only delusion, falsehood and humbug. Instead of bringing against us serious arguments, or endeavoring so to do, their cry is continually "humbug" and "delusion." Some may have attempted to argue against us, thinking they had truth for their premises, but they have found their efforts of no avail, because we had a greater amount of truth than they. So it will ever be with those whose efforts are to impede the work of the Lord, for truth is mighty and will prevail. Eternal truth will stand like the rock in the midst of the ocean; the waves may beat around it, but they who attempt to sail their barque over it will meet certain destruction.
It has been so in the history of the world, as the records of the past will prove. Christianity had more truth in it than Paganism, hence it prevailed over it. So with Mahomedanism, and the corrupt and erroneous systems among which it sprang into existence; and so it was with the Reformation. When the Reformers struck out against the Catholics, their principles contained more reason, truth and virtue than were contained in Catholicism; and hence, although the Catholics did their utmost to suppress the Reformation, they failed, because truth was mightier than they. So it is in our day with the gospel which has been revealed from heaven; although the enemies of truth are continually bringing their batteries against it, their efforts are unavailing. If they could array against it a greater volume of truth than it contains, then they might hope to see its speedy end. But they cannot do this, for the gospel circumscribes all truth. And they should hide their heads in shame, acknowledging that there is intelligence, wisdom and truth in the midst of this people.
Having embraced the truth, as a people, what course shall we pursue? Shall we turn or falter, or shall we apply it to our lives? When truth still leads the way, shall we fall away or slacken our hands? When the servants of God stand here and mark out the course in which the Lord requires the people, unitedly, to labor in temporal matters, are not their words as binding, and as much a part of the impregnable truths of Heaven, as any that were ever revealed? I cannot see any difference. The Lord is about to establish His kingdom, the kingdom which He has said should prevail over all other kingdoms and stand forever. Is not that a temporal kingdom, and will the Lord not guide and direct in temporal matters for the establishment of that kingdom? If so, is it not the duty of His children to walk in the path He marks out for them, according to their covenants with Him? Is it not the duty of the Latter-day Saints to cleave to that which is good and to reject evil? to keep God's laws and to be guided by His servants in their temporal as well as in their spiritual matters? It is not only our duty to do so, but more, it is our privilege, for it will make us the instruments in the hands of God and His servants, in laying the foundation of that great and glorious kingdom which shall prevail over and absorb all other kingdoms. By yielding to the requirements of the Lord in these matters we consult our own individual interest; and I could not help thinking this morning, that if appeals to our consciences were not sufficient, appeals to our pockets should be; for it is most certainly to our temporal interest, individually, to comply with the teachings of the servants of God in temporal matters.
Do not these principles come right home, and commend themselves to every man, woman and child who has any understanding of the true principles of economy? They need no proof, nor illustration; they are self-evident to all reflecting minds. When a truth is so palpable, should we not walk up to it, and carry it out conscientiously, and as truly as we would any other principle or instruction received through the same channel? I think we should; and I think we will not be held guiltless unless we are united as the heart of one man in carrying it out. When anything is placed before us, the truth of which is self-evident, and which is for our benefit as a people, and for the benefit of the kingdom of God, let us not hesitate, but go to and bear it off, being glad of the opportunity, because it contributes to the strength and power of that cause which we have espoused, and at the same time promotes our own individual interests if we have any.
With regard to the Word of Wisdom, it speaks for itself; it is couched in the most beautiful and eloquent language that ever was spoken, and it stands upon its own merits. If there is anyone who does not know what to do about it, let him try it, and prove for himself, and see if the promises it contains are not true and faithful. It commends itself to the understanding of everybody; but if we do not wish to keep it for conscience sake, it is not given as a commandment. If our interests merely should bribe us to carry it out, we and our children after us would be benefitted by so doing.
The subject of manufacturing and being independent is a most important one. If we wish for true independence we must pursue the course marked out by him whom the Lord has appointed to be His mouthpiece to this people. Not only has he urged this subject upon us to-day, but I can bear witness that for years he has taken the same course, and in his own family, and in his financial matters he has guided everything in that direction, as far as he has had power and ability to do so. If there has been any difficulty I has been with the people not sufficiently aiding and sustaining him. I hold him clear and guiltless, in my own feelings, in regard to these matters; he has done his duty in urging them on the people. If we had taken his counsel should we have been any more wealthy as a people than we are to-day? Most assuredly; I might say ten times the amount of money and other property that we now possess would be ours; and we would have known how to take care of it. A great many of the people can make money pretty easily; but they lack the knowledge of how to take care of it. It flies here and there, for this, that and the other, and the first thing we know, it is gone, and we are none the richer for having had it.
The people have been somewhat discouraged in the past in trying to grow wool and produce flax because there was not the necessary labor-saving machinery here for their manufacture. We need all the labor-saving machinery we can possibly procure; but if we cannot obtain enough to manufacture the wool and flax we raise, let it be done by hand in our houses, all over this city, as well as out of it. These are my sentiments and feelings, and ever have been, and I have tried to bring it about as far as I have had power. I have had a good deal of cloth manufactures in my own house, from time to time, as circumstances would permit. I have tried to keep sheep, and I know that it can and should be done. Suppose that our homemade cloth does cost a little more, one good dress of that kind is worth three or four imported ones; hence it is cheaper after all to manufacture them ourselves, than to go and spend money to buy them. This is my experience, and I expect it is the experience of all who have tried it. We sell a little grain when times are good and get some money. If we go to the stores and spend that money we send it out of the country, but if we invest it in machinery for the manufacture of flax, wool and cotton, we have something in place of it that is a benefit to the whole community.
These matters bear upon you and upon me, and upon every one of us, and it requires united effort on our part to carry them into operation. Let us go to work and bring in our labor saving machinery, and cultivate and manufacture that which the welfare of the community renders necessary. There is a great difficulty to be overcome by some of our people,--their taking unwise courses to gather means. Some will say "I will go here or go there, go this way or that; I can go out on the road or to the mines; I can see an opening to make a little money and help myself." How often has the experience of our elder proven that in almost every case—probably nine out of every ten—those persons who have stayed at home and attended to their business, have made more than they who have gone away and have aided in building up some other place. I appeal to our brethren right at home if this is not the case. There have been many instances where persons have left here, thinking they could do better; and after trying, in some cases for years, have returned penniless; while those who have remained here during that time have been able, by their industry, to become comfortably situated. Such individuals have lost just so much time; and, worse than that, they have lost the spirit of their holy religion, and in some instances have felt so discouraged that they have had to return again to the sinks of iniquity in which they have long wallowed, and have made shipwreck of their faith entirely. This has been the case with a great many. So with our sisters, who were spoken of this morning, marrying out of the church. They will yet weep in bitterness for taking such a course. I caution them against it; it will lead them out of the church, debar them from exaltation in the kingdom of God, and will doom them to a life of bitterness and woe. God, our heavenly Father, had a purpose in view in sending his children here on the earth, and He has revealed that purpose to His servants. Some of His children are beginning to understand, but a great many are yet ignorant and they would do well to be guided by those who have more knowledge than they have, until they come to understanding.
We need more complete obedience in regard to a great many things in this kingdom. The President has said there were many things to lay before the Conference, and I suppose the principle of obedience is one of them, obedience to the servants of the Lord in all things both temporal and spiritual. If we, as a people, have any power and influence in the world, it is this that gives it to us. I know there is a great deal of unity, faith and integrity in the midst of this people; I am glad to see it, and I rejoice over it. It only wants to be extended to some few other matters to produce a united effort in regard to our temporal affairs. There is a great deal of united effort amongst us in cultivating the ground, in bringing water to irrigate the soil, in making water ditches and canals; and there is a great deal of united effort in the disposal of the products of the earth. This is all good and commendable, but we want to carry it out with greater effect, to bring to pass those purposes which are necessary for our convenience and prosperity as a people. We should not patronize those who are seeking to injure us continually. The President has most graphically described the course that some among us pursue. They get down on their knees and pray to the Lord to preserve us from the contaminations and machinations of our enemies—the wicked and the ungodly—and then they will get up and do all in their power to sustain them, expecting their faith alone will be sufficient to prevail. You know faith is powerless without works; let our works go with our faith, then we can accomplish and bring to pass all that we desire in righteousness.
There is no constitutional law that I am aware of against a man selecting where he will trade, nor against his laying by means, and spending that means where he can buy goods the cheapest. If I chose to pay my brethren more for an article than I can get it for anywhere else, whose business is it? The course for us to pursue is to sustain those who sustain Israel and the holy and righteous principles, that the world is warring against and seeking to overthrow. We were brought out of the world to sustain each other and those principles that have been revealed for the guidance of the children of men; and if we are united in all things we will have power and influence sufficient to protect ourselves and to preserve our own rights on the face of the earth. The past history of this people from the beginning shows that we have been trodden down and oppressed; but such treatment is not in accordance with the genius of our institutions and government, because they are based on freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom in religious matters, guaranteeing to all the privilege to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. We know and understand that these are the privileges guaranteed by the Constitution of our common country. Give us these rights and that is all we ask. We are law abiding and the only community who are so, so far as that instrument is concerned. We have not sought to amend it, nor to torture it so as to make it sustain our own peculiar principles, whether political or religious, like the sectarians do the Bible; but we have been willing to let it stand as it was framed. It guarantees to us all the rights we ask for, and God helping us we will enjoy those rights. We expect to hold them, and the Lord is willing to help us; but to do so it needs a united people, a people who will stand shoulder to shoulder in everything.
There is no better government on the face of the earth than that which the Lord has revealed for the government of His people. The organization is complete. It is the government of Heaven; and those who stand in holy places to carry it into effect, and to guide and direct the labors of this people, have been appointed by the Lord Himself. Will we keep or reject this government? I would say by all means let us esteem it a privilege to live under such a benign rule, and rejoice that it has been established on the earth. These should be the feelings of the children of men. Instead of trying to overthrow and trample truth under foot, they ought to rejoice that it has been made manifest, and that it is rearing its head in the earth with a power that cannot be overturned nor, broken in pieces; and I hope and trust that those who are called Latter-day Saints will be united as a heart of one man in carrying out its precepts.
There is one thing that happened here not long since, at which I really feel encouraged. I allude to the counsel given to the people in reference to trading. I do believe and feel that that counsel has been carried into effect as rigidly and closely, and with as little effort, as any one other item that I have ever seen laid before the people. It was simply the power of truth; the people saw it; when it was laid before them they realized that it came home to them, and they acted as universally and unitedly in the matter as in anything I have ever seen. I like to see the people swayed by the voice and power of truth; and when a thing is presented to us that is self-evident to our senses let us carry it into effect unanimously, and we will see, in a short time, the increase of the wealth, power and influence of this community. We would all soon be able to enter our lands, provided the privilege were given to do so. How good it would be for the people in this city, and in all our cities, to secure from the government the title to their inheritances. If the privilege were accorded now, although the land would be very cheap, say a dollar and a quarter an acre, I am afraid we would not find money enough for a considerable length of time to do so, and that many of the people would have to resort to borrowing, and would probably have to pay a high rate of interest to get the means necessary to pay for their lands. This is a thing that is timely thrown before the people, and it is bound to come sooner or later. How much better it will be for us to be prepared to meet any sudden emergency of this kind, than to be crazy to know how to spend the last cent a man earns, and for things, too, that are needless.
The Word of Wisdom is a revelation in which I fully believe. It reads as follows, commencing on the 240th page of the book of Doctrine and Covenants:--
A Word of Wisdom, for the benefit of the Council of High Priests, assembled in Kirtland, and Church; and also the Saints in Zion. To be sent greeting—not by command or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom, showing forth the order and the will of God in the temporal salvation of all Saints in the last days. Given for a principle with promise, adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all Saints, who are or can be called Saints.
I pray God to help us to be united in all these things. Let us be united as the heart and voice of one man, in bringing to pass the designs and wishes of our God in building up His kingdom on the earth. This is the kingdom of God; this is His work, and we are His servants and hand-maidens; and I do not know of any better business that we can be engaged in than in establishing the work of God on the earth. Let all our labors and enterprises be controlled by those who are placed over us. Let all our operations, whether in farming, raising stock, digging ditches or making canals, and all the labors of this people be guided by those who are set over us in the Lord, that we may have power when the time comes to redeem Zion, gather Israel from their long dispersion, and hasten the coming of that grand and glorious day when the glory of the Lord shall rest upon His temple and upon the habitations of His Saints, as a cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night. That our labors may tend to this end, my brethren, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Choir sang.
Prayer by Elder George A. Smith.
By President D. H. Wells
It is with pleasure, brethren and sisters, that I rise before so goodly a congregation, realizing, as I do, that at least a great majority of them are those whose bosoms throb responsive to my own in regard to the interests of the great work of the last days, and the principles of life and salvation which we have received. I feel thankful to meet with so many whose aims are the same as mine, who have enlisted under the same banner, and who have covenanted that they will bear off the kingdom, and walk in obedience to the laws of life and salvation which the Lord has revealed in the last days for the guidance of the children of men. Have we not taken upon ourselves these covenants and obligations? Have we not, as Latter-day Saints, received the truth, and entered into covenant with the Lord that come what may we will obey Him, and thus prove to Him that we are His children? If I understand the principles of "Mormonism," which we have espoused, we have incurred these obligations. All who have gone into the waters of baptism have undertaken to walk in obedience to the principles of the gospel of salvation. If it is not this that has brought us together, and that has made us a people and a power in the world, I would like to know what it is. Herein, I apprehend, is the great mistake which our enemies make, who seek our overthrow. They regard our faith as only delusion, falsehood and humbug. Instead of bringing against us serious arguments, or endeavoring so to do, their cry is continually "humbug" and "delusion." Some may have attempted to argue against us, thinking they had truth for their premises, but they have found their efforts of no avail, because we had a greater amount of truth than they. So it will ever be with those whose efforts are to impede the work of the Lord, for truth is mighty and will prevail. Eternal truth will stand like the rock in the midst of the ocean; the waves may beat around it, but they who attempt to sail their barque over it will meet certain destruction.
It has been so in the history of the world, as the records of the past will prove. Christianity had more truth in it than Paganism, hence it prevailed over it. So with Mahomedanism, and the corrupt and erroneous systems among which it sprang into existence; and so it was with the Reformation. When the Reformers struck out against the Catholics, their principles contained more reason, truth and virtue than were contained in Catholicism; and hence, although the Catholics did their utmost to suppress the Reformation, they failed, because truth was mightier than they. So it is in our day with the gospel which has been revealed from heaven; although the enemies of truth are continually bringing their batteries against it, their efforts are unavailing. If they could array against it a greater volume of truth than it contains, then they might hope to see its speedy end. But they cannot do this, for the gospel circumscribes all truth. And they should hide their heads in shame, acknowledging that there is intelligence, wisdom and truth in the midst of this people.
Having embraced the truth, as a people, what course shall we pursue? Shall we turn or falter, or shall we apply it to our lives? When truth still leads the way, shall we fall away or slacken our hands? When the servants of God stand here and mark out the course in which the Lord requires the people, unitedly, to labor in temporal matters, are not their words as binding, and as much a part of the impregnable truths of Heaven, as any that were ever revealed? I cannot see any difference. The Lord is about to establish His kingdom, the kingdom which He has said should prevail over all other kingdoms and stand forever. Is not that a temporal kingdom, and will the Lord not guide and direct in temporal matters for the establishment of that kingdom? If so, is it not the duty of His children to walk in the path He marks out for them, according to their covenants with Him? Is it not the duty of the Latter-day Saints to cleave to that which is good and to reject evil? to keep God's laws and to be guided by His servants in their temporal as well as in their spiritual matters? It is not only our duty to do so, but more, it is our privilege, for it will make us the instruments in the hands of God and His servants, in laying the foundation of that great and glorious kingdom which shall prevail over and absorb all other kingdoms. By yielding to the requirements of the Lord in these matters we consult our own individual interest; and I could not help thinking this morning, that if appeals to our consciences were not sufficient, appeals to our pockets should be; for it is most certainly to our temporal interest, individually, to comply with the teachings of the servants of God in temporal matters.
Do not these principles come right home, and commend themselves to every man, woman and child who has any understanding of the true principles of economy? They need no proof, nor illustration; they are self-evident to all reflecting minds. When a truth is so palpable, should we not walk up to it, and carry it out conscientiously, and as truly as we would any other principle or instruction received through the same channel? I think we should; and I think we will not be held guiltless unless we are united as the heart of one man in carrying it out. When anything is placed before us, the truth of which is self-evident, and which is for our benefit as a people, and for the benefit of the kingdom of God, let us not hesitate, but go to and bear it off, being glad of the opportunity, because it contributes to the strength and power of that cause which we have espoused, and at the same time promotes our own individual interests if we have any.
With regard to the Word of Wisdom, it speaks for itself; it is couched in the most beautiful and eloquent language that ever was spoken, and it stands upon its own merits. If there is anyone who does not know what to do about it, let him try it, and prove for himself, and see if the promises it contains are not true and faithful. It commends itself to the understanding of everybody; but if we do not wish to keep it for conscience sake, it is not given as a commandment. If our interests merely should bribe us to carry it out, we and our children after us would be benefitted by so doing.
The subject of manufacturing and being independent is a most important one. If we wish for true independence we must pursue the course marked out by him whom the Lord has appointed to be His mouthpiece to this people. Not only has he urged this subject upon us to-day, but I can bear witness that for years he has taken the same course, and in his own family, and in his financial matters he has guided everything in that direction, as far as he has had power and ability to do so. If there has been any difficulty I has been with the people not sufficiently aiding and sustaining him. I hold him clear and guiltless, in my own feelings, in regard to these matters; he has done his duty in urging them on the people. If we had taken his counsel should we have been any more wealthy as a people than we are to-day? Most assuredly; I might say ten times the amount of money and other property that we now possess would be ours; and we would have known how to take care of it. A great many of the people can make money pretty easily; but they lack the knowledge of how to take care of it. It flies here and there, for this, that and the other, and the first thing we know, it is gone, and we are none the richer for having had it.
The people have been somewhat discouraged in the past in trying to grow wool and produce flax because there was not the necessary labor-saving machinery here for their manufacture. We need all the labor-saving machinery we can possibly procure; but if we cannot obtain enough to manufacture the wool and flax we raise, let it be done by hand in our houses, all over this city, as well as out of it. These are my sentiments and feelings, and ever have been, and I have tried to bring it about as far as I have had power. I have had a good deal of cloth manufactures in my own house, from time to time, as circumstances would permit. I have tried to keep sheep, and I know that it can and should be done. Suppose that our homemade cloth does cost a little more, one good dress of that kind is worth three or four imported ones; hence it is cheaper after all to manufacture them ourselves, than to go and spend money to buy them. This is my experience, and I expect it is the experience of all who have tried it. We sell a little grain when times are good and get some money. If we go to the stores and spend that money we send it out of the country, but if we invest it in machinery for the manufacture of flax, wool and cotton, we have something in place of it that is a benefit to the whole community.
These matters bear upon you and upon me, and upon every one of us, and it requires united effort on our part to carry them into operation. Let us go to work and bring in our labor saving machinery, and cultivate and manufacture that which the welfare of the community renders necessary. There is a great difficulty to be overcome by some of our people,--their taking unwise courses to gather means. Some will say "I will go here or go there, go this way or that; I can go out on the road or to the mines; I can see an opening to make a little money and help myself." How often has the experience of our elder proven that in almost every case—probably nine out of every ten—those persons who have stayed at home and attended to their business, have made more than they who have gone away and have aided in building up some other place. I appeal to our brethren right at home if this is not the case. There have been many instances where persons have left here, thinking they could do better; and after trying, in some cases for years, have returned penniless; while those who have remained here during that time have been able, by their industry, to become comfortably situated. Such individuals have lost just so much time; and, worse than that, they have lost the spirit of their holy religion, and in some instances have felt so discouraged that they have had to return again to the sinks of iniquity in which they have long wallowed, and have made shipwreck of their faith entirely. This has been the case with a great many. So with our sisters, who were spoken of this morning, marrying out of the church. They will yet weep in bitterness for taking such a course. I caution them against it; it will lead them out of the church, debar them from exaltation in the kingdom of God, and will doom them to a life of bitterness and woe. God, our heavenly Father, had a purpose in view in sending his children here on the earth, and He has revealed that purpose to His servants. Some of His children are beginning to understand, but a great many are yet ignorant and they would do well to be guided by those who have more knowledge than they have, until they come to understanding.
We need more complete obedience in regard to a great many things in this kingdom. The President has said there were many things to lay before the Conference, and I suppose the principle of obedience is one of them, obedience to the servants of the Lord in all things both temporal and spiritual. If we, as a people, have any power and influence in the world, it is this that gives it to us. I know there is a great deal of unity, faith and integrity in the midst of this people; I am glad to see it, and I rejoice over it. It only wants to be extended to some few other matters to produce a united effort in regard to our temporal affairs. There is a great deal of united effort amongst us in cultivating the ground, in bringing water to irrigate the soil, in making water ditches and canals; and there is a great deal of united effort in the disposal of the products of the earth. This is all good and commendable, but we want to carry it out with greater effect, to bring to pass those purposes which are necessary for our convenience and prosperity as a people. We should not patronize those who are seeking to injure us continually. The President has most graphically described the course that some among us pursue. They get down on their knees and pray to the Lord to preserve us from the contaminations and machinations of our enemies—the wicked and the ungodly—and then they will get up and do all in their power to sustain them, expecting their faith alone will be sufficient to prevail. You know faith is powerless without works; let our works go with our faith, then we can accomplish and bring to pass all that we desire in righteousness.
There is no constitutional law that I am aware of against a man selecting where he will trade, nor against his laying by means, and spending that means where he can buy goods the cheapest. If I chose to pay my brethren more for an article than I can get it for anywhere else, whose business is it? The course for us to pursue is to sustain those who sustain Israel and the holy and righteous principles, that the world is warring against and seeking to overthrow. We were brought out of the world to sustain each other and those principles that have been revealed for the guidance of the children of men; and if we are united in all things we will have power and influence sufficient to protect ourselves and to preserve our own rights on the face of the earth. The past history of this people from the beginning shows that we have been trodden down and oppressed; but such treatment is not in accordance with the genius of our institutions and government, because they are based on freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom in religious matters, guaranteeing to all the privilege to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. We know and understand that these are the privileges guaranteed by the Constitution of our common country. Give us these rights and that is all we ask. We are law abiding and the only community who are so, so far as that instrument is concerned. We have not sought to amend it, nor to torture it so as to make it sustain our own peculiar principles, whether political or religious, like the sectarians do the Bible; but we have been willing to let it stand as it was framed. It guarantees to us all the rights we ask for, and God helping us we will enjoy those rights. We expect to hold them, and the Lord is willing to help us; but to do so it needs a united people, a people who will stand shoulder to shoulder in everything.
There is no better government on the face of the earth than that which the Lord has revealed for the government of His people. The organization is complete. It is the government of Heaven; and those who stand in holy places to carry it into effect, and to guide and direct the labors of this people, have been appointed by the Lord Himself. Will we keep or reject this government? I would say by all means let us esteem it a privilege to live under such a benign rule, and rejoice that it has been established on the earth. These should be the feelings of the children of men. Instead of trying to overthrow and trample truth under foot, they ought to rejoice that it has been made manifest, and that it is rearing its head in the earth with a power that cannot be overturned nor, broken in pieces; and I hope and trust that those who are called Latter-day Saints will be united as a heart of one man in carrying out its precepts.
There is one thing that happened here not long since, at which I really feel encouraged. I allude to the counsel given to the people in reference to trading. I do believe and feel that that counsel has been carried into effect as rigidly and closely, and with as little effort, as any one other item that I have ever seen laid before the people. It was simply the power of truth; the people saw it; when it was laid before them they realized that it came home to them, and they acted as universally and unitedly in the matter as in anything I have ever seen. I like to see the people swayed by the voice and power of truth; and when a thing is presented to us that is self-evident to our senses let us carry it into effect unanimously, and we will see, in a short time, the increase of the wealth, power and influence of this community. We would all soon be able to enter our lands, provided the privilege were given to do so. How good it would be for the people in this city, and in all our cities, to secure from the government the title to their inheritances. If the privilege were accorded now, although the land would be very cheap, say a dollar and a quarter an acre, I am afraid we would not find money enough for a considerable length of time to do so, and that many of the people would have to resort to borrowing, and would probably have to pay a high rate of interest to get the means necessary to pay for their lands. This is a thing that is timely thrown before the people, and it is bound to come sooner or later. How much better it will be for us to be prepared to meet any sudden emergency of this kind, than to be crazy to know how to spend the last cent a man earns, and for things, too, that are needless.
The Word of Wisdom is a revelation in which I fully believe. It reads as follows, commencing on the 240th page of the book of Doctrine and Covenants:--
A Word of Wisdom, for the benefit of the Council of High Priests, assembled in Kirtland, and Church; and also the Saints in Zion. To be sent greeting—not by command or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom, showing forth the order and the will of God in the temporal salvation of all Saints in the last days. Given for a principle with promise, adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all Saints, who are or can be called Saints.
- Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, in consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation, that inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold it is not good, neither mete in the sight of your Father, only in assembling yourselves together to offer up your sacraments before him. And, behold, this should be wine, yea, pure wine of the grape of the vine, of your own make, and again, strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the washing of your bodies. And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle, to be used with judgment and skill. And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly.
- And again, very, I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man. Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving. Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; and it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine. All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life, not only for man but for the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and all wild animals that run or creep on the earth; and these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.
- All grain is good for the food of man, as also the fruit of the vine, that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the ground or above the ground. Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse, and rye for the fowls and for swine, and for all beasts of the field, and barley for all useful animals, and for mild drinks, as also other grain. And all Saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel, and marrow to their bones, and shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; and shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint; and I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them. Amen.
I pray God to help us to be united in all these things. Let us be united as the heart and voice of one man, in bringing to pass the designs and wishes of our God in building up His kingdom on the earth. This is the kingdom of God; this is His work, and we are His servants and hand-maidens; and I do not know of any better business that we can be engaged in than in establishing the work of God on the earth. Let all our labors and enterprises be controlled by those who are placed over us. Let all our operations, whether in farming, raising stock, digging ditches or making canals, and all the labors of this people be guided by those who are set over us in the Lord, that we may have power when the time comes to redeem Zion, gather Israel from their long dispersion, and hasten the coming of that grand and glorious day when the glory of the Lord shall rest upon His temple and upon the habitations of His Saints, as a cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night. That our labors may tend to this end, my brethren, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Choir sang.
Prayer by Elder George A. Smith.
Sunday, April 7th, 10 a.m.
The Tabernacle presented a densely packed appearance long before the appointed hour of commencing the morning services, and hundreds were compelled to remain outside or go away.
The choir sang; Elder Joseph W. Young prayed; followed by an anthem from the choir.
The Tabernacle presented a densely packed appearance long before the appointed hour of commencing the morning services, and hundreds were compelled to remain outside or go away.
The choir sang; Elder Joseph W. Young prayed; followed by an anthem from the choir.
Elder George A. Smith
said that the crowded state of the Tabernacle, with the fact that a great many were so unfortunate as not to get inside, urged a vigorous prosecution of the new Tabernacle. He took for his text, If ye are not one ye are not of me; showed that we are one in matters of faith and doctrine, though gathered from almost every nation on the earth with many prejudices, yet with much faith in the gospel; but there is a greater unity of effort required to advance our internal development, and the producing and manufacturing such articles as we need. Cotton has been successfully grown, and with the little machinery brought here has been already a blessing of incalculable value. The importance of keeping sheep and caring for them; getting wool and manufacturing it; feeding and properly caring for the animals we own; every family having a complete set of the works of the Church for family use; every meeting-house and every family being supplied with sacred books; every home being made attractive; and the people subscribing for and reading the Deseret News, Juvenile Instructor and Telegraph with the money now wasted on tobacco, were strongly advocated; while the use of strong drink was reprehended in pungent and severe language, and the people were called upon to unite and put away such an evil from our midst. The value of the counsel given at various times to save our grain, was reviewed and urged in a forcible manner.
said that the crowded state of the Tabernacle, with the fact that a great many were so unfortunate as not to get inside, urged a vigorous prosecution of the new Tabernacle. He took for his text, If ye are not one ye are not of me; showed that we are one in matters of faith and doctrine, though gathered from almost every nation on the earth with many prejudices, yet with much faith in the gospel; but there is a greater unity of effort required to advance our internal development, and the producing and manufacturing such articles as we need. Cotton has been successfully grown, and with the little machinery brought here has been already a blessing of incalculable value. The importance of keeping sheep and caring for them; getting wool and manufacturing it; feeding and properly caring for the animals we own; every family having a complete set of the works of the Church for family use; every meeting-house and every family being supplied with sacred books; every home being made attractive; and the people subscribing for and reading the Deseret News, Juvenile Instructor and Telegraph with the money now wasted on tobacco, were strongly advocated; while the use of strong drink was reprehended in pungent and severe language, and the people were called upon to unite and put away such an evil from our midst. The value of the counsel given at various times to save our grain, was reviewed and urged in a forcible manner.
Raising Flax and Wool—Home Manufactures—Church Literature—Folly of Using Tobacco and Liquor
Discourse by Elder George A. Smith, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
The crowded condition of the Tabernacle this morning, and the reflection that there is a number of persons outside who are so unlucky as to be too late to obtain admittance, reminds us forcibly of the necessity there exists for a vigorous prosecution of the work upon the new Tabernacle, that we may be prepared to accommodate the brethren and sisters with seats, especially during Conference. I expect that by the time our great Tabernacle is finished we shall begin to complain that it is too small, for we have never yet had a building sufficiently large and convenient to accommodate our congregations at Conference times. In fact, “Mormonism” has seemed to flourish best out of doors, where there was more room. This circumstance has worn heavily upon the lungs of our Elders, and especially of the Presidency, who have been under the necessity of speaking to very large audiences in the open air, and it is very important that we should concentrate our efforts to render the new Tabernacle habitable as soon as possible. Should that portion of the inhabitants of this city that naturally ought to attend meeting be punctual on the Sabbath day we should find it too small, and should wish that we had half a dozen galleries capable of holding three or four thousand each, that the people might get somewhere within compass and hear the word of the Lord.
It is written by one of the prophets, that the time should come when there would be a famine in the land; not for bread, nor for water, but for the hearing of the word of the Lord. Hence it is necessary that we should prepare a suitable Tabernacle, that we may be supplied when that day of famine shall arrive. I think that it has existed in the world for a long period, but that very few of the human family have realized it.
There are many subjects which I would like to present before my brethren and sisters which bear with more or less weight upon my mind, and which are directly calculated to concentrate the minds of the people on the “mark” given us by the President to preach to. The Presidency, in their instructions yesterday, brought our minds very clearly to the points which it is proper for us to reflect upon and to exert ourselves to carry out: unity in our action, education, business relations, and in everything pertaining to this world or any other with which we ever will have anything to do.
It has often been reiterated that we are agreed in doctrine—in belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, eternal judgments, and the sacrament. We are agreed almost to a unit on these subjects. The Christian world, for many generations, has been split into atoms on the question of the sacrament. The blood of millions has been shed because some have believed that in consecrating the elements for the sacrament they became the actual flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, while others believed they were but symbols, and that it was simply done in remembrance of him. On these points we are agreed. We are the most remarkable people that ever existed on the earth. I might say that devout men and women out of every nation under heaven are gathered here. What did they come here for? To hear the word of the Lord, to walk in His paths, and to prepare to inherit His glory. Having done so much for our religion is an earnest that we are ready to labor all the rest of our days to obey the word of the Lord which goes forth from Zion. We come here with a great variety of prejudices and with abundance of tradition, but with a great deal of confidence in the principles of the gospel. We are, as it were, in a new world, a desert, a country that is only made fertile by actual labor, and its fertility is only retained by the main strength of its inhabitants. Cease to irrigate our fields, repair our dams, clean out our ditches, and our country becomes a desert again in a quarter of the time that it has taken us to make it. In some respects it is peculiarly fitted to us, for while many of us are interested in one dam, one water ditch, or one stream of water, we are compelled to cultivate a spirit of union and oneness, or the result is we go hungry, and that same spirit of oneness is actually necessary to enable us to fulfil our mission here and for our exaltation hereafter.
The God of Heaven has a mission for every man and woman that He calls into this work. We may hear some names read to the Conference of brethren who are called on a mission, but it is only to another part of the vineyard. We are all on a mission, and every man and woman in this church is under just as much obligation to perform that mission as either the Twelve Apostles or the Presidency—salvation and eternal glory are at stake in each case. If the Presidency or the Twelve fail to perform their mission the result is the same as it is with the least member in the church; it may be in a greater degree, from the fact that there is greater responsibility in one case than in the other.
My mind rolls back to the Spring of the year 1857. You recollect that about ten years ago, some time in July, we got information that the mails were all stopped. We had not had them very often up to that period, not above four or five times a year, but at that time we had got a monthly mail established, and it was running punctually. The news came that the Administration then in power at Washington had stopped the mails, and had determined to send a formidable army to Utah. It looked a rather serious affair, for almost every time of persecution against the Saints had been inaugurated by the stoppage of the mail. As messengers brought in the papers we found that preparations were making to send immense armies to Utah. What for? Why, some renegade of a judge had spread the information that the Utah library was burned, that the court records were all destroyed, and that the people here had declared themselves independent of the United States. In confirmation of this, the Legislature of Utah had sent a petition to the Federal Government asking them to send good men here for officers! That was considered to be very near treason or rebellion, and on that ground our country was to be invaded or occupied by an army. The plains were darkened with wagons, six thousand having been started for Utah by one company, besides several thousands by the Government. There were also swarms of soldiers, and immense numbers of those carrion birds—gamblers and blacklegs, that always follow an army. We well remember this, and we also remember that in the providence of God it was all overruled without the shedding of blood; and how, when they got here, or into the vicinity, they sent on their messenger to ask permission to come in, and to ask for quarters in the country; and how they found, on examination, that the library and records and everything were safe, and the whole thing had been based on falsehood. We remember, too, that when the bottom fell out, the Administration scattered themselves to the four winds of heaven as quick as possible, and got out of the scrape as best they could.
This is well known as a matter of history. But what I wish to dwell upon is, that previous to that time we had exerted ourselves to raise wool. Every man that could was determined to raise sheep, and every woman that could was ready to use a spindle, distaff, or loom, if she could get one, no matter how rude it might be, to manufacture the wool into cloth. Efforts were also made to tan leather and to raise flax. Hundreds of acres of flax, for aught I know, had been cultivated, and it was found to be a success. Since then I have heard men say, “What a blessing it was to the people of Utah when that army came, it made them so rich.” How did it make us rich? You got their old iron, and that put a stop to the manufacture of iron here; you got the rags they brought here to sell, and that put a stop to our home manufactures; hence I do not think that, financially, our condition was much improved. The Government is said to have expended forty millions in bringing that army to Utah and in establishing Camp Floyd; yet most of it went into the hands of speculators, and very little into the hands of the actual settlers of this country.
I do believe, however, that if the little means then accumulated by the people had been used with wisdom it would have resulted in permanent benefit to the community, but as it turned out it educated us into the idea that we must buy what we needed from abroad. In 1857, I could get the flax I raised worked up; folks would take care of it. In the spring of 1858, I put into the hands of a man four and a half bushels of flax seed, gave him a good piece of land, and told him there was a chance for him to raise a fine crop of flax. The first thing I knew about it was that the flax was gathered, but the man told he had not time to attend to it; he had been to Camp Floyd trading a little, he had let it all rot, but nobody would swingle, break, or work it out, because it was so much easier and cheaper to do some kind of trading and get a little of something out of the store. Now, had we, when means came into our hands, at that period or any other, taken the advice given, and invested it in machinery, we should not only have been able to supply our future wants at home, but should have kept plenty of money in our own country.
To show you the zeal with which the authorities of the church have endeavored to promote home manufactures, I have only to refer you to the establishment of the mission in Southern Utah. It was a barren, desolate country, and possessed of but a small amount of soil adapted to raising cotton. When President Young sent brethren on that mission he said, “You will yet see cotton cloth sold in this city for a dollar a yard.” Who on the face of the earth believed him? Said the people, “You are a prophet, we guess, but you are mistaken this time.” But how long was it before his words were verified? Only a short time. He immediately started a cotton factory here and another at Parowan, and Brother Houtz started one at Springville. These mills have been in operation almost from that day to this, and have turned out a great many thousand bunches of cotton yarn. Besides that, a great deal has been worked up by hand, and a good many machines called plantation spinners have been brought in for that purpose. All this cotton, besides a considerable quantity which has been sent to San Francisco and to the States, and sold at paying rates, has been raised in this Territory; and yet men will come along and tell you that the cotton mission was a failure. What could we have done if it had not been established? I tell, you, brethren and sisters, that thousands would have gone naked if God had not showered down clothing to us as He did manna to the children of Israel. Still, some say, “It cost a great deal to start the mission, and the brethren do not get rich, but many of them are still very poor.” Did we come into this church to make money and to get fine clothes, or to work out our salvation by establishing and building up the kingdom of God? As Elders of Israel and as Saints the latter is our mission; and our effort from the beginning to the present time has been to render the kingdom of God self-sustaining. The way to do so has been portrayed before us, and the question with each one of us ought to be—“What can I do for the greatest advancement of Israel?”
Some two years, or a year and a half ago, the President gave instructions to every one of the Bishops to sow a piece of rye in order to supply the sisters with rye straw to make hats for the men and bonnets for themselves. Had that been carried out by the Bishops and the sisters in good faith there would have been in this hall today two thousand ladies wearing homemade straw hats, the work of their own hands; and the ladies without them would most certainly have been out of the fashion, for fashion has much influence in this matter. I only use this as a figure, but had this counsel been carried out the result would have been a saving probably of ten thousand dollars that could have been used for the construction of machinery and for the purchase of actual necessaries, and the ladies would have learned a trade they could have worked at hereafter in case of necessity.
Talk to the people about raising sheep and manufacturing the wool, and they will tell you that it is cheaper to buy clothing. Yet, down street, the cry is “nothing doing,” “no trade;” and a good deal of the time the business portions of the city are almost as quiet as the tombs of Herculaneum. What is the cause of this? Why the people have no money; those who had no more brains than to do so have paid all they could afford to the merchants, and they cannot find money to make further purchases. What is to be done under these circumstances? Why, you must go to work and raise wheat and give it to them for their goods, at six bits or a dollar a bushel, and give them double measure, because it is too dear to keep sheep and encourage home manufactures.
Brethren, let us be one, henceforth, and go to work and make good pastures, stables, and sheepcotes, and feed and take care of our sheep instead of starving them to death on the hills or leaving them to be destroyed by the wolves; then we will have twelve or fifteen pounds of wool from each one, instead of the barebacked animals, so common now that we might suppose they never had any wool within a mile of them. Instead of having hundreds and thousands of heads of stock dying on the ranges let us try and realize that we live in a cold northern climate, at a high altitude, and that our stock need shelter and food in the winter, and that if we suffer them to perish through cold and hunger we are responsible to God for the cruelty we inflict upon those animals. The grand juries in any county ought to take these things into consideration, and indict such parties for cruelty to animals, provided a majority could be found on any grand jury who are not guilty of the same practices. You may go to almost any place in this county and find milk cows half starved and without shelter, freezing and shivering in the cold, and giving about a quart of milk that is not fit for the hogs; you may also find cows that are fed decently, with a nice, fine, full udder. Which pays the best? “We let our cattle perish, because it does not pay to feed them.” Such notions are ridiculous. If we take care of and feed them we will find it will pay, and if we do not keep so many we will not be guilty of murdering, starving, freezing, and torturing to death so much animal flesh that God has placed under our charge. I expect the people will want to know why I do not keep to the “mark,” but I have got after the cattle and sheep.
I travel about occasionally, and sometimes, when I want food or a night's lodging, I call at the house of a brother, who is probably of long standing in the Church, and who is raising a family of fine children. Now, a part of that man's mission is to educate those children, to form their tastes, to cultivate their talents, and make a kingdom of holy men and women of them—a kingdom of priests unto God. But what has he got there to do it with? If you ask for a Book of Mormon, he will probably hand you one that old age seems long since to have passed its final veto upon, and if you undertake to pick it up you would say, “it stinks so that I cannot.” I do not know that there are many such Elders, but if there should happen to be one here, it would be well for him to reflect that right here at the Deseret News printing office Br. Kelly has the standard works of the Church for sale, and I would like every Elder in Israel to place a full set of them in the hands of his children; but especially, and above all others, the Bible, Book of Mormon, and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. I want to find them in every house. And when I go to a meetinghouse to preach I want the Bishop to have them on the stand, and the better they are bound and the nicer they look the more they please me. I do not wish to see these sacred books so dirty that you cannot read them, nor so shattered by time and bad usage that you cannot find a passage you wish to read because it is torn out. Where there are meetinghouses without them I recommend, if necessary, that collections be taken up to procure them. When stopping at the houses of the brethren, instead of the works of the Church I will probably find “Cresswell's Eulogy on the Life of Henry Winter Davis.” “How did this get here?” I inquire. “Oh, why, Br. Hooper sent it, and it is a very nice work,” is the reply. “Have you the Juvenile Instructor?” “No.” “Why, your children are big enough to read it, and it is one of the finest written things imaginable, and there is scarcely a syllable in it but what is useful. How do you manage to keep your children at home without something to interest them? Do you take the Deseret News?” “No, they stopped publishing the sermons, so I concluded that I would do without it.” “Do you take the Daily Tele-graph?” “I did take it, but I did not pay for it, and the editor got out of patience at having to furnish it for nothing, and he stopped it. I felt insulted, and would not take it any more.” “Do you send to the States for books?” “No.” So the children are learning nothing at all, and the only chance for them to have a little excitement is to get some corn and play at three men morris.
Brethren, make your homes attractive. Procure the Deseret News and the Juvenile Instructor, and let your children read the sermons and articles printed there, and read them yourselves, you are none of you too old to learn. If you want light reading do not send to the States for it, but support that which is got up here. “Well, really, Br. Smith, I cannot afford it.” Cannot afford it? How much does your tobacco cost you a year? That nasty, filthy stuff, the use of which is in violation of the laws of God, reason, good sense, and decency, and which makes your wife an eternal amount of work, cleaning up after you. That alone costs you enough in the year to furnish your children schoolbooks and to pay their school bills.
I really believe there is enough money paid out among us for tobacco to support all the schools in the Territory. A good many of our brethren are like the man who was making up his outfit for the gold mines. Said he, “I will take fifty pounds of flour and ten gallons of whiskey.” What else? “I will take ten pounds of tobacco.” What more? “Some more whiskey.” I am sorry to say that some of our Elders, some of the very men whose school bills are unpaid, use this whiskey. I can have a great deal of patience with tea and coffee, because they do not kill a man outright, but whiskey makes a dog of him at once; and there are probably men in this room whose liquor costs them forty, fifty, or a hundred dollars a year. Madmen! Shame on such Elders in Israel! Tobacco is bad enough; its excessive use will shorten a man's life about ten years, but whiskey degrades him far lower than the brutes. “O,” a man will say, “the Bishop drinks a little, and if it is good for him it must be good for me.” Says the little boy, “Dad chews tobacco, and if it is good for dad it is for me.” Suppose, brethren, that we make a general reformation in these things. Says one, “I drink only homemade liquor.” For my part I do not care what kind you drink, nor where it comes from, I want all men in Israel to let it alone.
I was proud the other day at a little notice of the “Mormons” that I was reading. It said that if you saw a man drunk in Salt Lake City, it was invariably a “Gentile.” It is a good deal so, but a great many of our brethren are on the road to ruin through drink, if not in this city in other places. Men think they need it, but they do not. There is something about whiskey like tobacco—it makes its own appetite. You drink one glass, and when the time for it comes around you want another, and by and by you cannot do without it. I have seen strong men in Israel nervous and trembling like children because their hour for drink had gone by. Such men die a shame and disgrace. Let us stamp it under our feet, and have nothing more to do with it. When a person is sick, weak, and feeble, spirits, probably, may be advantageously used to wash his body, but the practice now is to wash the inside of the body. Away with such nonsense, and shame on the Elders of Israel that are found patronizing it. The curse of the Almighty will rest on the men and the money that established this business in Israel, as sure as the God of Israel reigns. Of all the varied avocations in life, I should consider the superintendence of a liquor shop the most degrading.
But I want to come back to our oneness in wintering our stock and sheep. We will suppose that in Salt Lake City the practice of sending abroad for their goods, hats, caps, boots, shoes, and clothing becomes quite general among the people, while in the little county of Davis the Bishop and the people put their mites together and establish a woollen factory, attend to the cultivation of flax, and take care of the sheep, and do everything they can to live on home products, even to the wearing of straw hats and banners of their own manufacture. What would be the result? The result would be that while the people of Salt Lake City would be living from hand to mouth, the people of Davis County would, in a few years, be able to buy the Territory. If, as a Territory, we adopted this policy, we would soon have, not only money enough to buy our land, but anything on the face of the earth that is necessary for our enjoyment, and for the accomplishment of the great work in which we are engaged.
A few years ago, you know, the counsel given to Israel was to put our grain in our bins, and not to sell unless we could obtain a fair remunerative price for it. Had that counsel been adhered to what would have been the result? There would have been no scarcity of bread, and our grain would have commanded any price in reason that we might have asked for it. A great many kept the counsel given, but we were not united in the matter. One would undersell another, until large quantities of our grain have gone into the hands of merchants and speculators, at any price they had a mind to give, and the whole community have been injured thereby. May the Lord bless all Israel. Amen.
Elder John D. T. McAllister sang "The Moral Conflict."
Discourse by Elder George A. Smith, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
The crowded condition of the Tabernacle this morning, and the reflection that there is a number of persons outside who are so unlucky as to be too late to obtain admittance, reminds us forcibly of the necessity there exists for a vigorous prosecution of the work upon the new Tabernacle, that we may be prepared to accommodate the brethren and sisters with seats, especially during Conference. I expect that by the time our great Tabernacle is finished we shall begin to complain that it is too small, for we have never yet had a building sufficiently large and convenient to accommodate our congregations at Conference times. In fact, “Mormonism” has seemed to flourish best out of doors, where there was more room. This circumstance has worn heavily upon the lungs of our Elders, and especially of the Presidency, who have been under the necessity of speaking to very large audiences in the open air, and it is very important that we should concentrate our efforts to render the new Tabernacle habitable as soon as possible. Should that portion of the inhabitants of this city that naturally ought to attend meeting be punctual on the Sabbath day we should find it too small, and should wish that we had half a dozen galleries capable of holding three or four thousand each, that the people might get somewhere within compass and hear the word of the Lord.
It is written by one of the prophets, that the time should come when there would be a famine in the land; not for bread, nor for water, but for the hearing of the word of the Lord. Hence it is necessary that we should prepare a suitable Tabernacle, that we may be supplied when that day of famine shall arrive. I think that it has existed in the world for a long period, but that very few of the human family have realized it.
There are many subjects which I would like to present before my brethren and sisters which bear with more or less weight upon my mind, and which are directly calculated to concentrate the minds of the people on the “mark” given us by the President to preach to. The Presidency, in their instructions yesterday, brought our minds very clearly to the points which it is proper for us to reflect upon and to exert ourselves to carry out: unity in our action, education, business relations, and in everything pertaining to this world or any other with which we ever will have anything to do.
It has often been reiterated that we are agreed in doctrine—in belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, eternal judgments, and the sacrament. We are agreed almost to a unit on these subjects. The Christian world, for many generations, has been split into atoms on the question of the sacrament. The blood of millions has been shed because some have believed that in consecrating the elements for the sacrament they became the actual flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, while others believed they were but symbols, and that it was simply done in remembrance of him. On these points we are agreed. We are the most remarkable people that ever existed on the earth. I might say that devout men and women out of every nation under heaven are gathered here. What did they come here for? To hear the word of the Lord, to walk in His paths, and to prepare to inherit His glory. Having done so much for our religion is an earnest that we are ready to labor all the rest of our days to obey the word of the Lord which goes forth from Zion. We come here with a great variety of prejudices and with abundance of tradition, but with a great deal of confidence in the principles of the gospel. We are, as it were, in a new world, a desert, a country that is only made fertile by actual labor, and its fertility is only retained by the main strength of its inhabitants. Cease to irrigate our fields, repair our dams, clean out our ditches, and our country becomes a desert again in a quarter of the time that it has taken us to make it. In some respects it is peculiarly fitted to us, for while many of us are interested in one dam, one water ditch, or one stream of water, we are compelled to cultivate a spirit of union and oneness, or the result is we go hungry, and that same spirit of oneness is actually necessary to enable us to fulfil our mission here and for our exaltation hereafter.
The God of Heaven has a mission for every man and woman that He calls into this work. We may hear some names read to the Conference of brethren who are called on a mission, but it is only to another part of the vineyard. We are all on a mission, and every man and woman in this church is under just as much obligation to perform that mission as either the Twelve Apostles or the Presidency—salvation and eternal glory are at stake in each case. If the Presidency or the Twelve fail to perform their mission the result is the same as it is with the least member in the church; it may be in a greater degree, from the fact that there is greater responsibility in one case than in the other.
My mind rolls back to the Spring of the year 1857. You recollect that about ten years ago, some time in July, we got information that the mails were all stopped. We had not had them very often up to that period, not above four or five times a year, but at that time we had got a monthly mail established, and it was running punctually. The news came that the Administration then in power at Washington had stopped the mails, and had determined to send a formidable army to Utah. It looked a rather serious affair, for almost every time of persecution against the Saints had been inaugurated by the stoppage of the mail. As messengers brought in the papers we found that preparations were making to send immense armies to Utah. What for? Why, some renegade of a judge had spread the information that the Utah library was burned, that the court records were all destroyed, and that the people here had declared themselves independent of the United States. In confirmation of this, the Legislature of Utah had sent a petition to the Federal Government asking them to send good men here for officers! That was considered to be very near treason or rebellion, and on that ground our country was to be invaded or occupied by an army. The plains were darkened with wagons, six thousand having been started for Utah by one company, besides several thousands by the Government. There were also swarms of soldiers, and immense numbers of those carrion birds—gamblers and blacklegs, that always follow an army. We well remember this, and we also remember that in the providence of God it was all overruled without the shedding of blood; and how, when they got here, or into the vicinity, they sent on their messenger to ask permission to come in, and to ask for quarters in the country; and how they found, on examination, that the library and records and everything were safe, and the whole thing had been based on falsehood. We remember, too, that when the bottom fell out, the Administration scattered themselves to the four winds of heaven as quick as possible, and got out of the scrape as best they could.
This is well known as a matter of history. But what I wish to dwell upon is, that previous to that time we had exerted ourselves to raise wool. Every man that could was determined to raise sheep, and every woman that could was ready to use a spindle, distaff, or loom, if she could get one, no matter how rude it might be, to manufacture the wool into cloth. Efforts were also made to tan leather and to raise flax. Hundreds of acres of flax, for aught I know, had been cultivated, and it was found to be a success. Since then I have heard men say, “What a blessing it was to the people of Utah when that army came, it made them so rich.” How did it make us rich? You got their old iron, and that put a stop to the manufacture of iron here; you got the rags they brought here to sell, and that put a stop to our home manufactures; hence I do not think that, financially, our condition was much improved. The Government is said to have expended forty millions in bringing that army to Utah and in establishing Camp Floyd; yet most of it went into the hands of speculators, and very little into the hands of the actual settlers of this country.
I do believe, however, that if the little means then accumulated by the people had been used with wisdom it would have resulted in permanent benefit to the community, but as it turned out it educated us into the idea that we must buy what we needed from abroad. In 1857, I could get the flax I raised worked up; folks would take care of it. In the spring of 1858, I put into the hands of a man four and a half bushels of flax seed, gave him a good piece of land, and told him there was a chance for him to raise a fine crop of flax. The first thing I knew about it was that the flax was gathered, but the man told he had not time to attend to it; he had been to Camp Floyd trading a little, he had let it all rot, but nobody would swingle, break, or work it out, because it was so much easier and cheaper to do some kind of trading and get a little of something out of the store. Now, had we, when means came into our hands, at that period or any other, taken the advice given, and invested it in machinery, we should not only have been able to supply our future wants at home, but should have kept plenty of money in our own country.
To show you the zeal with which the authorities of the church have endeavored to promote home manufactures, I have only to refer you to the establishment of the mission in Southern Utah. It was a barren, desolate country, and possessed of but a small amount of soil adapted to raising cotton. When President Young sent brethren on that mission he said, “You will yet see cotton cloth sold in this city for a dollar a yard.” Who on the face of the earth believed him? Said the people, “You are a prophet, we guess, but you are mistaken this time.” But how long was it before his words were verified? Only a short time. He immediately started a cotton factory here and another at Parowan, and Brother Houtz started one at Springville. These mills have been in operation almost from that day to this, and have turned out a great many thousand bunches of cotton yarn. Besides that, a great deal has been worked up by hand, and a good many machines called plantation spinners have been brought in for that purpose. All this cotton, besides a considerable quantity which has been sent to San Francisco and to the States, and sold at paying rates, has been raised in this Territory; and yet men will come along and tell you that the cotton mission was a failure. What could we have done if it had not been established? I tell, you, brethren and sisters, that thousands would have gone naked if God had not showered down clothing to us as He did manna to the children of Israel. Still, some say, “It cost a great deal to start the mission, and the brethren do not get rich, but many of them are still very poor.” Did we come into this church to make money and to get fine clothes, or to work out our salvation by establishing and building up the kingdom of God? As Elders of Israel and as Saints the latter is our mission; and our effort from the beginning to the present time has been to render the kingdom of God self-sustaining. The way to do so has been portrayed before us, and the question with each one of us ought to be—“What can I do for the greatest advancement of Israel?”
Some two years, or a year and a half ago, the President gave instructions to every one of the Bishops to sow a piece of rye in order to supply the sisters with rye straw to make hats for the men and bonnets for themselves. Had that been carried out by the Bishops and the sisters in good faith there would have been in this hall today two thousand ladies wearing homemade straw hats, the work of their own hands; and the ladies without them would most certainly have been out of the fashion, for fashion has much influence in this matter. I only use this as a figure, but had this counsel been carried out the result would have been a saving probably of ten thousand dollars that could have been used for the construction of machinery and for the purchase of actual necessaries, and the ladies would have learned a trade they could have worked at hereafter in case of necessity.
Talk to the people about raising sheep and manufacturing the wool, and they will tell you that it is cheaper to buy clothing. Yet, down street, the cry is “nothing doing,” “no trade;” and a good deal of the time the business portions of the city are almost as quiet as the tombs of Herculaneum. What is the cause of this? Why the people have no money; those who had no more brains than to do so have paid all they could afford to the merchants, and they cannot find money to make further purchases. What is to be done under these circumstances? Why, you must go to work and raise wheat and give it to them for their goods, at six bits or a dollar a bushel, and give them double measure, because it is too dear to keep sheep and encourage home manufactures.
Brethren, let us be one, henceforth, and go to work and make good pastures, stables, and sheepcotes, and feed and take care of our sheep instead of starving them to death on the hills or leaving them to be destroyed by the wolves; then we will have twelve or fifteen pounds of wool from each one, instead of the barebacked animals, so common now that we might suppose they never had any wool within a mile of them. Instead of having hundreds and thousands of heads of stock dying on the ranges let us try and realize that we live in a cold northern climate, at a high altitude, and that our stock need shelter and food in the winter, and that if we suffer them to perish through cold and hunger we are responsible to God for the cruelty we inflict upon those animals. The grand juries in any county ought to take these things into consideration, and indict such parties for cruelty to animals, provided a majority could be found on any grand jury who are not guilty of the same practices. You may go to almost any place in this county and find milk cows half starved and without shelter, freezing and shivering in the cold, and giving about a quart of milk that is not fit for the hogs; you may also find cows that are fed decently, with a nice, fine, full udder. Which pays the best? “We let our cattle perish, because it does not pay to feed them.” Such notions are ridiculous. If we take care of and feed them we will find it will pay, and if we do not keep so many we will not be guilty of murdering, starving, freezing, and torturing to death so much animal flesh that God has placed under our charge. I expect the people will want to know why I do not keep to the “mark,” but I have got after the cattle and sheep.
I travel about occasionally, and sometimes, when I want food or a night's lodging, I call at the house of a brother, who is probably of long standing in the Church, and who is raising a family of fine children. Now, a part of that man's mission is to educate those children, to form their tastes, to cultivate their talents, and make a kingdom of holy men and women of them—a kingdom of priests unto God. But what has he got there to do it with? If you ask for a Book of Mormon, he will probably hand you one that old age seems long since to have passed its final veto upon, and if you undertake to pick it up you would say, “it stinks so that I cannot.” I do not know that there are many such Elders, but if there should happen to be one here, it would be well for him to reflect that right here at the Deseret News printing office Br. Kelly has the standard works of the Church for sale, and I would like every Elder in Israel to place a full set of them in the hands of his children; but especially, and above all others, the Bible, Book of Mormon, and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. I want to find them in every house. And when I go to a meetinghouse to preach I want the Bishop to have them on the stand, and the better they are bound and the nicer they look the more they please me. I do not wish to see these sacred books so dirty that you cannot read them, nor so shattered by time and bad usage that you cannot find a passage you wish to read because it is torn out. Where there are meetinghouses without them I recommend, if necessary, that collections be taken up to procure them. When stopping at the houses of the brethren, instead of the works of the Church I will probably find “Cresswell's Eulogy on the Life of Henry Winter Davis.” “How did this get here?” I inquire. “Oh, why, Br. Hooper sent it, and it is a very nice work,” is the reply. “Have you the Juvenile Instructor?” “No.” “Why, your children are big enough to read it, and it is one of the finest written things imaginable, and there is scarcely a syllable in it but what is useful. How do you manage to keep your children at home without something to interest them? Do you take the Deseret News?” “No, they stopped publishing the sermons, so I concluded that I would do without it.” “Do you take the Daily Tele-graph?” “I did take it, but I did not pay for it, and the editor got out of patience at having to furnish it for nothing, and he stopped it. I felt insulted, and would not take it any more.” “Do you send to the States for books?” “No.” So the children are learning nothing at all, and the only chance for them to have a little excitement is to get some corn and play at three men morris.
Brethren, make your homes attractive. Procure the Deseret News and the Juvenile Instructor, and let your children read the sermons and articles printed there, and read them yourselves, you are none of you too old to learn. If you want light reading do not send to the States for it, but support that which is got up here. “Well, really, Br. Smith, I cannot afford it.” Cannot afford it? How much does your tobacco cost you a year? That nasty, filthy stuff, the use of which is in violation of the laws of God, reason, good sense, and decency, and which makes your wife an eternal amount of work, cleaning up after you. That alone costs you enough in the year to furnish your children schoolbooks and to pay their school bills.
I really believe there is enough money paid out among us for tobacco to support all the schools in the Territory. A good many of our brethren are like the man who was making up his outfit for the gold mines. Said he, “I will take fifty pounds of flour and ten gallons of whiskey.” What else? “I will take ten pounds of tobacco.” What more? “Some more whiskey.” I am sorry to say that some of our Elders, some of the very men whose school bills are unpaid, use this whiskey. I can have a great deal of patience with tea and coffee, because they do not kill a man outright, but whiskey makes a dog of him at once; and there are probably men in this room whose liquor costs them forty, fifty, or a hundred dollars a year. Madmen! Shame on such Elders in Israel! Tobacco is bad enough; its excessive use will shorten a man's life about ten years, but whiskey degrades him far lower than the brutes. “O,” a man will say, “the Bishop drinks a little, and if it is good for him it must be good for me.” Says the little boy, “Dad chews tobacco, and if it is good for dad it is for me.” Suppose, brethren, that we make a general reformation in these things. Says one, “I drink only homemade liquor.” For my part I do not care what kind you drink, nor where it comes from, I want all men in Israel to let it alone.
I was proud the other day at a little notice of the “Mormons” that I was reading. It said that if you saw a man drunk in Salt Lake City, it was invariably a “Gentile.” It is a good deal so, but a great many of our brethren are on the road to ruin through drink, if not in this city in other places. Men think they need it, but they do not. There is something about whiskey like tobacco—it makes its own appetite. You drink one glass, and when the time for it comes around you want another, and by and by you cannot do without it. I have seen strong men in Israel nervous and trembling like children because their hour for drink had gone by. Such men die a shame and disgrace. Let us stamp it under our feet, and have nothing more to do with it. When a person is sick, weak, and feeble, spirits, probably, may be advantageously used to wash his body, but the practice now is to wash the inside of the body. Away with such nonsense, and shame on the Elders of Israel that are found patronizing it. The curse of the Almighty will rest on the men and the money that established this business in Israel, as sure as the God of Israel reigns. Of all the varied avocations in life, I should consider the superintendence of a liquor shop the most degrading.
But I want to come back to our oneness in wintering our stock and sheep. We will suppose that in Salt Lake City the practice of sending abroad for their goods, hats, caps, boots, shoes, and clothing becomes quite general among the people, while in the little county of Davis the Bishop and the people put their mites together and establish a woollen factory, attend to the cultivation of flax, and take care of the sheep, and do everything they can to live on home products, even to the wearing of straw hats and banners of their own manufacture. What would be the result? The result would be that while the people of Salt Lake City would be living from hand to mouth, the people of Davis County would, in a few years, be able to buy the Territory. If, as a Territory, we adopted this policy, we would soon have, not only money enough to buy our land, but anything on the face of the earth that is necessary for our enjoyment, and for the accomplishment of the great work in which we are engaged.
A few years ago, you know, the counsel given to Israel was to put our grain in our bins, and not to sell unless we could obtain a fair remunerative price for it. Had that counsel been adhered to what would have been the result? There would have been no scarcity of bread, and our grain would have commanded any price in reason that we might have asked for it. A great many kept the counsel given, but we were not united in the matter. One would undersell another, until large quantities of our grain have gone into the hands of merchants and speculators, at any price they had a mind to give, and the whole community have been injured thereby. May the Lord bless all Israel. Amen.
Elder John D. T. McAllister sang "The Moral Conflict."
President B. Young
called upon the Bishops and leading Elders to intelligently and understandingly observe the Word of Wisdom, that their example might be followed by the people. He instructed the congregation on those things which we have a right to do, and of those which we have not the right to do, and exhorted all the people of Israel to obey the word of the Lord, keep His commandments, abide His revelations, observe the Word of Wisdom, and increase in righteousness.
called upon the Bishops and leading Elders to intelligently and understandingly observe the Word of Wisdom, that their example might be followed by the people. He instructed the congregation on those things which we have a right to do, and of those which we have not the right to do, and exhorted all the people of Israel to obey the word of the Lord, keep His commandments, abide His revelations, observe the Word of Wisdom, and increase in righteousness.
The Word of Wisdom
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I will take the liberty of suggesting to my brethren who address the congregation that our sermons should be short, and if they are not filled with life and spirit let them be shorter, for we have not time at this Conference to let all the Elders who speak preach a long sermon, but we have time to say a few words in bearing testimony, to give a few words of counsel to encourage the Saints, to strengthen the weak, to endeavor to confirm those who are wavering, and so forward the Kingdom of God. I have a few words to say to the Bishops and others who are leading men in the House of Israel, including your humble servant now addressing you. There are certain rights and privileges belonging to the Elders in Israel, and there are certain things that it is not their privilege to indulge in. You go through the wards in the city, and then through the wards in the country, and ask the Bishops—“Do you keep the Word of Wisdom?” The reply will be “Yes; no, not exactly.” “Do you drink tea?” “No.” “Coffee?” “No.” “Do you drink whiskey?” “No.” “Well, then, why do you not observe the Word of Wisdom?” “Well, this tobacco, I cannot give it up.” And in this he sets an example to every man, and to every boy over ten years of age, in his ward, to nibble at and chew tobacco. You go to another ward, and perhaps the Bishop does not chew tobacco, nor drink tea nor coffee, but once in a while he takes a little spirits, and keeps whiskey in his house, in which he will occasionally indulge. Go to another ward, and perhaps the Bishop does not drink whiskey nor chew tobacco, but he “cannot give up his tea and coffee.” And so it goes through the whole church. Not that every Bishop indulges in one or more of these habits, but most of them do. I recollect being at a trial not long since where quite a number of Bishops had been called in as witnesses, but I could not learn that there was one who did not drink whiskey, and I think that most of them drank tea and coffee. I think that we have some Bishops in this city who do not chew tobacco, nor drink liquor nor tea nor coffee to excess.
The Word of Wisdom is one thing, and ignorance, superstition, or bigotry is another. I wish people to come to an understanding with regard to the Word of Wisdom. For illustration, I will refer to a certain brother who was in the church once, and President of the Elder's Quorum in Nauvoo. While living at that place there was a great deal of sickness among the people, and he was sometimes called in to lay hands on the sick, but if he had the least doubt about their drinking tea, if he even saw a teapot, he would refuse.
I recollect he went into a house where a woman was sick, who wanted him to lay hands on her; he saw a teapot in the corner containing catnip tea, but without stopping to enquire he left the house, exclaiming against her and her practices.
Now, there is no harm in a teapot, even if it contains tea, if it is let alone; and I say of a truth that where a person is diseased, say, for instance, with canker, there is no better medicine than green tea, and where it is thus used it should be drank sparingly. Instead of drinking thirteen or fourteen cups every morning, noon, and night, there should not be any used. You may think I am speaking extravagantly, but I remember a tea drinking match once in which fourteen cups apiece were drank, so you see it can be done. But to drink half a dozen or even three or four cups of strong tea is hurtful. It injures and impairs the system, benumbs the faculties of the stomach, and affects the blood, and is deleterious in its nature. If a person is weary, worn out, cast down, fainting, or dying, a brandy sling, a little wine, or a cup of tea is good to revive them. Do not throw these things away, and say they must never be used; they are good to be used with judgment, prudence, and discretion. Ask our Bishops if they drink tea every day, and in most cases they will tell you they do if they can get it. They take it when they do not need it and when it injures them. I want to say to the Elders in Israel, this is not our privilege. We have a great many privileges, but to indulge in liquor or other things to our own injury is not one of them. We have the right to live, labor, build our houses, make our farms, raise our cattle and horses, buy our carriages, marry our wives, raise and school our children, and then we have the right to set before them an example worthy of imitation, but we have not the right to throw sin in their path or to lead them to destruction.
I recollect telling the people here, not long ago, something in regard to the rights of the Elders. Our rights are numerous. If we are so disposed, we have the right to dictate the House of Israel in their daily avocations. We have the right to counsel them to go to the gold mines if it is wisdom and God requires it, and we have the right to counsel them away from the gold mines when it is not wisdom to go there. We have the right to ask them to go and buy goods, and to sell those goods without fraud or deception. I am sorry to say we cannot say this of many of our merchants. We have merchants that say they are of us and with us, and that they wish to be Saints, but they are not honest in their dealings; they will trade fraudulently, and they will take all the advantage they possibly can. I said here a year or two ago that unless such merchants repent they will go down to hell; I say so today. They never can enter the celestial kingdom of our God unless they refrain from their dishonest course and become Saints indeed.
To the Bishops and the Elders in Israel I wish to say that we have the right to do right, but not to sin. The right to obtain large families, although obnoxious to the refined Christians, all classes of whom preach against it—the priest in the pulpit, the judge on the bench, the senators and representatives in Congress, as well as the bar-keeper and the drunkard wallowing in his filth—they are all against it except God and the Saints; yet this is a right that the Saints have, and which no others legally possess. Others will presumptuously arrogate to themselves certain rights and privileges, but the result will be their overthrow, their condemnation, and their damnation.
We urge the people continually to be one in their temporal affairs. We do not offer prayers to dead Saints—to Peter, Paul, Mary, and others—but we frequently pray the living Saints, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God. If we urge the people to this until we get them to be really of one heart and one mind, what will be the result? We shall then possess Zion, it will then be developed in our midst, and we will be as independent as ever the children of Zion can be in our capacity. Will wrath, anger, strife, and selfishness then reign within us? No, they will not. It is our right and privilege to live so that we may attain to this, so that we may sanctify our hearts before the Lord, and sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, but it is not my privilege to drink liquor, neither is it my privilege to eat tobacco. Well, Bro. Brigham, have you not done it? Yes, for many years, but I ceased its habitual practice. I used it for toothache; now I am free from that pain, and my mouth is never stained with tobacco. It is not my privilege to drink liquor nor strong tea and coffee although I am naturally a great lover of tea. Brethren and sisters, it is not our privilege to indulge in these things, but it is our right and privilege to set an example worthy of imitation.
When we come to homemade cloth, I must say it would make clothes good enough for me to wear. “Then why do you not wear it, Bro. Brigham?” Shall I tell you? I have hardly worn a suit of clothes for years that has not been presented to me. If I knew that doing this would be a hindrance to the work of God, I would say to the next friend who wished to present me with a suit of clothes—“I thank you, but I will not wear them; you will please take them back to the store, or take them home and put them in the trunk.” I know the thoughts of many are— “I wish they would serve me so.” I wish they would; and if they will I will never say wear homemade again as long as friends will give you that which is imported, and you can lay by the money you save to send the Elders abroad to preach the gospel, to gather the poor, to help to build the temple of the Lord, or to finish the canal that we may get the rock here for the temple.
You men owning saw mills bring on the lumber to finish the tabernacle, and you carpenters and joiners come and help to use it up. We are going to plaster the main body of this building here immediately; take down the scaffold at the west end from the body of the building while the east end is being put up. And we are going to lay a platform for the organ, and then make a plan for the seats. And we calculate by next October, when the brethren and sisters come together, to have room for all; and if there is not room under the roof, the doors are placed in such a way that the people can stand in the openings and hear just as well as inside. I expect, however, that by the time our building is finished we shall find that we shall want a little more room. “Mormonism” is growing, spreading abroad, swelling and increasing, and I expect it is likely that our building will not be quite large enough, but we have it so arranged, standing on piers, that we can open all the doors and preach to people outside.
Now I want you should recollect—Bishops, Elders of Israel, High Priests, Seventies, the Twelve Apostles, the First Presidency, and all the House of Israel, hearken ye, O, my people! Keep the word of the Lord, observe the Word of Wisdom, sustain one another, sustain the household of faith, and let our enemies alone. As for those in our midst who love and work iniquity, the Lord will gather them from among us in His own due time. They will grow fewer and fewer until we will be free from them. The Lord chasteneth His people for their good, but see the sufferings of the wicked! God has always favored the righteous more than the wicked. Still, we have those among us who are afraid. “Well, this time we are going to see trouble,” or “we are going to be afflicted,” or “I think the Mormons will have to leave,” is their cry. I want to tell you we are not going to leave these mountains unless the Lord says so. The devil may say so until his throat splits, but we shall not do it; and woe to the men or people who drive us into the mountains, and compel us to hide ourselves in the dens and caves of the earth! Woe to the people who do this; they will find something they never learned yet; but they will never do it. I am looking for something entirely different. The wicked will waste away and destroy each other.
We are blamed for praying that sin and wickedness may cease on the earth, but the only way to effect that is for the perpetration of crime to cease. Will the people turn from evil, refrain from sin and iniquity, and serve the Lord? I would to God they would, but they will not do it. Sin must cease on the earth before iniquity and the workers thereof are unknown, there is no other way. We should not be blamed for praying that righteousness may reign, and that peace may come to the people. Is there war in our religion? No; neither war nor bloodshed. Yet our enemies cry out “bloodshed,” and “oh, what dreadful men these Mormons are, and those Danites! how they slay and kill!” Such is all nonsense and folly in the extreme. The wicked slay the wicked, and they will lay it on the Saints. But I say again that if the people called Latter-day Saints will live their religion they will never be driven from their homes in the mountains, but if they do sin to that extent that the Lord God of heaven will let them be driven, woe to them that come after us, for they will find greater desolation than we found when we came. If we will do right we are safe in the hands of God. We wish evil to no man or woman on this earth, but we wish to do good to all. Our Elders have circumscribed this little globe again and again without purse and scrip, offering the gospel to the nations of the earth. Will they have it? No; they prefer death, carnage, and destruction, and in the end they will receive the reward of the unjust. Let us take a course in which we shall be justified. We wish all people to do right, and if the Latter-day Saints will do so, and will sustain themselves and live within their own means, and never let their wants swell beyond them, all is right, we shall reign, and triumph over sin and iniquity. It is no more than reasonable, right, just, and equitable for us to ask those who wish to supplant us here to go to other places and build cities, plant orchards, raise grain, and make themselves comfortable, as we have done. They are perfectly welcome to eat, live, rule, and reign over one another, but let us alone to serve our God, build up His Kingdom on the earth, and live righteously and godly as we should.
Now, Elders of Israel, if you have the right to chew tobacco, you have a privilege I have not; if you have a right to drink whiskey, you have a right that I have not; if you have a right to transgress the Word of Wisdom, you have a right that I have not. If you have the right to buy and sell and get gain, to go here and there, to do this and that, to build up the wicked and the ungodly, or their cities, you have rights that I have not got. I have the right to build up Zion, but I have no right to build up a city in wickedness. It is the to close our morning's meeting.
Choir sang.
Prayer by Pres. Daniel Spencer.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I will take the liberty of suggesting to my brethren who address the congregation that our sermons should be short, and if they are not filled with life and spirit let them be shorter, for we have not time at this Conference to let all the Elders who speak preach a long sermon, but we have time to say a few words in bearing testimony, to give a few words of counsel to encourage the Saints, to strengthen the weak, to endeavor to confirm those who are wavering, and so forward the Kingdom of God. I have a few words to say to the Bishops and others who are leading men in the House of Israel, including your humble servant now addressing you. There are certain rights and privileges belonging to the Elders in Israel, and there are certain things that it is not their privilege to indulge in. You go through the wards in the city, and then through the wards in the country, and ask the Bishops—“Do you keep the Word of Wisdom?” The reply will be “Yes; no, not exactly.” “Do you drink tea?” “No.” “Coffee?” “No.” “Do you drink whiskey?” “No.” “Well, then, why do you not observe the Word of Wisdom?” “Well, this tobacco, I cannot give it up.” And in this he sets an example to every man, and to every boy over ten years of age, in his ward, to nibble at and chew tobacco. You go to another ward, and perhaps the Bishop does not chew tobacco, nor drink tea nor coffee, but once in a while he takes a little spirits, and keeps whiskey in his house, in which he will occasionally indulge. Go to another ward, and perhaps the Bishop does not drink whiskey nor chew tobacco, but he “cannot give up his tea and coffee.” And so it goes through the whole church. Not that every Bishop indulges in one or more of these habits, but most of them do. I recollect being at a trial not long since where quite a number of Bishops had been called in as witnesses, but I could not learn that there was one who did not drink whiskey, and I think that most of them drank tea and coffee. I think that we have some Bishops in this city who do not chew tobacco, nor drink liquor nor tea nor coffee to excess.
The Word of Wisdom is one thing, and ignorance, superstition, or bigotry is another. I wish people to come to an understanding with regard to the Word of Wisdom. For illustration, I will refer to a certain brother who was in the church once, and President of the Elder's Quorum in Nauvoo. While living at that place there was a great deal of sickness among the people, and he was sometimes called in to lay hands on the sick, but if he had the least doubt about their drinking tea, if he even saw a teapot, he would refuse.
I recollect he went into a house where a woman was sick, who wanted him to lay hands on her; he saw a teapot in the corner containing catnip tea, but without stopping to enquire he left the house, exclaiming against her and her practices.
Now, there is no harm in a teapot, even if it contains tea, if it is let alone; and I say of a truth that where a person is diseased, say, for instance, with canker, there is no better medicine than green tea, and where it is thus used it should be drank sparingly. Instead of drinking thirteen or fourteen cups every morning, noon, and night, there should not be any used. You may think I am speaking extravagantly, but I remember a tea drinking match once in which fourteen cups apiece were drank, so you see it can be done. But to drink half a dozen or even three or four cups of strong tea is hurtful. It injures and impairs the system, benumbs the faculties of the stomach, and affects the blood, and is deleterious in its nature. If a person is weary, worn out, cast down, fainting, or dying, a brandy sling, a little wine, or a cup of tea is good to revive them. Do not throw these things away, and say they must never be used; they are good to be used with judgment, prudence, and discretion. Ask our Bishops if they drink tea every day, and in most cases they will tell you they do if they can get it. They take it when they do not need it and when it injures them. I want to say to the Elders in Israel, this is not our privilege. We have a great many privileges, but to indulge in liquor or other things to our own injury is not one of them. We have the right to live, labor, build our houses, make our farms, raise our cattle and horses, buy our carriages, marry our wives, raise and school our children, and then we have the right to set before them an example worthy of imitation, but we have not the right to throw sin in their path or to lead them to destruction.
I recollect telling the people here, not long ago, something in regard to the rights of the Elders. Our rights are numerous. If we are so disposed, we have the right to dictate the House of Israel in their daily avocations. We have the right to counsel them to go to the gold mines if it is wisdom and God requires it, and we have the right to counsel them away from the gold mines when it is not wisdom to go there. We have the right to ask them to go and buy goods, and to sell those goods without fraud or deception. I am sorry to say we cannot say this of many of our merchants. We have merchants that say they are of us and with us, and that they wish to be Saints, but they are not honest in their dealings; they will trade fraudulently, and they will take all the advantage they possibly can. I said here a year or two ago that unless such merchants repent they will go down to hell; I say so today. They never can enter the celestial kingdom of our God unless they refrain from their dishonest course and become Saints indeed.
To the Bishops and the Elders in Israel I wish to say that we have the right to do right, but not to sin. The right to obtain large families, although obnoxious to the refined Christians, all classes of whom preach against it—the priest in the pulpit, the judge on the bench, the senators and representatives in Congress, as well as the bar-keeper and the drunkard wallowing in his filth—they are all against it except God and the Saints; yet this is a right that the Saints have, and which no others legally possess. Others will presumptuously arrogate to themselves certain rights and privileges, but the result will be their overthrow, their condemnation, and their damnation.
We urge the people continually to be one in their temporal affairs. We do not offer prayers to dead Saints—to Peter, Paul, Mary, and others—but we frequently pray the living Saints, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God. If we urge the people to this until we get them to be really of one heart and one mind, what will be the result? We shall then possess Zion, it will then be developed in our midst, and we will be as independent as ever the children of Zion can be in our capacity. Will wrath, anger, strife, and selfishness then reign within us? No, they will not. It is our right and privilege to live so that we may attain to this, so that we may sanctify our hearts before the Lord, and sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, but it is not my privilege to drink liquor, neither is it my privilege to eat tobacco. Well, Bro. Brigham, have you not done it? Yes, for many years, but I ceased its habitual practice. I used it for toothache; now I am free from that pain, and my mouth is never stained with tobacco. It is not my privilege to drink liquor nor strong tea and coffee although I am naturally a great lover of tea. Brethren and sisters, it is not our privilege to indulge in these things, but it is our right and privilege to set an example worthy of imitation.
When we come to homemade cloth, I must say it would make clothes good enough for me to wear. “Then why do you not wear it, Bro. Brigham?” Shall I tell you? I have hardly worn a suit of clothes for years that has not been presented to me. If I knew that doing this would be a hindrance to the work of God, I would say to the next friend who wished to present me with a suit of clothes—“I thank you, but I will not wear them; you will please take them back to the store, or take them home and put them in the trunk.” I know the thoughts of many are— “I wish they would serve me so.” I wish they would; and if they will I will never say wear homemade again as long as friends will give you that which is imported, and you can lay by the money you save to send the Elders abroad to preach the gospel, to gather the poor, to help to build the temple of the Lord, or to finish the canal that we may get the rock here for the temple.
You men owning saw mills bring on the lumber to finish the tabernacle, and you carpenters and joiners come and help to use it up. We are going to plaster the main body of this building here immediately; take down the scaffold at the west end from the body of the building while the east end is being put up. And we are going to lay a platform for the organ, and then make a plan for the seats. And we calculate by next October, when the brethren and sisters come together, to have room for all; and if there is not room under the roof, the doors are placed in such a way that the people can stand in the openings and hear just as well as inside. I expect, however, that by the time our building is finished we shall find that we shall want a little more room. “Mormonism” is growing, spreading abroad, swelling and increasing, and I expect it is likely that our building will not be quite large enough, but we have it so arranged, standing on piers, that we can open all the doors and preach to people outside.
Now I want you should recollect—Bishops, Elders of Israel, High Priests, Seventies, the Twelve Apostles, the First Presidency, and all the House of Israel, hearken ye, O, my people! Keep the word of the Lord, observe the Word of Wisdom, sustain one another, sustain the household of faith, and let our enemies alone. As for those in our midst who love and work iniquity, the Lord will gather them from among us in His own due time. They will grow fewer and fewer until we will be free from them. The Lord chasteneth His people for their good, but see the sufferings of the wicked! God has always favored the righteous more than the wicked. Still, we have those among us who are afraid. “Well, this time we are going to see trouble,” or “we are going to be afflicted,” or “I think the Mormons will have to leave,” is their cry. I want to tell you we are not going to leave these mountains unless the Lord says so. The devil may say so until his throat splits, but we shall not do it; and woe to the men or people who drive us into the mountains, and compel us to hide ourselves in the dens and caves of the earth! Woe to the people who do this; they will find something they never learned yet; but they will never do it. I am looking for something entirely different. The wicked will waste away and destroy each other.
We are blamed for praying that sin and wickedness may cease on the earth, but the only way to effect that is for the perpetration of crime to cease. Will the people turn from evil, refrain from sin and iniquity, and serve the Lord? I would to God they would, but they will not do it. Sin must cease on the earth before iniquity and the workers thereof are unknown, there is no other way. We should not be blamed for praying that righteousness may reign, and that peace may come to the people. Is there war in our religion? No; neither war nor bloodshed. Yet our enemies cry out “bloodshed,” and “oh, what dreadful men these Mormons are, and those Danites! how they slay and kill!” Such is all nonsense and folly in the extreme. The wicked slay the wicked, and they will lay it on the Saints. But I say again that if the people called Latter-day Saints will live their religion they will never be driven from their homes in the mountains, but if they do sin to that extent that the Lord God of heaven will let them be driven, woe to them that come after us, for they will find greater desolation than we found when we came. If we will do right we are safe in the hands of God. We wish evil to no man or woman on this earth, but we wish to do good to all. Our Elders have circumscribed this little globe again and again without purse and scrip, offering the gospel to the nations of the earth. Will they have it? No; they prefer death, carnage, and destruction, and in the end they will receive the reward of the unjust. Let us take a course in which we shall be justified. We wish all people to do right, and if the Latter-day Saints will do so, and will sustain themselves and live within their own means, and never let their wants swell beyond them, all is right, we shall reign, and triumph over sin and iniquity. It is no more than reasonable, right, just, and equitable for us to ask those who wish to supplant us here to go to other places and build cities, plant orchards, raise grain, and make themselves comfortable, as we have done. They are perfectly welcome to eat, live, rule, and reign over one another, but let us alone to serve our God, build up His Kingdom on the earth, and live righteously and godly as we should.
Now, Elders of Israel, if you have the right to chew tobacco, you have a privilege I have not; if you have a right to drink whiskey, you have a right that I have not; if you have a right to transgress the Word of Wisdom, you have a right that I have not. If you have the right to buy and sell and get gain, to go here and there, to do this and that, to build up the wicked and the ungodly, or their cities, you have rights that I have not got. I have the right to build up Zion, but I have no right to build up a city in wickedness. It is the to close our morning's meeting.
Choir sang.
Prayer by Pres. Daniel Spencer.
2 p.m.
The vast number of people who could not obtain admission to the Tabernacle, induced President Young to hold the meeting in the Bowery, where an immense congregation were soon assembled, sitting and standing.
Choir sang, "Come all ye Sons of God."
Bishop P. H. Young prayed.
Choir sang, "We thank thee, O God, for a Prophet."
Sacrament administered by Bishop Hunter and his counselors.
The vast number of people who could not obtain admission to the Tabernacle, induced President Young to hold the meeting in the Bowery, where an immense congregation were soon assembled, sitting and standing.
Choir sang, "Come all ye Sons of God."
Bishop P. H. Young prayed.
Choir sang, "We thank thee, O God, for a Prophet."
Sacrament administered by Bishop Hunter and his counselors.
Elder W. Woodruff
bore his testimony to the work of God, called "Mormonism;" and urged upon the people to become "of one heart of one mind" in all things, temporal as well as spiritual. Unless we do so, we will fail to accomplish the work we have to do. The "Word of Wisdom" is a revelation from God, adapted to the weakest of all Saints; and every man and woman who will exercise faith in God can observe its injunctions.
bore his testimony to the work of God, called "Mormonism;" and urged upon the people to become "of one heart of one mind" in all things, temporal as well as spiritual. Unless we do so, we will fail to accomplish the work we have to do. The "Word of Wisdom" is a revelation from God, adapted to the weakest of all Saints; and every man and woman who will exercise faith in God can observe its injunctions.
Necessity of Unity in Faith and Practice
Remarks by Elder Wilford Woodruff, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I shall call the attention of that portion of the House of Israel who are present to the text which was given us at the beginning of this Conference—“Be ye of one heart and of one mind.” This is a very good text, and one that is of great importance to this people. As was quoted this morning, Jesus said if ye are not one ye are not mine. This principle has been given to us by commandment and revelation. “Mormonism” is not a fable, neither is it a Yankee trick got up to deceive this generation, but it is a living fact, a truth which God and the angels in heaven know, and which many people on earth understand.
The principles which have been taught to us since the commencement of this Conference are very important for us to understand and to carry out in our lives. This is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has been established by the commandment of God, and it is composed of the honest in heart, the meek of the earth, out of all sects, parties, denominations, and nations. This body of people, or church, has got to build up the Zion of God in the last days, and this work cannot be accomplished upon any other principle than that of our being united together as the heart of one man.
Everywhere upon the face of the earth we can see what the effect of disunion is. The more that nations, communities, families, or bodies of people in any capacity under heaven, are divided, the less power they possess to carry out any purpose or principle imaginable, and the more union they possess, whether in a legislative or any other capacity, the more power they have to accomplish what they desire. We can see that the people of the world are becoming more and more divided every day, and the evils resulting therefrom are everywhere apparent. We are called to build up Zion, and we cannot build it up unless we are united; and in that union we have got to carry out the commandments of God unto us, and we have got to obey those who are set to lead and guide the affairs of the Kingdom of God.
There have been principles presented before us and counsel given during this Conference which are of vast importance to this people. There are many positions that we as a people have to occupy, and many branches of business to which we have to attend, not only of a spiritual but also of a temporal nature. Jesus said to the Jews—You pay tithes of mint, anise, and cummin, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law, and they, as well as your tithing, are required at your hands. So it is with us. We are one of heart and mind, as it regards faith, repentance, baptism, or the first principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ; but the same unity must exist in our midst in all our temporal labors—in building temples, tabernacles, cities, towns, villages, canals, cultivating the earth, or any other labor, if we ever accomplish the object for which we have been raised up. No people, unless they are united together, can ever build up Zion and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.
We have been taught the Word of Wisdom. It was given to us many years ago, and the Lord said it was applicable to the weakest Saint. Very few of us have kept the Word of Wisdom; but I have no doubt that if the counsel of President Young were carried out it would save the people of this Territory a million of dollars annually. I feel that we ought to put these things into practice. We ought to unite together in all matters required of us in order to carry out the purposes of the Lord our God. The people are able to do it if they feel disposed. Why, Bishop Hardy told me here this morning that he had laid aside his tobacco; he has loved it almost ever since he was born, and if he can leave it off every man in Israel ought to be able to do it. It was said today that whiskey drinking makes fools of men; it does. Its effects are much worse than they used to be, for the liquor made nowadays contains so much strychnine and arsenic that it is enough to kill anybody, and unless those who use it do lay it aside many will die. Lay aside whiskey, tobacco, tea, and coffee, and use none of them unless it be as a medicine. We can all do it, and there is not a man or woman in Israel, with any faith in this work, but is required to do so.
This little mustard seed here around this bowery, which has sprung up in the valleys of the mountains, has either got to grow and progress and become a great tree, in whose branches the fowls of the air can lodge, or it must stop growing altogether. We have either to build up Zion in its beauty, power, and glory, to the order which has been received by the servants of God, or else give it up. We must do one or the other. If we do this we must advance, and whatever God requires at our hands we must carry out.
I know the world oppose us because we are united; they say we are governed by one man. I would to God that all Israel would obey the voice of one man as the heavens obey the voice of God. Then we would have power to build up Zion and to obtain all things necessary for us before the Lord. We have come to this. There is no division among us so far as the principles of our religion are concerned; it is in relation to some things the world call temporal that we are not one. How are you going to build up Zion? In the hearts of the people? Why you could not get Zion into the heart of any man, not even into that tabernacle, and I never saw a man in my life as big as that, and I hope we shall never see the day when we will have a house big enough to hold Israel, for I trust they will be too numerous for any house we can build. We have to build up Zion, a temporal work here upon the face of the earth, and we have got to establish righteousness and truth. When I say a temporal work, I speak of temporal things. The Zion of our God cannot be built up in the hearts of men alone. We have to build up temples and cities, and the earth has to become sanctified and to be made holy by the children of God who will dwell upon it, and to do this we must be united together.
I do not wish to preach a long sermon, but I feel that we ought to lay hold and carry out the counsel that has been given to us at this Conference. If we lay aside these things that do us no good, as has been already said, we will be better off, have more unity, have power to gather and feed the poor, to send the Elders abroad, and to do a great deal of good with the means that we have saved, instead of squandering it upon those things that are injurious to us and displeasing in the sight of God.
Brethren and sisters, let us lay these things to heart, and be united in doing all the good we can in our day and generation. We have the right to do good, but not evil. The principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ which have been revealed in our day are the power of God unto salvation to all that believe, both Jew and Gentile, in this age of the world as well as any other; and inasmuch as we will be united in carrying out the counsel we have received, we can overcome every evil that lies in our path, build up the Zion of God, and place ourselves in a position that we may be saved therein, which, may God grant, for Christ's sake. Amen.
Singing "O, ye mountains high."
Remarks by Elder Wilford Woodruff, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I shall call the attention of that portion of the House of Israel who are present to the text which was given us at the beginning of this Conference—“Be ye of one heart and of one mind.” This is a very good text, and one that is of great importance to this people. As was quoted this morning, Jesus said if ye are not one ye are not mine. This principle has been given to us by commandment and revelation. “Mormonism” is not a fable, neither is it a Yankee trick got up to deceive this generation, but it is a living fact, a truth which God and the angels in heaven know, and which many people on earth understand.
The principles which have been taught to us since the commencement of this Conference are very important for us to understand and to carry out in our lives. This is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has been established by the commandment of God, and it is composed of the honest in heart, the meek of the earth, out of all sects, parties, denominations, and nations. This body of people, or church, has got to build up the Zion of God in the last days, and this work cannot be accomplished upon any other principle than that of our being united together as the heart of one man.
Everywhere upon the face of the earth we can see what the effect of disunion is. The more that nations, communities, families, or bodies of people in any capacity under heaven, are divided, the less power they possess to carry out any purpose or principle imaginable, and the more union they possess, whether in a legislative or any other capacity, the more power they have to accomplish what they desire. We can see that the people of the world are becoming more and more divided every day, and the evils resulting therefrom are everywhere apparent. We are called to build up Zion, and we cannot build it up unless we are united; and in that union we have got to carry out the commandments of God unto us, and we have got to obey those who are set to lead and guide the affairs of the Kingdom of God.
There have been principles presented before us and counsel given during this Conference which are of vast importance to this people. There are many positions that we as a people have to occupy, and many branches of business to which we have to attend, not only of a spiritual but also of a temporal nature. Jesus said to the Jews—You pay tithes of mint, anise, and cummin, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law, and they, as well as your tithing, are required at your hands. So it is with us. We are one of heart and mind, as it regards faith, repentance, baptism, or the first principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ; but the same unity must exist in our midst in all our temporal labors—in building temples, tabernacles, cities, towns, villages, canals, cultivating the earth, or any other labor, if we ever accomplish the object for which we have been raised up. No people, unless they are united together, can ever build up Zion and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.
We have been taught the Word of Wisdom. It was given to us many years ago, and the Lord said it was applicable to the weakest Saint. Very few of us have kept the Word of Wisdom; but I have no doubt that if the counsel of President Young were carried out it would save the people of this Territory a million of dollars annually. I feel that we ought to put these things into practice. We ought to unite together in all matters required of us in order to carry out the purposes of the Lord our God. The people are able to do it if they feel disposed. Why, Bishop Hardy told me here this morning that he had laid aside his tobacco; he has loved it almost ever since he was born, and if he can leave it off every man in Israel ought to be able to do it. It was said today that whiskey drinking makes fools of men; it does. Its effects are much worse than they used to be, for the liquor made nowadays contains so much strychnine and arsenic that it is enough to kill anybody, and unless those who use it do lay it aside many will die. Lay aside whiskey, tobacco, tea, and coffee, and use none of them unless it be as a medicine. We can all do it, and there is not a man or woman in Israel, with any faith in this work, but is required to do so.
This little mustard seed here around this bowery, which has sprung up in the valleys of the mountains, has either got to grow and progress and become a great tree, in whose branches the fowls of the air can lodge, or it must stop growing altogether. We have either to build up Zion in its beauty, power, and glory, to the order which has been received by the servants of God, or else give it up. We must do one or the other. If we do this we must advance, and whatever God requires at our hands we must carry out.
I know the world oppose us because we are united; they say we are governed by one man. I would to God that all Israel would obey the voice of one man as the heavens obey the voice of God. Then we would have power to build up Zion and to obtain all things necessary for us before the Lord. We have come to this. There is no division among us so far as the principles of our religion are concerned; it is in relation to some things the world call temporal that we are not one. How are you going to build up Zion? In the hearts of the people? Why you could not get Zion into the heart of any man, not even into that tabernacle, and I never saw a man in my life as big as that, and I hope we shall never see the day when we will have a house big enough to hold Israel, for I trust they will be too numerous for any house we can build. We have to build up Zion, a temporal work here upon the face of the earth, and we have got to establish righteousness and truth. When I say a temporal work, I speak of temporal things. The Zion of our God cannot be built up in the hearts of men alone. We have to build up temples and cities, and the earth has to become sanctified and to be made holy by the children of God who will dwell upon it, and to do this we must be united together.
I do not wish to preach a long sermon, but I feel that we ought to lay hold and carry out the counsel that has been given to us at this Conference. If we lay aside these things that do us no good, as has been already said, we will be better off, have more unity, have power to gather and feed the poor, to send the Elders abroad, and to do a great deal of good with the means that we have saved, instead of squandering it upon those things that are injurious to us and displeasing in the sight of God.
Brethren and sisters, let us lay these things to heart, and be united in doing all the good we can in our day and generation. We have the right to do good, but not evil. The principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ which have been revealed in our day are the power of God unto salvation to all that believe, both Jew and Gentile, in this age of the world as well as any other; and inasmuch as we will be united in carrying out the counsel we have received, we can overcome every evil that lies in our path, build up the Zion of God, and place ourselves in a position that we may be saved therein, which, may God grant, for Christ's sake. Amen.
Singing "O, ye mountains high."
Elder Ezra T. Benson
exhorted to increased unity, and the observance of the Word of Wisdom, with industry, economy, and independence of false fashions. One great reason why the injurious luxuries forbidden in the Word of Wisdom, and expensive habits which are wasting the means of the people, are so prevalent, is, because when one person indulges in them another must; they cannot bear to be unfashionable. Every false appetite will pass away if we struggle against it and seek strength from the Lord.
exhorted to increased unity, and the observance of the Word of Wisdom, with industry, economy, and independence of false fashions. One great reason why the injurious luxuries forbidden in the Word of Wisdom, and expensive habits which are wasting the means of the people, are so prevalent, is, because when one person indulges in them another must; they cannot bear to be unfashionable. Every false appetite will pass away if we struggle against it and seek strength from the Lord.
Word of Wisdom—Happiness to Be Obtained Only Through Obedience
Remarks by Elder E. T. Benson, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I do not know that I have ever seen a better time to preach the gospel than the present since I have been in the Church. I have not come to this Conference to preach, particularly, but to hear and to learn, yet, as I have the privilege given me to speak, I am very thankful to bear my testimony to the truth, as it has been revealed from the heavens. I have had many reflections since attending Conference, upon the text given to the Elders of Israel to preach from. It is before me all the time. It is a common custom with some to criticize the remarks made by the brethren while speaking. Some will think a speaker has been interesting, while others will consider that his remarks were well enough but without point. I am happy to say that the “point” is already made so far as I am concerned. It is “to be one” in everything that pertains to the building up of the Kingdom of God. And if we are to believe what we have heard during this Conference it is to be one in keeping the Word of Wisdom, and in living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Almighty through His servants. It is true that we have heard this for years, and it will have to be sounded in our ears until we are one in Christ as He is one with the Father.
We have been taught during this Conference to dispense with everything in eating, drinking, and wearing that is not in accordance with the will of God; and I do not know what greater things could be taught to the Latter-day Saints. We all know that there are a great many things that we now eat, drink, and wear, with which we could dispense to our own advantage, but because one has a thing another must have it too, and there is no peace until all these wants are supplied.
Talking about happiness, I told a lady today at noon that we, generally, are very ignorant of it. We think that a good bonnet, hat, a fine coat, a good cup of tea, or a pipe of tobacco to smoke will make us happy, but it is a mistaken notion. God never ordained such things for that purpose. We can be happy only in keeping the commandments of God and in being wholly devoted to the things of His Kingdom. Some of our Elders think if they were sent on a mission it would make them happy, but I have been told that there is no better field for missionary labor than here in the mountains; and every man here, bearing the Priesthood, has got a mission to preach the gospel at home, where his labors are most needed, and where he can do the most good. At this Conference every presiding officer, Bishop, Elder, Priest, Teacher, Deacon, and member of the Church has got a text to preach from in his future ministrations; to bring this people to a oneness in all things is, henceforth, the object of our labors. We are already united on many points; for instance, we are one here today in partaking of the Sacrament in remembrance of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But there are other things that require our attention. We should be one in all our movements in sustaining ourselves.
This is a portion of the text that has been given to us, and I feel that much good will result from the counsel we have had on this subject, and I intend to lay hold of it with all my might. And let us all endeavor by the help of God to leave off our tea, coffee, liquor, and other things, that are neither good for the body nor for the belly. We can overcome, for God will not require more of us than we can do. He has borne with us these many years; but, if I can discern the signs of the times, He is now going to require these things at our hands. Supposing He had given the Word of Wisdom as a command, how many of us would have been here? I do not know; but He gave this without command or restraint, observing that it would be pleasing in His sight for His people to obey its precepts. Ought we not to try to please our Heavenly Father, and to please His servants who are paving the way for us into the Kingdom of God? Can we get there without them? No; we cannot, and we need not try. God had appointed these prophets and apostles to lead and guide us into His Kingdom, and I do not expect to get there without them, and I am not going to try. If I can get there with them I shall be very thankful. How many blessings have you received in this kingdom without them? I do not know of any. If we have blessings we have received them through their counsel and guidance.
I am thankful that we, today, have the privilege of beholding the faces of our brethren who have borne the burden and heat of the day, and who are still ready and willing to administer for our benefit. I think that we, above all people, ought to be willing to retrace our steps in a great many things, that we may obtain the blessings that we are seeking and not be cut short. I tell you the kingdom is rolling; and as for the nations of the earth, we need not be troubled about them, the Lord and the devil will take care of them. They are wasting away, and they will go to their own place, and Israel will be gathered out, and the faithful will be saved in the Kingdom of God. This is my testimony. You need not have any doubts or fears from this time forth; if you are faithful and live your religion you are safe, and you will land safe in the Kingdom of God. I have no dubiety on my mind with regard to these things, and it is my study to know how to live so that I may enjoy the Holy Ghost—the Spirit of this gospel; and it cheers and comforts my heart when I hear the Elders talking about the good things of the Kingdom of God.
I have come nearly a hundred miles through the mud and snow to visit and hear the voices of my brethren and to listen to their counsels. Not but what we have some good folks where I live; at any rate, we have some good preachers among us occasionally. Only a few days ago we had brothers Musser and Stenhouse. They preached good things to us, and cheered and comforted our hearts. Some of the brethren remarked to me that “they preached splendidly, and really enjoyed the spirit of the gospel.” Said I, “Of course they did; they are from the fountain head—from the droppings of the sanctuary—and they possess the spirit of our President and Prophet and of the Apostles with whom they associate.” It is to be expected that men who come from the head here will have something new to tell to cheer the hearts of those who live isolated and far away. It proved to me, however, that we in Cache possess a little of the spirit enjoyed here, or we should not have received and been comforted by the teachings of our brethren. And we have come down to partake of the feeling and to share in the blessings of this great annual Conference, held by the Latter-day Saints in the tops of the mountains, in peace, and with none to molest or to make us afraid.
There is a little grumbling sometimes on the outside, a little showing me the teeth, but no biting, and no harm, done. The Saints are still living their religion—persevering, going ahead, striving to do the will of God, that they may eventually take the Kingdom; not the kingdoms of this world, for we do not want them. A great many men in the world are afraid that we are striving to take their kingdoms. We are not after the kingdoms of the world but it is the Kingdom of God—the Kingdom of life and peace—that the Latter-day Saints are after, and we expect to have it.
Short sermons are the order of the day, and I do not wish to occupy the time. I am thankful to my brethren for the opportunity of bearing testimony to the truth. I have all the preaching I can attend to when I am at home—which is, wherever I am called to labor. I feel free and easy in talking anywhere, where I am required so to do. I feel free in the spirit of the gospel and in the midst of my brethren. This is the place I like to visit, and I would spend all my time here if duty did not call me elsewhere. Here in the mountains is our field of labor, and nowhere else, unless we are sent. If we receive a mission to the various nations of the earth, let us go and do the best we can. Until then let us take a course to be one: one in dollars and cents, one in obtaining woollen factories and machinery, one in keeping the Word of Wisdom, and in everything else that will tend to bring about good results and increase good feelings in the minds of the Saints. Unless we keep the commands of God we cannot attain to this. It is no use for anybody to say—“I shall be happy if I can have everything to gratify my taste.” It is perfect nonsense, and the individual who entertains such a notion is deceiving himself. Nothing short of the bread of life, that comes down from God out of heaven, can supply the wants and satisfy the feelings of the Latter-day Saints and those who love truth.
May God bless us, brethren and sisters, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Singing, "O, Saints have you seen," &c.
Remarks by Elder E. T. Benson, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I do not know that I have ever seen a better time to preach the gospel than the present since I have been in the Church. I have not come to this Conference to preach, particularly, but to hear and to learn, yet, as I have the privilege given me to speak, I am very thankful to bear my testimony to the truth, as it has been revealed from the heavens. I have had many reflections since attending Conference, upon the text given to the Elders of Israel to preach from. It is before me all the time. It is a common custom with some to criticize the remarks made by the brethren while speaking. Some will think a speaker has been interesting, while others will consider that his remarks were well enough but without point. I am happy to say that the “point” is already made so far as I am concerned. It is “to be one” in everything that pertains to the building up of the Kingdom of God. And if we are to believe what we have heard during this Conference it is to be one in keeping the Word of Wisdom, and in living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Almighty through His servants. It is true that we have heard this for years, and it will have to be sounded in our ears until we are one in Christ as He is one with the Father.
We have been taught during this Conference to dispense with everything in eating, drinking, and wearing that is not in accordance with the will of God; and I do not know what greater things could be taught to the Latter-day Saints. We all know that there are a great many things that we now eat, drink, and wear, with which we could dispense to our own advantage, but because one has a thing another must have it too, and there is no peace until all these wants are supplied.
Talking about happiness, I told a lady today at noon that we, generally, are very ignorant of it. We think that a good bonnet, hat, a fine coat, a good cup of tea, or a pipe of tobacco to smoke will make us happy, but it is a mistaken notion. God never ordained such things for that purpose. We can be happy only in keeping the commandments of God and in being wholly devoted to the things of His Kingdom. Some of our Elders think if they were sent on a mission it would make them happy, but I have been told that there is no better field for missionary labor than here in the mountains; and every man here, bearing the Priesthood, has got a mission to preach the gospel at home, where his labors are most needed, and where he can do the most good. At this Conference every presiding officer, Bishop, Elder, Priest, Teacher, Deacon, and member of the Church has got a text to preach from in his future ministrations; to bring this people to a oneness in all things is, henceforth, the object of our labors. We are already united on many points; for instance, we are one here today in partaking of the Sacrament in remembrance of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But there are other things that require our attention. We should be one in all our movements in sustaining ourselves.
This is a portion of the text that has been given to us, and I feel that much good will result from the counsel we have had on this subject, and I intend to lay hold of it with all my might. And let us all endeavor by the help of God to leave off our tea, coffee, liquor, and other things, that are neither good for the body nor for the belly. We can overcome, for God will not require more of us than we can do. He has borne with us these many years; but, if I can discern the signs of the times, He is now going to require these things at our hands. Supposing He had given the Word of Wisdom as a command, how many of us would have been here? I do not know; but He gave this without command or restraint, observing that it would be pleasing in His sight for His people to obey its precepts. Ought we not to try to please our Heavenly Father, and to please His servants who are paving the way for us into the Kingdom of God? Can we get there without them? No; we cannot, and we need not try. God had appointed these prophets and apostles to lead and guide us into His Kingdom, and I do not expect to get there without them, and I am not going to try. If I can get there with them I shall be very thankful. How many blessings have you received in this kingdom without them? I do not know of any. If we have blessings we have received them through their counsel and guidance.
I am thankful that we, today, have the privilege of beholding the faces of our brethren who have borne the burden and heat of the day, and who are still ready and willing to administer for our benefit. I think that we, above all people, ought to be willing to retrace our steps in a great many things, that we may obtain the blessings that we are seeking and not be cut short. I tell you the kingdom is rolling; and as for the nations of the earth, we need not be troubled about them, the Lord and the devil will take care of them. They are wasting away, and they will go to their own place, and Israel will be gathered out, and the faithful will be saved in the Kingdom of God. This is my testimony. You need not have any doubts or fears from this time forth; if you are faithful and live your religion you are safe, and you will land safe in the Kingdom of God. I have no dubiety on my mind with regard to these things, and it is my study to know how to live so that I may enjoy the Holy Ghost—the Spirit of this gospel; and it cheers and comforts my heart when I hear the Elders talking about the good things of the Kingdom of God.
I have come nearly a hundred miles through the mud and snow to visit and hear the voices of my brethren and to listen to their counsels. Not but what we have some good folks where I live; at any rate, we have some good preachers among us occasionally. Only a few days ago we had brothers Musser and Stenhouse. They preached good things to us, and cheered and comforted our hearts. Some of the brethren remarked to me that “they preached splendidly, and really enjoyed the spirit of the gospel.” Said I, “Of course they did; they are from the fountain head—from the droppings of the sanctuary—and they possess the spirit of our President and Prophet and of the Apostles with whom they associate.” It is to be expected that men who come from the head here will have something new to tell to cheer the hearts of those who live isolated and far away. It proved to me, however, that we in Cache possess a little of the spirit enjoyed here, or we should not have received and been comforted by the teachings of our brethren. And we have come down to partake of the feeling and to share in the blessings of this great annual Conference, held by the Latter-day Saints in the tops of the mountains, in peace, and with none to molest or to make us afraid.
There is a little grumbling sometimes on the outside, a little showing me the teeth, but no biting, and no harm, done. The Saints are still living their religion—persevering, going ahead, striving to do the will of God, that they may eventually take the Kingdom; not the kingdoms of this world, for we do not want them. A great many men in the world are afraid that we are striving to take their kingdoms. We are not after the kingdoms of the world but it is the Kingdom of God—the Kingdom of life and peace—that the Latter-day Saints are after, and we expect to have it.
Short sermons are the order of the day, and I do not wish to occupy the time. I am thankful to my brethren for the opportunity of bearing testimony to the truth. I have all the preaching I can attend to when I am at home—which is, wherever I am called to labor. I feel free and easy in talking anywhere, where I am required so to do. I feel free in the spirit of the gospel and in the midst of my brethren. This is the place I like to visit, and I would spend all my time here if duty did not call me elsewhere. Here in the mountains is our field of labor, and nowhere else, unless we are sent. If we receive a mission to the various nations of the earth, let us go and do the best we can. Until then let us take a course to be one: one in dollars and cents, one in obtaining woollen factories and machinery, one in keeping the Word of Wisdom, and in everything else that will tend to bring about good results and increase good feelings in the minds of the Saints. Unless we keep the commands of God we cannot attain to this. It is no use for anybody to say—“I shall be happy if I can have everything to gratify my taste.” It is perfect nonsense, and the individual who entertains such a notion is deceiving himself. Nothing short of the bread of life, that comes down from God out of heaven, can supply the wants and satisfy the feelings of the Latter-day Saints and those who love truth.
May God bless us, brethren and sisters, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Singing, "O, Saints have you seen," &c.
Elder George Q. Cannon
followed on the power and influence which we have already gained, and the great labors we have accomplished, by our unity of faith and action, and our obedience to the priesthood; reasoning that an increase of unity and of obedience would add to our power, influence and ability to accomplish good as a people in a degree that is difficult to estimate. He quoted the promise which the Lord has made to those who will observe the Word of Wisdom, and exhorted the people to prove its verification.
followed on the power and influence which we have already gained, and the great labors we have accomplished, by our unity of faith and action, and our obedience to the priesthood; reasoning that an increase of unity and of obedience would add to our power, influence and ability to accomplish good as a people in a degree that is difficult to estimate. He quoted the promise which the Lord has made to those who will observe the Word of Wisdom, and exhorted the people to prove its verification.
Necessity of Union and Obedience to Counsel
Remarks by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
There have been a great many excellent remarks made to us since we assembled ourselves together to celebrate the anniversary of the organization of the Church, remarks which, if treasured up in our hearts and practiced in our lives, cannot fail to make us a much better people than we are today. It should be clear to the mind of every Latter-day Saint that there is an extreme necessity for us to be united. It is to our union alone, imperfect though it may have been, that we may attribute our success in the past, under the blessing of God. If we have any name or prestige in the earth, if there is anything attached to the name of Latter-day Saint or “Mormonism” that conveys the idea of power to the minds of the people, it has its origin in our union, obedience, concentration of effort, and our oneness of action, and the more this oneness increases the more marked and distinct we will be among the nations of the earth. What is it that has made us the people we are today? It is obedience to the counsels which God has revealed through His servants. If there is anything on the earth that will continue to add distinction and power to us, and elevate us and make us strong and mighty, it is an increase of this obedience which has already given us this distinction.
I have thought considerably since we have been together of the counsels which have been given to us, and of the action of the people in the past. There was a time when every Latter-day Saint who had the spirit of his religion felt as though he wished to devote himself and all that he had to the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God. This feeling doubtless predominates today, but it has been partially buried up and covered by other feelings—the love of gain, the desire to acquire property, and feelings akin to these. There was a law revealed to us—the law of consecration—through obedience to which every man expected to hold all that he possessed subject to the dictation of the servants of God. It is right that we should recollect this law, and continually seek to carry it out. We should feel that we are placed as stewards over the property God has placed in our hands, and that all we have is subject primarily to the counsels of God's servant, and that before we take any step of importance it is our duty to seek counsel from him who has the right to counsel. Imagine the power there would be in this Territory, and it would be felt throughout the nations of the earth, if this entire people, from Bear Lake Valley in the north to the settlements on the Muddy in the south, were thus united, holding themselves and all the wealth that God has so bountifully bestowed upon them, subject to the counsel that God has placed in His Church. What would be the effect of this?
If you will allow your minds to expand you may be able to contemplate to some small extent the great results that would follow such a concentration of action on the part of this people. Is it the will of God that it should be so? It is.
The Lord has placed a man at our head upon whom He has bestowed great wisdom. There has never been a time when he has lacked the wisdom necessary to guide all the affairs of the Kingdom of God. Joseph of old had wisdom given to him by which he was enabled to save Egypt. God has given to us a leader who has wisdom equal to any emergency, and if we will be obedient to his counsels we shall realize as great salvation as was wrought out by Joseph for those with whom he was associated. Herein we possess advantages not possessed by other people; we have revelation to guide us, we have the word of the Lord in our midst; we are not dependent upon man's wisdom, nor upon human plans, but we have the wisdom of eternity manifested through the servants of God to guide us. We have the opportunity of building up the Kingdom of God and of carrying out the designs of heaven according to His plan; and if we will do so we shall fulfil the word of the Lord given anciently, when speaking of and comparing his people with the people of the world. Said he, “My servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry; my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed; my servants shall sing with gladness of heart, but you shall sorrow with sadness of heart and howl with vexation of spirit. And ye shall leave your name as a curse to my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call His servants by another name.”
It seems as though the day had come when God will slay the wicked, and when He will call His people by another name. How will these words of the ancient prophets be fulfilled? By our listening to the counsel of him whom he has placed to preside over us, and being guided in wisdom in all things. When we do this we will be a mighty and a powerful people, and President Young will be what he ought to be today, the head of this people, the mouthpiece of God in our midst; and when his counsel is given it will be listened to by all Israel; no one will disobey from one end of the land to the other. How much good could be accomplished if this were the case! What mighty labors could be achieved if this people were in this condition today. What hinders it being so? Nothing but the disposition within us to be careless and indifferent to the principles taught us.
This condition of things will be brought about, and it might be more rapidly than it is if the people would be obedient and diligent in carrying out the counsels given to them. All within the sound of my voice, probably, have heard that Israel, in the days of Moses, were commanded to sprinkle their doorposts with the blood of a lamb, that they might escape destruction; now if we had been told that Israel were destroyed because they paid no regard to this instruction, who among us would not have said, How foolish Israel must have been to have suffered destruction rather than do such a simple thing as this! Yet what has God said to us in these days with regard to the Word of Wisdom? He has said that “all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, and walk in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health to their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And they shall run and not be weary, and walk and not faint. And I, the Lord, give them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them.” Here is a promise that the Lord has given to us on condition that we obey this requirement, or rather this counsel. It is wise counsel; we have proved its wisdom. What has disobedience to this counsel done for this people? It has made us in many respects, to a certain extent, subject to our enemies. How many called Latter-day Saints, through disobedience to the Word of Wisdom, have been led away to California and other places where they could obtain these things which they thought so necessary to their comfort, but which God had counseled them to forsake? A great many have been led away through this; and every time we disobey this counsel we bring ourselves more completely under bondage to our own appetites and to the enemies of the Kingdom of God.
As a people we should arise, and with one effort say we will follow the example, in this respect, of him who leads us. Does President Young drink tea, or coffee, or liquor, or chew tobacco? No; his life is exemplary, and we should copy after it. There is no man among us more exemplary in these things than he is; and it is a shame to us, as a people, if we do not follow his wise example. The Lord is bearing testimony to us through His Spirit, that we should carry these things into effect; and I trust that the people from one end of the Territory to the other, will manifest by their future course that they will observe the counsel that has been given at this Conference, and thus seek to be one with the President. There is no need to disguise the fact that he is anxious to have us subject to him in these matters. He is anxious that his power should be felt through the length and breadth of this Territory sufficiently to control and govern the people for good. Why? Because he knows that God has revealed principles by which they can be led back into His presence if they will only be obedient to His counsel.
Short sermons are the order, and I will not lengthen out my remarks. My prayer is, my brethren and sisters, that God will enable everyone of us to see these things aright, and to understand the obligations resting upon us; and that union may pervade the bosoms of the Saints from the lowest to the highest, from the least in the land to the Presidency of the Church, which may God grant for Christ's sake. Amen.
Remarks by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
There have been a great many excellent remarks made to us since we assembled ourselves together to celebrate the anniversary of the organization of the Church, remarks which, if treasured up in our hearts and practiced in our lives, cannot fail to make us a much better people than we are today. It should be clear to the mind of every Latter-day Saint that there is an extreme necessity for us to be united. It is to our union alone, imperfect though it may have been, that we may attribute our success in the past, under the blessing of God. If we have any name or prestige in the earth, if there is anything attached to the name of Latter-day Saint or “Mormonism” that conveys the idea of power to the minds of the people, it has its origin in our union, obedience, concentration of effort, and our oneness of action, and the more this oneness increases the more marked and distinct we will be among the nations of the earth. What is it that has made us the people we are today? It is obedience to the counsels which God has revealed through His servants. If there is anything on the earth that will continue to add distinction and power to us, and elevate us and make us strong and mighty, it is an increase of this obedience which has already given us this distinction.
I have thought considerably since we have been together of the counsels which have been given to us, and of the action of the people in the past. There was a time when every Latter-day Saint who had the spirit of his religion felt as though he wished to devote himself and all that he had to the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God. This feeling doubtless predominates today, but it has been partially buried up and covered by other feelings—the love of gain, the desire to acquire property, and feelings akin to these. There was a law revealed to us—the law of consecration—through obedience to which every man expected to hold all that he possessed subject to the dictation of the servants of God. It is right that we should recollect this law, and continually seek to carry it out. We should feel that we are placed as stewards over the property God has placed in our hands, and that all we have is subject primarily to the counsels of God's servant, and that before we take any step of importance it is our duty to seek counsel from him who has the right to counsel. Imagine the power there would be in this Territory, and it would be felt throughout the nations of the earth, if this entire people, from Bear Lake Valley in the north to the settlements on the Muddy in the south, were thus united, holding themselves and all the wealth that God has so bountifully bestowed upon them, subject to the counsel that God has placed in His Church. What would be the effect of this?
If you will allow your minds to expand you may be able to contemplate to some small extent the great results that would follow such a concentration of action on the part of this people. Is it the will of God that it should be so? It is.
The Lord has placed a man at our head upon whom He has bestowed great wisdom. There has never been a time when he has lacked the wisdom necessary to guide all the affairs of the Kingdom of God. Joseph of old had wisdom given to him by which he was enabled to save Egypt. God has given to us a leader who has wisdom equal to any emergency, and if we will be obedient to his counsels we shall realize as great salvation as was wrought out by Joseph for those with whom he was associated. Herein we possess advantages not possessed by other people; we have revelation to guide us, we have the word of the Lord in our midst; we are not dependent upon man's wisdom, nor upon human plans, but we have the wisdom of eternity manifested through the servants of God to guide us. We have the opportunity of building up the Kingdom of God and of carrying out the designs of heaven according to His plan; and if we will do so we shall fulfil the word of the Lord given anciently, when speaking of and comparing his people with the people of the world. Said he, “My servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry; my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed; my servants shall sing with gladness of heart, but you shall sorrow with sadness of heart and howl with vexation of spirit. And ye shall leave your name as a curse to my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call His servants by another name.”
It seems as though the day had come when God will slay the wicked, and when He will call His people by another name. How will these words of the ancient prophets be fulfilled? By our listening to the counsel of him whom he has placed to preside over us, and being guided in wisdom in all things. When we do this we will be a mighty and a powerful people, and President Young will be what he ought to be today, the head of this people, the mouthpiece of God in our midst; and when his counsel is given it will be listened to by all Israel; no one will disobey from one end of the land to the other. How much good could be accomplished if this were the case! What mighty labors could be achieved if this people were in this condition today. What hinders it being so? Nothing but the disposition within us to be careless and indifferent to the principles taught us.
This condition of things will be brought about, and it might be more rapidly than it is if the people would be obedient and diligent in carrying out the counsels given to them. All within the sound of my voice, probably, have heard that Israel, in the days of Moses, were commanded to sprinkle their doorposts with the blood of a lamb, that they might escape destruction; now if we had been told that Israel were destroyed because they paid no regard to this instruction, who among us would not have said, How foolish Israel must have been to have suffered destruction rather than do such a simple thing as this! Yet what has God said to us in these days with regard to the Word of Wisdom? He has said that “all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, and walk in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health to their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And they shall run and not be weary, and walk and not faint. And I, the Lord, give them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them.” Here is a promise that the Lord has given to us on condition that we obey this requirement, or rather this counsel. It is wise counsel; we have proved its wisdom. What has disobedience to this counsel done for this people? It has made us in many respects, to a certain extent, subject to our enemies. How many called Latter-day Saints, through disobedience to the Word of Wisdom, have been led away to California and other places where they could obtain these things which they thought so necessary to their comfort, but which God had counseled them to forsake? A great many have been led away through this; and every time we disobey this counsel we bring ourselves more completely under bondage to our own appetites and to the enemies of the Kingdom of God.
As a people we should arise, and with one effort say we will follow the example, in this respect, of him who leads us. Does President Young drink tea, or coffee, or liquor, or chew tobacco? No; his life is exemplary, and we should copy after it. There is no man among us more exemplary in these things than he is; and it is a shame to us, as a people, if we do not follow his wise example. The Lord is bearing testimony to us through His Spirit, that we should carry these things into effect; and I trust that the people from one end of the Territory to the other, will manifest by their future course that they will observe the counsel that has been given at this Conference, and thus seek to be one with the President. There is no need to disguise the fact that he is anxious to have us subject to him in these matters. He is anxious that his power should be felt through the length and breadth of this Territory sufficiently to control and govern the people for good. Why? Because he knows that God has revealed principles by which they can be led back into His presence if they will only be obedient to His counsel.
Short sermons are the order, and I will not lengthen out my remarks. My prayer is, my brethren and sisters, that God will enable everyone of us to see these things aright, and to understand the obligations resting upon us; and that union may pervade the bosoms of the Saints from the lowest to the highest, from the least in the land to the Presidency of the Church, which may God grant for Christ's sake. Amen.
President B. Young
said he wished to have influence with the Saints, so that he could prevail upon every one of them to work righteousness and sanctify the Lord God in their hearts, and do His will in all things. That is all that he desired influence for; and those who seek influence among mankind for other purposes use whatever they can obtain for evil and not for good. Every man and woman in the Church has a mission to do good, receive the principles of truth in their hearts, live according to them, and increase the power of righteousness upon the earth.
said he wished to have influence with the Saints, so that he could prevail upon every one of them to work righteousness and sanctify the Lord God in their hearts, and do His will in all things. That is all that he desired influence for; and those who seek influence among mankind for other purposes use whatever they can obtain for evil and not for good. Every man and woman in the Church has a mission to do good, receive the principles of truth in their hearts, live according to them, and increase the power of righteousness upon the earth.
Every Saint on a Mission
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I confess before the Latter-day Saints that like others who live in the religious and political world, or the world of history, or any other world you have a mind to name, I really want power and influence. I confess to the Latter-day Saints and to the world that I want power to prevail on all the inhabitants of the earth to embrace the gospel of the Son of God that they may be saved in the Kingdom of Heaven. I want influence in the midst of the Latter-day Saints, sufficient to get all men and women to sanctify themselves before the Lord and to sanctify the Lord God in their hearts, and that they may be of one heart and one mind in all things, that they may be the disciples of the Lord Jesus. This comprehends a great deal.
I will now take the liberty of telling you what I do not want. I do not want influence or power over any nation, people, family, or individual on the face of the earth to do them an injury or lead them astray, to promote strife or corruption in their hearts, or direct them in the way that leads to death. But I would like to have power with the people to induce them to accept those principles which would put them in possession of life, liberty, peace, joy, and all the blessings that can be enjoyed by the children of men, and that are promised in the gospel of life and salvation. I wish you ever to remember this when you think of yourselves, your brethren, or of any man that wants influence in the world. Always learn what an individual wants influence for. If he wants it for good, to promote peace and righteousness, never hinder his efforts, but promote them if you can. But when men try to gain influence for evil, to lead their fellow creatures in the way to death, exercise all the power you possess to abridge such influence; destroy it if you can. I calculate to take this course myself.
There are a few of the Latter-day Saints here today; only just a few, scarcely any from the country. You know we are estimated variously, some say 80,000, some 100,000, some 150,000; but, to tell you the secret, I do not want anybody to know our number. I do not want to number Israel yet. I am very frequently asked the question by political men, “How many do the Latter-day Saints number in the mountains?” My invariable reply is that we have enough to make a Territory. I wish the Latter-day Saints to increase and multiply. It has been said to me—“Why do you not call men to go on missions to preach the gospel in order to swell the ranks of the Saints?” I will tell you what my feelings are with regard to the Latter-day Saints increasing. One of these young men or girls around me here today, born and brought up in the Church, is worth, as a general thing, far more than those who come into the Church with all their traditions when we go preaching. I recollect the stand I took when I was in England or whenever I was out preaching. Whenever a man would transgress we would talk with and persuade him to forsake evil, and he would confess and say, “I will do so no more,” but by and by we would have occasion to call him up again, and I felt and said that “I would rather convert two men or women who never heard the gospel than attempt to make righteous men or women of those who know the way but will not walk in it.”
We wish the brethren to understand the facts just as they are; that is, there is neither man nor woman in this Church who is not on a mission. That mission will last as long as they live, and it is to do good, to promote righteousness, to teach the principles of truth, and to prevail upon themselves and everybody around them to live those principles that they may obtain eternal life. This is the mission of every Latter-day Saint. I talked to the sisters yesterday; I can talk to the brethren today on the same principle—there is not a man in this Church but what is capable of doing good if he has a mind to do so. Here are Elders who say, “I want a mission; I want to go and preach; I want to be ordained a Seventy, or a High Priest,” or something or other. I will tell you what you really need. You need eyes to see things as they are and to know your standing before God and the people. This is what the elders need. To go and preach, or to be ordained into the quorums of the Seventies, does not make good men of them, if they are not so before. The ordination of a man to the High Priest's quorum does not make him a good man. Let every elder, priest, teacher, and deacon set that example before his family, his brethren, and the world, that the nations of the earth will hear of the good works of the Latter-day Saints, that the honest in heart may be constrained to say—“We are going up to Zion to join this people, of whom we hear nothing but that they are honest, upright, industrious, frugal, and intelligent. Let us go up and join this people against whom so much has heretofore been said.”
Will you do this, priests, teachers, and deacons? Will you do this, Elders of Israel, Seventies, High Priests, and Apostles? Will you live so that the report may go out from this time from Utah Territory that the Latter-day Saints are perfect examples for the nations of the earth?
This will be the loudest preaching we can do. We have a good deal to say yet to this Conference, if we have the time, and the people attend. We will bring our meeting to a close now.
Choir sang "O my Father, &c."
Prayer by Elder E. T. Benson.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I confess before the Latter-day Saints that like others who live in the religious and political world, or the world of history, or any other world you have a mind to name, I really want power and influence. I confess to the Latter-day Saints and to the world that I want power to prevail on all the inhabitants of the earth to embrace the gospel of the Son of God that they may be saved in the Kingdom of Heaven. I want influence in the midst of the Latter-day Saints, sufficient to get all men and women to sanctify themselves before the Lord and to sanctify the Lord God in their hearts, and that they may be of one heart and one mind in all things, that they may be the disciples of the Lord Jesus. This comprehends a great deal.
I will now take the liberty of telling you what I do not want. I do not want influence or power over any nation, people, family, or individual on the face of the earth to do them an injury or lead them astray, to promote strife or corruption in their hearts, or direct them in the way that leads to death. But I would like to have power with the people to induce them to accept those principles which would put them in possession of life, liberty, peace, joy, and all the blessings that can be enjoyed by the children of men, and that are promised in the gospel of life and salvation. I wish you ever to remember this when you think of yourselves, your brethren, or of any man that wants influence in the world. Always learn what an individual wants influence for. If he wants it for good, to promote peace and righteousness, never hinder his efforts, but promote them if you can. But when men try to gain influence for evil, to lead their fellow creatures in the way to death, exercise all the power you possess to abridge such influence; destroy it if you can. I calculate to take this course myself.
There are a few of the Latter-day Saints here today; only just a few, scarcely any from the country. You know we are estimated variously, some say 80,000, some 100,000, some 150,000; but, to tell you the secret, I do not want anybody to know our number. I do not want to number Israel yet. I am very frequently asked the question by political men, “How many do the Latter-day Saints number in the mountains?” My invariable reply is that we have enough to make a Territory. I wish the Latter-day Saints to increase and multiply. It has been said to me—“Why do you not call men to go on missions to preach the gospel in order to swell the ranks of the Saints?” I will tell you what my feelings are with regard to the Latter-day Saints increasing. One of these young men or girls around me here today, born and brought up in the Church, is worth, as a general thing, far more than those who come into the Church with all their traditions when we go preaching. I recollect the stand I took when I was in England or whenever I was out preaching. Whenever a man would transgress we would talk with and persuade him to forsake evil, and he would confess and say, “I will do so no more,” but by and by we would have occasion to call him up again, and I felt and said that “I would rather convert two men or women who never heard the gospel than attempt to make righteous men or women of those who know the way but will not walk in it.”
We wish the brethren to understand the facts just as they are; that is, there is neither man nor woman in this Church who is not on a mission. That mission will last as long as they live, and it is to do good, to promote righteousness, to teach the principles of truth, and to prevail upon themselves and everybody around them to live those principles that they may obtain eternal life. This is the mission of every Latter-day Saint. I talked to the sisters yesterday; I can talk to the brethren today on the same principle—there is not a man in this Church but what is capable of doing good if he has a mind to do so. Here are Elders who say, “I want a mission; I want to go and preach; I want to be ordained a Seventy, or a High Priest,” or something or other. I will tell you what you really need. You need eyes to see things as they are and to know your standing before God and the people. This is what the elders need. To go and preach, or to be ordained into the quorums of the Seventies, does not make good men of them, if they are not so before. The ordination of a man to the High Priest's quorum does not make him a good man. Let every elder, priest, teacher, and deacon set that example before his family, his brethren, and the world, that the nations of the earth will hear of the good works of the Latter-day Saints, that the honest in heart may be constrained to say—“We are going up to Zion to join this people, of whom we hear nothing but that they are honest, upright, industrious, frugal, and intelligent. Let us go up and join this people against whom so much has heretofore been said.”
Will you do this, priests, teachers, and deacons? Will you do this, Elders of Israel, Seventies, High Priests, and Apostles? Will you live so that the report may go out from this time from Utah Territory that the Latter-day Saints are perfect examples for the nations of the earth?
This will be the loudest preaching we can do. We have a good deal to say yet to this Conference, if we have the time, and the people attend. We will bring our meeting to a close now.
Choir sang "O my Father, &c."
Prayer by Elder E. T. Benson.
Monday, April 8th, 10 a.m.
Conference again assembled in the Bowery.
Choir sang "Come ye that love the Lord, &c."
Bishop E. D. Woolley offered up prayer; after which "Glorious things of thee are spoken, &c.," was sung by the choir.
Conference again assembled in the Bowery.
Choir sang "Come ye that love the Lord, &c."
Bishop E. D. Woolley offered up prayer; after which "Glorious things of thee are spoken, &c.," was sung by the choir.
President H. C. Kimball
spoke on several points of doctrine, and advocated a course of living consistent with the laws of nature—temperate in eating and drinking and avoiding the use of everything injurious to the human system—which would be attended by increased health, longer life, and more vigorous and active faculties and abilities. He urged the importance of pushing forward the building of the Temple.
spoke on several points of doctrine, and advocated a course of living consistent with the laws of nature—temperate in eating and drinking and avoiding the use of everything injurious to the human system—which would be attended by increased health, longer life, and more vigorous and active faculties and abilities. He urged the importance of pushing forward the building of the Temple.
President B. Young
said he wished to see the Temple raised, and built strong enough to stand during the Millennium. We have to work unitedly and with full purpose of heart; and he wished this Temple to stand as a monument of the energy and faith of the people in their early labors. He extended the privilege to those who would accept it, that they might furnish teams for the purpose of hauling rock to be used in its construction. The completion of the canal will enable the rock to be brought much easier than it now can be; and if those who are to derive benefit by its waters, will pay the tax imposed for that purpose, but a short time will elapse before it will be ready for opening.
Our duty is to help sustain the kingdom of God, and to cease following after the world or going to them for purposes of trade; our only trust is in God, and while we keep His commandments He will protect and sustain us.
He called for men to work on the new Tabernacle, that it might be completed this summer.
The doctrine of atonement was touched upon in words plain and pointed, showing that the Lord Jesus died for all, but faith and repentance must precede enjoying the efficacy of His blood.
said he wished to see the Temple raised, and built strong enough to stand during the Millennium. We have to work unitedly and with full purpose of heart; and he wished this Temple to stand as a monument of the energy and faith of the people in their early labors. He extended the privilege to those who would accept it, that they might furnish teams for the purpose of hauling rock to be used in its construction. The completion of the canal will enable the rock to be brought much easier than it now can be; and if those who are to derive benefit by its waters, will pay the tax imposed for that purpose, but a short time will elapse before it will be ready for opening.
Our duty is to help sustain the kingdom of God, and to cease following after the world or going to them for purposes of trade; our only trust is in God, and while we keep His commandments He will protect and sustain us.
He called for men to work on the new Tabernacle, that it might be completed this summer.
The doctrine of atonement was touched upon in words plain and pointed, showing that the Lord Jesus died for all, but faith and repentance must precede enjoying the efficacy of His blood.
Building the Temple—Mormonism Embraces All Truth
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 8, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I want your attention. I do not know how long it will be prudent to continue our meeting, but we would like to say a great deal more to the people. I will talk to you a little with regard to building the Temple. When br. Heber asks you to come and join us in drawing rock, you turn round and say, “I have paid my tithing; what more do you want? Do you want any donations or extra help? What do you do with the tithing?” This is in the minds of the people, and it is something that I think about, too, but I confess to you that, although I am Trustee-in-Trust and have the management of all this, I know but little about what is done with the tithing. Br. Hunter is Bishop, and whether he could give you a knowledge of what goes with the tithing I do not know. The brethren turn in their grain and their stock, and it is gathered up, but that does not bring the rock here to build the Temple. Br. Kimball and some others have assisted in bringing some rock here, and a few have been drawn with my teams. Now, the rock does not come as we want it. We have commenced a Temple that I want to see stand a thousand years when the earth rests. We do not calculate that that building will fall down. You know I was so distrustful about the foundation, there were so many things about it I did not like, that we took it up and had to commence it again. We have got started now, and I think it is safe.
When the Temple is built I want it to stand through the millennium, in connection with many others that will yet be built, that the Elders may go in and labor for their dead who have died without the gospel, back to the days of Adam. But to see this Temple built and then pass into the hands of the wicked, I would rather that the walls should never rise another foot. I shall not tell you, today, all that I think about building temples and giving endowments.
We have decided that this Temple shall be built of this beautiful granite rock, which, I think, will please everyone. We are preparing a canal to bring the rock to this city, still we shall have five or six miles to draw the rock to the canal, but the most of the distance where our bad roads are we shall float this rock on little boats that we shall have on this canal. We want all the brethren to pay their tithing or tax for the privilege of watering their lands from this ditch or canal according to the charter and organization of the company who are performing this labor. If the brethren will do this we can have the ditch finished up and in operation in a month or two.
A great many want this Temple done that they may go in there and get their endowments. I want to say to the Latter-day Saints, one and all, that we have all the privileges and blessings conferred upon us that we live for. The Latter-day Saints are not prepared to receive the celestial kingdom at once, because they have not eyes to see and ears to hear; and they do not understand the mind and will of the Lord on these subjects. If we did we would see at once that our blessings are greater than our labors merit, and we would not find fault nor be in a hurry, but we would move steadily along. As I told you the other day when talking of the sayings of Joseph, “the Latter-day Saints want to pull together—a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether.” These were the words of Joseph. We want to labor unitedly that our labors may be successful. I want this Temple that we are now building to the name of our God, to stand for all time to come as a monument of the industry, faithfulness, faith, and integrity of the Latter-day Saints who were driven into the mountains. I want to see the Temple finished as soon as it is reasonable and practicable. Whether we go in there to work or not makes no difference; I am perfectly willing to finish it to the last leaf of gold that shall be laid upon it, and to the last lock that should be put on the doors, and then lock every door, and there let it stand until the earth can rest before the Saints commence their labors there. They receive more in the House of the Lord now than is their due. Our brethren and sisters, baptized three, four, or six months ago, go and get their endowments, the sealing blessings for all eternity, the highest that can be conferred upon them, yet how lightly they are treated! Many do not consider, they do not realize these things. They have not the spirit of revelation, they do not live for it, hence they do not see these things in their proper light, and we are not in such a hurry as many think we ought to be.
Well, will we go to work and build this Temple? The brethren around say we will pay our tithing, and we will pay it willingly, and you may do what you please with it. Sometimes I have thought that our tithing is so great that it requires more looking after than it is worth. See a dozen men in the Tithing Office, and a dozen or fifteen in another place taking care of tithing; but how it is used I do not know.
One thing I do know, that when our tithing is paid in the north and in the south it costs almost as much to get it here as it is worth. What is paid here is clear profit, and is useful and beneficial for us to work upon. If the brethren pay their tithing, and pay it willingly, we are satisfied; that is all that is required of them. If my brethren who live near here, whom the Lord is blessing, have a mind to put in some teams extra for drawing rock, I give them the privilege.
There are some things with regard to the general business of the Church that is hardly worth while for me to mention. I could name a few things; but I do not know that it would be any benefit. I do not know that doing so would relieve my feelings in the least. If it would be any satisfaction to my brethren, and would enlighten them at all, they are welcome to a few items. I will ask the Elders of Israel who it is that finds the money to defray all these expenses? I will ask them how much money they pay in on their tithing? “Why,” say they, “we let you have our wheat and cattle, and they are just as good as money.” Ask yourselves if you ever knew a bushel of wheat, a hundred pounds of flour, or a horse, an ox, a cow, a mule, a sheep, a load of potatoes, a load of onions, or anything else that comes in on tithing to be sold for money? Go and see if there ever was five dollars worth of this property sold for money. What did our emigration cost last season? We will make a rough guess (which will probably be below the mark by many thousand dollars), and say forty thousand dollars. Do the brethren living in the counties around or anywhere else pay any money in towards this? Where do you think it comes from? It is paid, there is no doubt of that, and the poor are brought here; and there are over nine hundred thousand dollars owing to the Perpetual Emigration Fund for helping the poor here.
Does this enlighten your mind any? “Why, no,” say some, “unless we know where the money comes from.” It would puzzle our astrologers to tell you; still, you can ask them if you wish; they can be just as sensible about that as anything else. Who pays this money? Who is it that buys every dollar's worth of goods that is brought here to pay to these hands who work on the public works? Is there a man at work there but who gets a portion of money and store pay? And with the exception of what the merchants here pay in on tithing, is there a dollar's worth of store pay to be got without paying the money for it? Is there a light of glass, a pound of nails, a pound of rope, or anything else brought here from the east that the money is not paid for? No, not one pound. Now, then, you astrologers, sit down and make your figures and see if you can tell where the money comes from; or you scholars and learned men enlighten the minds of the people on these matters if you can. I will tell you what you can do—you can be economical, prudent, and saving, and help a great deal more than you now do. If we will go to work and finish this canal we can bring the rock here for the Temple. I have asked my brethren, and I will ask again, will not you who have sawmills bring on some lumber so that we can go on with this tabernacle? Will you not help a little in this telegraphic operation? We want lumber for this, that, and the other—will you not bring on some? “Yes,” say they, “if you will pay us money for it.”
With regard to paying tithing, I will say that is becoming easier and more congenial to the minds of the people every year, and they pay it with a glad heart. This is a blessing to them. Let me say to you, just what the Lord requires of you, if you would only do it. He requires at our hands, each and every one of us, to begin and sustain the Kingdom of God, and to withdraw from the world and the business of the world. If our neighbors want our flour, let them come here to buy it, pay a good fair price for it, and take it away, but never carry it to them—never, never, no, never! If we want goods, hats, boots, shoes, bonnets, coats, and so forth, we should send Latter-day Saints, Elders of Israel, with our money to markets where they have them for sale, and purchase them and bring them here; and we should buy of our brethren, and sustain the Kingdom of God. I say this is the mind and the will of God concerning this people, if they will hearken to it. Purchase no more of your enemies. I read a revelation here on this subject a few weeks since, given in Jackson County, Missouri, commanding br. Gilbert to go and purchase goods and sell them to the Saints without fraud. I will take the liberty of saying that I consider some of our own merchants do not come up to the requirements of this revelation, for they would sell to the Latter-day Saints a piece of goods worth fifty cents for a thousand dollars if they could get it, without any regard to truth, righteousness, or justice, or the building up of anybody on God's earth but themselves. This is the case with some of our own merchants, while there are others who deal fairer. There are some amongst us who would not speculate, had they all the opportunity in the world, as much as some who are called Latter-day Saints. All this is true, but we cannot begin to point out and individualize; that will not do here. But it is the will of the Lord that you and I live within ourselves.
Do you recollect that I made mention of our government yesterday? We have sued to them many times for our rights. We have asked for bread, and they have given us a stone; we have asked for a fish, and they have given us a serpent; we have asked for an egg, and they have given us a scorpion; so we have got to live within ourselves and trust in God. We will pay our taxes and we will pay our tithing. But there are some among us who, probably, would like to meddle with our tithing. I wonder if they would like to meddle with the tithing that is paid to build churches in the east, and with the donations made for that purpose? I wonder if they would not like to legislate upon them, and see who has been paying donations to build this church or that schoolhouse or academy. I wonder if they would not like to legislate as they do about schools for the freedmen. I suppose it will not be long before they will want to dictate in some other places, and say how much shall be raised for schools and so forth; and I suppose it will be but a little while before some of those officious characters will determine the number of beans that brother Kimball and I shall have in our porridge, and whether they shall be white or black. I think, if some of them had their way, they would have them all black.
I have told you some few things with regard to the Temple. We want the tabernacle finished, and when a man is asked to go and work on it, do not begin to make a wry face, and say, “I have got so much work to do.” When you carpenters are asked to go and help to finish it, so that we can hold our October Conference in it, do not begin to say, “I have so many jobs on hand, and so much work to do, and this engagement and that engagement,” wherever they will pay you sixpence a day more; and “I will work for the devil as quick as for the Lord Jesus Christ.” Do not say that any more. The mechanics, by their conduct, have said hitherto, “We will build up hell just as quick as we will heaven, if we can get sixpence a day more for doing it.” Do you want to know the true policy of building up Zion, and what is required of us as a people? I can give it to you. It is to build up the Kingdom of God on the earth, to build temples and tabernacles, to preach the gospel, to sustain the families of the Elders abroad, and to sustain the Priesthood at home and abroad, whether we get a dollar a day or nothing, it is all the same. Work whether we get our pay or not, or whether we have money offered to us or not. You and I will find in the end that there is not a man on the earth who can give the increase to our labor; but it is the Lord who gives it. No matter whether you make fifty cents or fifty dollars a day, the Lord gives the increase; and whatever He pleases to give He will give, and whatever He pleases to withhold He will withhold. I say to you again and again that the blessings of this people are more than they merit by their lives; but if we live every day of our lives so as to possess the Spirit of the Lord, and are dictated in all our business transactions and in every move we make by the spirit of revelation, we should merit, and justly and righteously obtain greater blessings than we now possess.
Now, my brethren, you who have sinned, repent of your sins. I can say to you in regard to Jesus and the atonement (it is so written, and I firmly believe it), that Christ has died for all. He has paid the full debt, whether you receive the gift or not. But if we continue to sin, to lie, steal, bear false witness, we must repent of and forsake that sin to have the full efficacy of the blood of Christ. Without this it will be of no effect; repentance must come, in order that the atonement may prove a benefit to us. Let all who are doing wrong cease doing wrong; live no longer in transgression, no matter of what kind; but live every day of your lives according to the revelations given, and so that your examples may be worthy of imitation. Let us remember that we never get beyond the purview of our religion—never, never! “Mormonism,” so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity. No matter who has it. If the infidel has got truth it belongs to “Mormonism.” The truth and sound doctrine possessed by the sectarian world, and they have a great deal, all belong to this church. As for their morality many of them are morally just as good as we are. All that is good, lovely, and praiseworthy belongs to this church and kingdom. Death, hell, and the grave only are outside of “Mormonism.” “Mormonism” includes all truth. There is no truth but what belongs to the gospel. It is life, eternal life; it is bliss; it is the fullness of all things in the gods and in the eternities of the gods. What is the difference, then, what we are called to do? Let us do it with a cheerful heart and a willing mind, that we may receive the blessing which the Lord has for the faithful.
May God bless you. Amen.
Anthem by the Choir.
Prayer by Elder John Van Cott.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 8, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I want your attention. I do not know how long it will be prudent to continue our meeting, but we would like to say a great deal more to the people. I will talk to you a little with regard to building the Temple. When br. Heber asks you to come and join us in drawing rock, you turn round and say, “I have paid my tithing; what more do you want? Do you want any donations or extra help? What do you do with the tithing?” This is in the minds of the people, and it is something that I think about, too, but I confess to you that, although I am Trustee-in-Trust and have the management of all this, I know but little about what is done with the tithing. Br. Hunter is Bishop, and whether he could give you a knowledge of what goes with the tithing I do not know. The brethren turn in their grain and their stock, and it is gathered up, but that does not bring the rock here to build the Temple. Br. Kimball and some others have assisted in bringing some rock here, and a few have been drawn with my teams. Now, the rock does not come as we want it. We have commenced a Temple that I want to see stand a thousand years when the earth rests. We do not calculate that that building will fall down. You know I was so distrustful about the foundation, there were so many things about it I did not like, that we took it up and had to commence it again. We have got started now, and I think it is safe.
When the Temple is built I want it to stand through the millennium, in connection with many others that will yet be built, that the Elders may go in and labor for their dead who have died without the gospel, back to the days of Adam. But to see this Temple built and then pass into the hands of the wicked, I would rather that the walls should never rise another foot. I shall not tell you, today, all that I think about building temples and giving endowments.
We have decided that this Temple shall be built of this beautiful granite rock, which, I think, will please everyone. We are preparing a canal to bring the rock to this city, still we shall have five or six miles to draw the rock to the canal, but the most of the distance where our bad roads are we shall float this rock on little boats that we shall have on this canal. We want all the brethren to pay their tithing or tax for the privilege of watering their lands from this ditch or canal according to the charter and organization of the company who are performing this labor. If the brethren will do this we can have the ditch finished up and in operation in a month or two.
A great many want this Temple done that they may go in there and get their endowments. I want to say to the Latter-day Saints, one and all, that we have all the privileges and blessings conferred upon us that we live for. The Latter-day Saints are not prepared to receive the celestial kingdom at once, because they have not eyes to see and ears to hear; and they do not understand the mind and will of the Lord on these subjects. If we did we would see at once that our blessings are greater than our labors merit, and we would not find fault nor be in a hurry, but we would move steadily along. As I told you the other day when talking of the sayings of Joseph, “the Latter-day Saints want to pull together—a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether.” These were the words of Joseph. We want to labor unitedly that our labors may be successful. I want this Temple that we are now building to the name of our God, to stand for all time to come as a monument of the industry, faithfulness, faith, and integrity of the Latter-day Saints who were driven into the mountains. I want to see the Temple finished as soon as it is reasonable and practicable. Whether we go in there to work or not makes no difference; I am perfectly willing to finish it to the last leaf of gold that shall be laid upon it, and to the last lock that should be put on the doors, and then lock every door, and there let it stand until the earth can rest before the Saints commence their labors there. They receive more in the House of the Lord now than is their due. Our brethren and sisters, baptized three, four, or six months ago, go and get their endowments, the sealing blessings for all eternity, the highest that can be conferred upon them, yet how lightly they are treated! Many do not consider, they do not realize these things. They have not the spirit of revelation, they do not live for it, hence they do not see these things in their proper light, and we are not in such a hurry as many think we ought to be.
Well, will we go to work and build this Temple? The brethren around say we will pay our tithing, and we will pay it willingly, and you may do what you please with it. Sometimes I have thought that our tithing is so great that it requires more looking after than it is worth. See a dozen men in the Tithing Office, and a dozen or fifteen in another place taking care of tithing; but how it is used I do not know.
One thing I do know, that when our tithing is paid in the north and in the south it costs almost as much to get it here as it is worth. What is paid here is clear profit, and is useful and beneficial for us to work upon. If the brethren pay their tithing, and pay it willingly, we are satisfied; that is all that is required of them. If my brethren who live near here, whom the Lord is blessing, have a mind to put in some teams extra for drawing rock, I give them the privilege.
There are some things with regard to the general business of the Church that is hardly worth while for me to mention. I could name a few things; but I do not know that it would be any benefit. I do not know that doing so would relieve my feelings in the least. If it would be any satisfaction to my brethren, and would enlighten them at all, they are welcome to a few items. I will ask the Elders of Israel who it is that finds the money to defray all these expenses? I will ask them how much money they pay in on their tithing? “Why,” say they, “we let you have our wheat and cattle, and they are just as good as money.” Ask yourselves if you ever knew a bushel of wheat, a hundred pounds of flour, or a horse, an ox, a cow, a mule, a sheep, a load of potatoes, a load of onions, or anything else that comes in on tithing to be sold for money? Go and see if there ever was five dollars worth of this property sold for money. What did our emigration cost last season? We will make a rough guess (which will probably be below the mark by many thousand dollars), and say forty thousand dollars. Do the brethren living in the counties around or anywhere else pay any money in towards this? Where do you think it comes from? It is paid, there is no doubt of that, and the poor are brought here; and there are over nine hundred thousand dollars owing to the Perpetual Emigration Fund for helping the poor here.
Does this enlighten your mind any? “Why, no,” say some, “unless we know where the money comes from.” It would puzzle our astrologers to tell you; still, you can ask them if you wish; they can be just as sensible about that as anything else. Who pays this money? Who is it that buys every dollar's worth of goods that is brought here to pay to these hands who work on the public works? Is there a man at work there but who gets a portion of money and store pay? And with the exception of what the merchants here pay in on tithing, is there a dollar's worth of store pay to be got without paying the money for it? Is there a light of glass, a pound of nails, a pound of rope, or anything else brought here from the east that the money is not paid for? No, not one pound. Now, then, you astrologers, sit down and make your figures and see if you can tell where the money comes from; or you scholars and learned men enlighten the minds of the people on these matters if you can. I will tell you what you can do—you can be economical, prudent, and saving, and help a great deal more than you now do. If we will go to work and finish this canal we can bring the rock here for the Temple. I have asked my brethren, and I will ask again, will not you who have sawmills bring on some lumber so that we can go on with this tabernacle? Will you not help a little in this telegraphic operation? We want lumber for this, that, and the other—will you not bring on some? “Yes,” say they, “if you will pay us money for it.”
With regard to paying tithing, I will say that is becoming easier and more congenial to the minds of the people every year, and they pay it with a glad heart. This is a blessing to them. Let me say to you, just what the Lord requires of you, if you would only do it. He requires at our hands, each and every one of us, to begin and sustain the Kingdom of God, and to withdraw from the world and the business of the world. If our neighbors want our flour, let them come here to buy it, pay a good fair price for it, and take it away, but never carry it to them—never, never, no, never! If we want goods, hats, boots, shoes, bonnets, coats, and so forth, we should send Latter-day Saints, Elders of Israel, with our money to markets where they have them for sale, and purchase them and bring them here; and we should buy of our brethren, and sustain the Kingdom of God. I say this is the mind and the will of God concerning this people, if they will hearken to it. Purchase no more of your enemies. I read a revelation here on this subject a few weeks since, given in Jackson County, Missouri, commanding br. Gilbert to go and purchase goods and sell them to the Saints without fraud. I will take the liberty of saying that I consider some of our own merchants do not come up to the requirements of this revelation, for they would sell to the Latter-day Saints a piece of goods worth fifty cents for a thousand dollars if they could get it, without any regard to truth, righteousness, or justice, or the building up of anybody on God's earth but themselves. This is the case with some of our own merchants, while there are others who deal fairer. There are some amongst us who would not speculate, had they all the opportunity in the world, as much as some who are called Latter-day Saints. All this is true, but we cannot begin to point out and individualize; that will not do here. But it is the will of the Lord that you and I live within ourselves.
Do you recollect that I made mention of our government yesterday? We have sued to them many times for our rights. We have asked for bread, and they have given us a stone; we have asked for a fish, and they have given us a serpent; we have asked for an egg, and they have given us a scorpion; so we have got to live within ourselves and trust in God. We will pay our taxes and we will pay our tithing. But there are some among us who, probably, would like to meddle with our tithing. I wonder if they would like to meddle with the tithing that is paid to build churches in the east, and with the donations made for that purpose? I wonder if they would not like to legislate upon them, and see who has been paying donations to build this church or that schoolhouse or academy. I wonder if they would not like to legislate as they do about schools for the freedmen. I suppose it will not be long before they will want to dictate in some other places, and say how much shall be raised for schools and so forth; and I suppose it will be but a little while before some of those officious characters will determine the number of beans that brother Kimball and I shall have in our porridge, and whether they shall be white or black. I think, if some of them had their way, they would have them all black.
I have told you some few things with regard to the Temple. We want the tabernacle finished, and when a man is asked to go and work on it, do not begin to make a wry face, and say, “I have got so much work to do.” When you carpenters are asked to go and help to finish it, so that we can hold our October Conference in it, do not begin to say, “I have so many jobs on hand, and so much work to do, and this engagement and that engagement,” wherever they will pay you sixpence a day more; and “I will work for the devil as quick as for the Lord Jesus Christ.” Do not say that any more. The mechanics, by their conduct, have said hitherto, “We will build up hell just as quick as we will heaven, if we can get sixpence a day more for doing it.” Do you want to know the true policy of building up Zion, and what is required of us as a people? I can give it to you. It is to build up the Kingdom of God on the earth, to build temples and tabernacles, to preach the gospel, to sustain the families of the Elders abroad, and to sustain the Priesthood at home and abroad, whether we get a dollar a day or nothing, it is all the same. Work whether we get our pay or not, or whether we have money offered to us or not. You and I will find in the end that there is not a man on the earth who can give the increase to our labor; but it is the Lord who gives it. No matter whether you make fifty cents or fifty dollars a day, the Lord gives the increase; and whatever He pleases to give He will give, and whatever He pleases to withhold He will withhold. I say to you again and again that the blessings of this people are more than they merit by their lives; but if we live every day of our lives so as to possess the Spirit of the Lord, and are dictated in all our business transactions and in every move we make by the spirit of revelation, we should merit, and justly and righteously obtain greater blessings than we now possess.
Now, my brethren, you who have sinned, repent of your sins. I can say to you in regard to Jesus and the atonement (it is so written, and I firmly believe it), that Christ has died for all. He has paid the full debt, whether you receive the gift or not. But if we continue to sin, to lie, steal, bear false witness, we must repent of and forsake that sin to have the full efficacy of the blood of Christ. Without this it will be of no effect; repentance must come, in order that the atonement may prove a benefit to us. Let all who are doing wrong cease doing wrong; live no longer in transgression, no matter of what kind; but live every day of your lives according to the revelations given, and so that your examples may be worthy of imitation. Let us remember that we never get beyond the purview of our religion—never, never! “Mormonism,” so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity. No matter who has it. If the infidel has got truth it belongs to “Mormonism.” The truth and sound doctrine possessed by the sectarian world, and they have a great deal, all belong to this church. As for their morality many of them are morally just as good as we are. All that is good, lovely, and praiseworthy belongs to this church and kingdom. Death, hell, and the grave only are outside of “Mormonism.” “Mormonism” includes all truth. There is no truth but what belongs to the gospel. It is life, eternal life; it is bliss; it is the fullness of all things in the gods and in the eternities of the gods. What is the difference, then, what we are called to do? Let us do it with a cheerful heart and a willing mind, that we may receive the blessing which the Lord has for the faithful.
May God bless you. Amen.
Anthem by the Choir.
Prayer by Elder John Van Cott.
2 p.m.
Singing, "I'll praise my Maker while I've breath."
Elder J. D. T. McAllister prayed.
Anthem by the Choir.
Singing, "I'll praise my Maker while I've breath."
Elder J. D. T. McAllister prayed.
Anthem by the Choir.
Elder C. C. Rich
reasoned on the nature of the heaven which we hope to enjoy, and the work we have to do in making that heaven, by adopting and practicing in our lives the principles of righteousness. We can thus gain power with God, and knowledge to gather around us everything that is worth knowing, possessing or enjoying. He was pleased to see the desire manifested among the congregation, to obey the instructions given at this Conference. An increase of unity, and power to accomplish the purposes of God will be the result of their so doing.
reasoned on the nature of the heaven which we hope to enjoy, and the work we have to do in making that heaven, by adopting and practicing in our lives the principles of righteousness. We can thus gain power with God, and knowledge to gather around us everything that is worth knowing, possessing or enjoying. He was pleased to see the desire manifested among the congregation, to obey the instructions given at this Conference. An increase of unity, and power to accomplish the purposes of God will be the result of their so doing.
Labor To Build Up The Kingdom
Remarks by Elder Charles C. Rich, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 8th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I am glad to enjoy the opportunity of meeting with the brethren and sisters at this Conference. I am also glad that we have heard the instructions which have been imparted to us. The principle of the Saints being united is one that we have labored to establish from the commencement up to the present time. Every Saint who has any knowledge of the gospel as it has been revealed to us in these last days, knows that this principle has been impressed on their minds from the time they first heard the gospel. Still, with all our labors and exertions in the past, we have not yet reached this point, and we must continue our labors for the accomplishment of this object.
When we are united in all things, the Lord will be able to use us in very deed for the building up of His Kingdom; until then, He can use us only as we are willing to be used. We say we are the people of God, and that we are laboring to build up His Kingdom, but when we come to think of it, we only do that which we can persuade ourselves to do.
We should be willing to do everything that the Lord requires us to do, and even if we are, there is still great need for us to improve and progress. This has been incumbent upon us from the time we embraced the gospel, but more especially at this Conference, and when we make up our minds individually and collectively to do all things that the Lord requires of us, it will be a comparatively easy matter for us to do so. We do not expect to learn everything at this Conference, but we can make ourselves willing to learn righteous principles, and we can, if we choose, adopt them as fast as we learn them.
We are placed under circumstances where we can apply our labors for the accomplishment of the designs of the Almighty here on the earth, and we ought to esteem this as a very great privilege.
There are a great many notions and opinions with regard to the work of God and the building up of His Kingdom on the earth. We have received the everlasting gospel from the heavens. It found us in the various nations of the earth, and it has gathered us to this place for the purpose of establishing the principles of righteousness and of building up the Kingdom of God on the earth. As we have heard this afternoon, and on many other occasions, the gospel we have obeyed embraces all truth on earth and in heaven. We have not to emigrate to some other world to find truth. We find it where we are; it is taught to us faster than we are willing to receive and practice it; and I can bear testimony that it has ever been so. We have never had to wait to know what was the right course for us to pursue. “Labor for the building of the Kingdom of God,” has been the counsel given to us continually, and when we have been called upon to perform any labor, no matter in what direction, it has been with that object in view.
I have been reflecting a little in relation to the state of society which would soon be in existence if the counsel given from this stand this Conference were to be observed. We would soon find a great deal more peace, love, and oneness among the Saints than have existed in times past; and, if we ever expect to be one, we, as a people, must adopt in our lives those principles that have been and are continually taught us by the servants of the Lord. If we ever expect to have heaven, we must adopt those principles that will make heaven for us. We have had the gospel revealed to us from the heavens, for the purpose of bringing about that state of things here that exists in heaven. And it will most assuredly result in this if we will faithfully observe its principles. A faithful adherence to the principles of the gospel will cure all the evils we now endure. Where difficulties exist with individuals or communities, we would find, if they were traced to their source, that they exist simply because the principles of the gospel have not been adopted and applied.
It is this labor that lies before us to learn the principles of the gospel of salvation, and to apply them in our lives. This will remove the evils we have to encounter, and will bring about union and happiness; and, no matter where our lot may be cast, will make for us a heaven upon earth. This is a joyous labor, and one in which all should unite with an unwavering determination. By so doing we will sustain those who preside over us, and our efforts will most effectually tend to build up the Kingdom of God on the earth.
How can this Kingdom be built up unless God dictates? And how can we labor to serve Him unless He dictates us? And how will He do this? He will do it, as He ever has done, by and through His servants whom He has placed at our head. In this way we can be united in building up God's Kingdom and in moving forward His work on the earth. This is a very great privilege, the possession of which confers upon us great honor and blessings. When the whole people are united in, and live continually according to, the principles of the gospel in all things, evils and difficulties will vanish from their midst like snow before the rays of the sun, and soon the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the deep.
We have yet much to learn, but I often think that we can do more for the spread of truth and the work we are engaged in than we imagine. We can read of individuals among the ancients who performed wonders on the principle of faith. They subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, and performed many wonderful works. Can we not do something on the principle of faith? Can we not have power with God as well as the ancients, if we labor continually to carry out His designs? I am satisfied that if we all go home and carry out the principles which have been taught to us during this Conference we shall soon see happy results flowing therefrom. There is a responsibility resting upon us all to do so, and we should discharge that responsibility honorably before God and each other. By following the counsel given us during this Conference, our union, peace, and best interests will be greatly advanced and forwarded.
Severe indisposition prevented me from being present at last fall Conference, but I am thankful that I am present now. I always rejoice to be at Conference, or at any meeting with the Saints. I love to see and talk to them, and I love to hear others talk, and I love to use my influence to move forward and build up the cause of Zion, and to establish righteousness on the earth. We all ought to cultivate this kind of feeling and principle. We never need be afraid if we are doing right, but fear only to do wrong. Individuals are apt to think sometimes that if they do a wrong no person in the world knows it but themselves, but it is known also to God, and if a wrong is known to God and to the one who commits it, his influence with God is destroyed, and it lowers him in his own estimation. Suppose, for instance, that a person wants a favor of President Young, but he has done some wrong that is known to the President, he cannot ask that favor with any confidence, but his head is cast down, and he feels condemned because of the wrong he has done. How much more is this the case when seeking blessings from the Lord. We should think of this in our course through life. We should also remember that the Lord has said, that “inasmuch as ye do it to one of the least of these my servants, ye do it unto me.”
When we apply this principle to our conduct, strictly and properly, we shall feel that we do not want to injure anybody or do anything wrong, and injuries and wrongs will fast disappear and will be soon blotted out of existence. This is what we are laboring for, and this course of conduct will move forward the cause of Zion, and enable us to do all things the Lord requires of us.
That we may labor to accomplish this work faithfully is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Remarks by Elder Charles C. Rich, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 8th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
I am glad to enjoy the opportunity of meeting with the brethren and sisters at this Conference. I am also glad that we have heard the instructions which have been imparted to us. The principle of the Saints being united is one that we have labored to establish from the commencement up to the present time. Every Saint who has any knowledge of the gospel as it has been revealed to us in these last days, knows that this principle has been impressed on their minds from the time they first heard the gospel. Still, with all our labors and exertions in the past, we have not yet reached this point, and we must continue our labors for the accomplishment of this object.
When we are united in all things, the Lord will be able to use us in very deed for the building up of His Kingdom; until then, He can use us only as we are willing to be used. We say we are the people of God, and that we are laboring to build up His Kingdom, but when we come to think of it, we only do that which we can persuade ourselves to do.
We should be willing to do everything that the Lord requires us to do, and even if we are, there is still great need for us to improve and progress. This has been incumbent upon us from the time we embraced the gospel, but more especially at this Conference, and when we make up our minds individually and collectively to do all things that the Lord requires of us, it will be a comparatively easy matter for us to do so. We do not expect to learn everything at this Conference, but we can make ourselves willing to learn righteous principles, and we can, if we choose, adopt them as fast as we learn them.
We are placed under circumstances where we can apply our labors for the accomplishment of the designs of the Almighty here on the earth, and we ought to esteem this as a very great privilege.
There are a great many notions and opinions with regard to the work of God and the building up of His Kingdom on the earth. We have received the everlasting gospel from the heavens. It found us in the various nations of the earth, and it has gathered us to this place for the purpose of establishing the principles of righteousness and of building up the Kingdom of God on the earth. As we have heard this afternoon, and on many other occasions, the gospel we have obeyed embraces all truth on earth and in heaven. We have not to emigrate to some other world to find truth. We find it where we are; it is taught to us faster than we are willing to receive and practice it; and I can bear testimony that it has ever been so. We have never had to wait to know what was the right course for us to pursue. “Labor for the building of the Kingdom of God,” has been the counsel given to us continually, and when we have been called upon to perform any labor, no matter in what direction, it has been with that object in view.
I have been reflecting a little in relation to the state of society which would soon be in existence if the counsel given from this stand this Conference were to be observed. We would soon find a great deal more peace, love, and oneness among the Saints than have existed in times past; and, if we ever expect to be one, we, as a people, must adopt in our lives those principles that have been and are continually taught us by the servants of the Lord. If we ever expect to have heaven, we must adopt those principles that will make heaven for us. We have had the gospel revealed to us from the heavens, for the purpose of bringing about that state of things here that exists in heaven. And it will most assuredly result in this if we will faithfully observe its principles. A faithful adherence to the principles of the gospel will cure all the evils we now endure. Where difficulties exist with individuals or communities, we would find, if they were traced to their source, that they exist simply because the principles of the gospel have not been adopted and applied.
It is this labor that lies before us to learn the principles of the gospel of salvation, and to apply them in our lives. This will remove the evils we have to encounter, and will bring about union and happiness; and, no matter where our lot may be cast, will make for us a heaven upon earth. This is a joyous labor, and one in which all should unite with an unwavering determination. By so doing we will sustain those who preside over us, and our efforts will most effectually tend to build up the Kingdom of God on the earth.
How can this Kingdom be built up unless God dictates? And how can we labor to serve Him unless He dictates us? And how will He do this? He will do it, as He ever has done, by and through His servants whom He has placed at our head. In this way we can be united in building up God's Kingdom and in moving forward His work on the earth. This is a very great privilege, the possession of which confers upon us great honor and blessings. When the whole people are united in, and live continually according to, the principles of the gospel in all things, evils and difficulties will vanish from their midst like snow before the rays of the sun, and soon the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the deep.
We have yet much to learn, but I often think that we can do more for the spread of truth and the work we are engaged in than we imagine. We can read of individuals among the ancients who performed wonders on the principle of faith. They subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, and performed many wonderful works. Can we not do something on the principle of faith? Can we not have power with God as well as the ancients, if we labor continually to carry out His designs? I am satisfied that if we all go home and carry out the principles which have been taught to us during this Conference we shall soon see happy results flowing therefrom. There is a responsibility resting upon us all to do so, and we should discharge that responsibility honorably before God and each other. By following the counsel given us during this Conference, our union, peace, and best interests will be greatly advanced and forwarded.
Severe indisposition prevented me from being present at last fall Conference, but I am thankful that I am present now. I always rejoice to be at Conference, or at any meeting with the Saints. I love to see and talk to them, and I love to hear others talk, and I love to use my influence to move forward and build up the cause of Zion, and to establish righteousness on the earth. We all ought to cultivate this kind of feeling and principle. We never need be afraid if we are doing right, but fear only to do wrong. Individuals are apt to think sometimes that if they do a wrong no person in the world knows it but themselves, but it is known also to God, and if a wrong is known to God and to the one who commits it, his influence with God is destroyed, and it lowers him in his own estimation. Suppose, for instance, that a person wants a favor of President Young, but he has done some wrong that is known to the President, he cannot ask that favor with any confidence, but his head is cast down, and he feels condemned because of the wrong he has done. How much more is this the case when seeking blessings from the Lord. We should think of this in our course through life. We should also remember that the Lord has said, that “inasmuch as ye do it to one of the least of these my servants, ye do it unto me.”
When we apply this principle to our conduct, strictly and properly, we shall feel that we do not want to injure anybody or do anything wrong, and injuries and wrongs will fast disappear and will be soon blotted out of existence. This is what we are laboring for, and this course of conduct will move forward the cause of Zion, and enable us to do all things the Lord requires of us.
That we may labor to accomplish this work faithfully is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder George Q. Cannon then presented the following Authorities of the Church, who were unanimously sustained in their positions by vote of the Conference:--
Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Heber C. Kimball his first, and Daniel H. Wells his second counselor.
Orson Hyde, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Orson Pratt, Sen., John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards and George Q. Cannon, members of said Quorum.
John Smith, Patriarch of the Church.
Daniel Spencer, President of this Stake of Zion, and George B. Wallace and Joseph W. Young, his counselors.
William Eddington, John T. Caine, John L. Blythe, Howard O. Spencer, Claudius V. Spencer, John Squires, William H. Folsom, Emanuel M. Murphy, Thomas E. Jeremy, Geo. W. Thatcher, Peter Nebeker and Joseph F. Smith, member of the High Council.
John Young, 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 Harriman, Albert P. Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge, Jacob Gates, and John Van Cott, members of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies.
Edward Hunter, Presiding Bishop, Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little, his counselors.
Samuel G. Ladd, President of the Priests' Quorum; William Carmichael and Robert Price, his counselors.
Adam Spiers, President of the Teacher's Quorum; Henry I. Doremus and Martin Lenzi, his counselors.
James Leach, President of the Deacon's Quorum; Warren Hardy, and James H. Johnson his counselors.
Brigham Young, Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Daniel H. Wells, Superintendent of Public Works; John Sharp, his assistant.
Truman O. Angell, Architect for the Church, and William H. Folsom his assistant.
Brigham Young, President of the Perpetual Emigration 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.
A number of Elders were then called upon to go on missions.
Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Heber C. Kimball his first, and Daniel H. Wells his second counselor.
Orson Hyde, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Orson Pratt, Sen., John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards and George Q. Cannon, members of said Quorum.
John Smith, Patriarch of the Church.
Daniel Spencer, President of this Stake of Zion, and George B. Wallace and Joseph W. Young, his counselors.
William Eddington, John T. Caine, John L. Blythe, Howard O. Spencer, Claudius V. Spencer, John Squires, William H. Folsom, Emanuel M. Murphy, Thomas E. Jeremy, Geo. W. Thatcher, Peter Nebeker and Joseph F. Smith, member of the High Council.
John Young, 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 Harriman, Albert P. Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge, Jacob Gates, and John Van Cott, members of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies.
Edward Hunter, Presiding Bishop, Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little, his counselors.
Samuel G. Ladd, President of the Priests' Quorum; William Carmichael and Robert Price, his counselors.
Adam Spiers, President of the Teacher's Quorum; Henry I. Doremus and Martin Lenzi, his counselors.
James Leach, President of the Deacon's Quorum; Warren Hardy, and James H. Johnson his counselors.
Brigham Young, Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Daniel H. Wells, Superintendent of Public Works; John Sharp, his assistant.
Truman O. Angell, Architect for the Church, and William H. Folsom his assistant.
Brigham Young, President of the Perpetual Emigration 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.
A number of Elders were then called upon to go on missions.
Elder George Q. Cannon
spoke of the willingness manifested by the Elders to go on foreign missions; and followed with a few remarks on the condition of the settlements on the Muddy and the Beaver Dam. Volunteers were called for, to go and strengthen those settlements.
Choir sang the anthem, "I will sing," from the 89th Psalm.
spoke of the willingness manifested by the Elders to go on foreign missions; and followed with a few remarks on the condition of the settlements on the Muddy and the Beaver Dam. Volunteers were called for, to go and strengthen those settlements.
Choir sang the anthem, "I will sing," from the 89th Psalm.
President D. H. Wells
viewed this as the greatest day that has ever been seen by the Church, with the largest assemblage of Saints that has been together at one time in this dispensation. He urged parents to have their children well educated, to supply them with good books, have good teachers for them who understand and live according to the principles of the gospel, and to pay those teachers. And exhorted the Saints to live their religion, and to put down sin and iniquity in their midst, that they may continue to receive and enjoy the promised blessings.
viewed this as the greatest day that has ever been seen by the Church, with the largest assemblage of Saints that has been together at one time in this dispensation. He urged parents to have their children well educated, to supply them with good books, have good teachers for them who understand and live according to the principles of the gospel, and to pay those teachers. And exhorted the Saints to live their religion, and to put down sin and iniquity in their midst, that they may continue to receive and enjoy the promised blessings.
Schools And School Teachers—Tithing, Etc.
Remarks by President Daniel H. Wells, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 8th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
This is one of the greatest days that Israel has ever seen in this dispensation, and one of the largest congregations that ever assembled in the capacity of a Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The cause which we have espoused possesses, probably, today, a greater degree of prosperity than it has ever done from its commencement. Thus may it ever be from this time henceforth and forever! From the commencement of this work until the present time we have continually increased in power and numbers, and in blessings from the Lord our God; and I believe that, today, a greater degree of unity dwells in the hearts of the people called Latter-day Saints than ever before.
When we look back on the past history of this people, and see the difficulties they have had to encounter and have overcome, our hearts should swell with joy and gratitude to the benign Providence which has brought us to the position that we now enjoy. As we have been blessed and preserved in the past, so it will ever be with us, if we will only be true to ourselves and walk in the ways of truth and righteousness. Has not our experience been sufficient in the past to give us confidence in the future? Has not our faith been increased by the multiplicity of blessings and favors which we have received at the hands of our heavenly Father?
Inasmuch as we have asked in faith for blessings, and have had our prayers answered upon our heads, have we not faith and confidence to approach our heavenly Father again and again to supplicate for blessings? Most assuredly this is the experience of every faithful Saint. Then let us continue to improve, and endeavor to weed from our hearts every evil influence and strive to overcome every besetting sin. Let this be among our labors in the future, beginning with ourselves and then with our families.
Upon this latter point, especially, let me say a word. Let us provide schools, competent teachers, and good books for our children, and let us pay our teachers. I would have no objection to seeing the standard works of the Church introduced into our schools, that our children may be taught more pertaining to the principles of the gospel in the future than they are at present. And let one test of fitness on the part of those who teach be a thorough acquaintance with and love for the principles of the gospel which we have received, that our children may be taught the principles of truth and righteousness, and be trained from their youth in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Let this course be taken in our schools, and let us pay our teachers. We have those among us who are well qualified for teachers if we will only pay them; but the great cry now is—“We cannot afford to teach school, for the wages is too low, and low as it is we cannot get it when it is earned.” This is the great difficulty among us in this matter, and it has always been a crying evil. It has no need to be so; we should pay our school bills among the first things we pay.
If we wish to have teachers for our children let us sustain them. And we should sustain our own publications, which inculcate the principles of truth and righteousness, in preference to any others which may be brought into our midst. There are other works that are good, against which I do not wish to say anything; but let us first sustain our own works, which are exclusively devoted to the spread of the principles of truth. The Lord has undertaken to raise the standard of truth in the earth through the instrumentality of His servants, and it is the duty of the Saints to sustain those works which have the dissemination of truth for their only object. We send forth Elders to the nations of the earth, as messengers of salvation to the people; and while we sustain those who go to proclaim the gospel, let us also sustain the printed word.
Enough has been said on this subject, and I do not wish to recapitulate. Let us pay our tithing, and do all we can to sustain the servants of God. And in paying our tithing we should not forget our money tithing. We hear considerable about hard times, so far as money is concerned; they who are endeavoring to sustain the work of God feel the pressure as much as anybody else. Let us contribute our mites to assist; if we have not much let us give a portion for that purpose—be free and liberal. What have we to do but to accomplish our mission in building up the Kingdom of God? I know of nothing else that is worth the attention of the Latter-day Saints. Then let us do this with all our faith, might, and means, and be united as the heart of one man in sustaining whatever is brought before us by those who are placed over us to lead, guide, and direct our labors.
Has not the Lord the right to dictate the earth and its inhabitants? Most assuredly, He has; and it would be a great blessing for the people if they would allow Him to do so. We who have come here have said we are willing to be dictated by the Lord through His servants; then let us make it our business to be so as long as we dwell in the flesh, the more especially as we expect to reap the rewards and benefits that will result from such a course. If we expect the blessings of heaven we should take a course that will draw them down upon us, for they will most assuredly be ours as fast as we can make good use of them. If we are only true to ourselves, and are faithful to the end, our reward will be such that we will have no need to complain of it. And even while we pass along through life, the course of the Latter-day Saint is more conducive to happiness and peace than that of any other individual on the face of the earth.
Let us not be disheartened nor discouraged, but press onward in the good work which we have espoused. Our minds have been lit up with the principles of life and salvation and the truths of heaven; then let us cleave to those principles with full purpose of heart, keeping God's commands, and walking blamelessly before him in all things every day of our lives. We shall thus accomplish our mission in the Kingdom of God, and eventually be welcomed into the presence of our Redeemer, which, I hope, will be the lot of every Latter-day Saint, and of every honest soul in the world.
These are some of my feelings. I hope and pray that we will all attend to the teachings which we receive from time to time, for it is God in His mercy who deals them out to us, and it is for us to treasure them up in good and honest hearts, to carry them out in our lives, and to shun all things that are offensive in His sight. This is the mission of the Saints. Every man can be useful in his day and generation in promoting these principles; and if we will be united in so doing, truth will triumph in the hearts of the Saints, and a power for good, such as we have never yet seen, will soon be developed, and will increase until finally the earth will be redeemed from the thralldom of sin, and the power of the wicked be forever broken.
That our labors may speedily bring about this desirable consummation is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Remarks by President Daniel H. Wells, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 8th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
This is one of the greatest days that Israel has ever seen in this dispensation, and one of the largest congregations that ever assembled in the capacity of a Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The cause which we have espoused possesses, probably, today, a greater degree of prosperity than it has ever done from its commencement. Thus may it ever be from this time henceforth and forever! From the commencement of this work until the present time we have continually increased in power and numbers, and in blessings from the Lord our God; and I believe that, today, a greater degree of unity dwells in the hearts of the people called Latter-day Saints than ever before.
When we look back on the past history of this people, and see the difficulties they have had to encounter and have overcome, our hearts should swell with joy and gratitude to the benign Providence which has brought us to the position that we now enjoy. As we have been blessed and preserved in the past, so it will ever be with us, if we will only be true to ourselves and walk in the ways of truth and righteousness. Has not our experience been sufficient in the past to give us confidence in the future? Has not our faith been increased by the multiplicity of blessings and favors which we have received at the hands of our heavenly Father?
Inasmuch as we have asked in faith for blessings, and have had our prayers answered upon our heads, have we not faith and confidence to approach our heavenly Father again and again to supplicate for blessings? Most assuredly this is the experience of every faithful Saint. Then let us continue to improve, and endeavor to weed from our hearts every evil influence and strive to overcome every besetting sin. Let this be among our labors in the future, beginning with ourselves and then with our families.
Upon this latter point, especially, let me say a word. Let us provide schools, competent teachers, and good books for our children, and let us pay our teachers. I would have no objection to seeing the standard works of the Church introduced into our schools, that our children may be taught more pertaining to the principles of the gospel in the future than they are at present. And let one test of fitness on the part of those who teach be a thorough acquaintance with and love for the principles of the gospel which we have received, that our children may be taught the principles of truth and righteousness, and be trained from their youth in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Let this course be taken in our schools, and let us pay our teachers. We have those among us who are well qualified for teachers if we will only pay them; but the great cry now is—“We cannot afford to teach school, for the wages is too low, and low as it is we cannot get it when it is earned.” This is the great difficulty among us in this matter, and it has always been a crying evil. It has no need to be so; we should pay our school bills among the first things we pay.
If we wish to have teachers for our children let us sustain them. And we should sustain our own publications, which inculcate the principles of truth and righteousness, in preference to any others which may be brought into our midst. There are other works that are good, against which I do not wish to say anything; but let us first sustain our own works, which are exclusively devoted to the spread of the principles of truth. The Lord has undertaken to raise the standard of truth in the earth through the instrumentality of His servants, and it is the duty of the Saints to sustain those works which have the dissemination of truth for their only object. We send forth Elders to the nations of the earth, as messengers of salvation to the people; and while we sustain those who go to proclaim the gospel, let us also sustain the printed word.
Enough has been said on this subject, and I do not wish to recapitulate. Let us pay our tithing, and do all we can to sustain the servants of God. And in paying our tithing we should not forget our money tithing. We hear considerable about hard times, so far as money is concerned; they who are endeavoring to sustain the work of God feel the pressure as much as anybody else. Let us contribute our mites to assist; if we have not much let us give a portion for that purpose—be free and liberal. What have we to do but to accomplish our mission in building up the Kingdom of God? I know of nothing else that is worth the attention of the Latter-day Saints. Then let us do this with all our faith, might, and means, and be united as the heart of one man in sustaining whatever is brought before us by those who are placed over us to lead, guide, and direct our labors.
Has not the Lord the right to dictate the earth and its inhabitants? Most assuredly, He has; and it would be a great blessing for the people if they would allow Him to do so. We who have come here have said we are willing to be dictated by the Lord through His servants; then let us make it our business to be so as long as we dwell in the flesh, the more especially as we expect to reap the rewards and benefits that will result from such a course. If we expect the blessings of heaven we should take a course that will draw them down upon us, for they will most assuredly be ours as fast as we can make good use of them. If we are only true to ourselves, and are faithful to the end, our reward will be such that we will have no need to complain of it. And even while we pass along through life, the course of the Latter-day Saint is more conducive to happiness and peace than that of any other individual on the face of the earth.
Let us not be disheartened nor discouraged, but press onward in the good work which we have espoused. Our minds have been lit up with the principles of life and salvation and the truths of heaven; then let us cleave to those principles with full purpose of heart, keeping God's commands, and walking blamelessly before him in all things every day of our lives. We shall thus accomplish our mission in the Kingdom of God, and eventually be welcomed into the presence of our Redeemer, which, I hope, will be the lot of every Latter-day Saint, and of every honest soul in the world.
These are some of my feelings. I hope and pray that we will all attend to the teachings which we receive from time to time, for it is God in His mercy who deals them out to us, and it is for us to treasure them up in good and honest hearts, to carry them out in our lives, and to shun all things that are offensive in His sight. This is the mission of the Saints. Every man can be useful in his day and generation in promoting these principles; and if we will be united in so doing, truth will triumph in the hearts of the Saints, and a power for good, such as we have never yet seen, will soon be developed, and will increase until finally the earth will be redeemed from the thralldom of sin, and the power of the wicked be forever broken.
That our labors may speedily bring about this desirable consummation is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President B. Young
said that he wished the young men in this and other cities and settlements through the Territory, to improve their minds, and take steps to make their knowledge, powers and abilities of more value than those of young men generally are. He recommended the establishment of evening schools, and lyceums, where surgery, anatomy, chemistry and other branches of education could be studied; and where a knowledge of physic could also be obtained by those who desire to possess it. For this purpose materials might be sent for during the present summer, that the studies might be effectually prosecuted. Classes could also be formed for the study of law—the laws and institutions of this and other nations. He recommended girls to learn arithmetic to a further extent than many now do, that they might qualify themselves for the pursuit of light occupations, in which men are at present principally employed. They could become compositors in printing offices, clerks in stores, and be otherwise engaged in occupations suitable to their health and physical powers, which would bring them better remuneration than they now receive.
He particularly urged, in education, the study of the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and other works of the Church; and expressed his desire to see phonography introduced into our schools, that the children may learn it with the rudimental branches of education. By this means, and by our young men acquiring it, this valuable art can become more generally known and brought into use.
He blessed the people in the name of Jesus; and called a vote of the congregation on the adjournment of Conference, which was adjourned until the 6th of October next, at 10 o'clock in the morning, to meet in the New Tabernacle.
said that he wished the young men in this and other cities and settlements through the Territory, to improve their minds, and take steps to make their knowledge, powers and abilities of more value than those of young men generally are. He recommended the establishment of evening schools, and lyceums, where surgery, anatomy, chemistry and other branches of education could be studied; and where a knowledge of physic could also be obtained by those who desire to possess it. For this purpose materials might be sent for during the present summer, that the studies might be effectually prosecuted. Classes could also be formed for the study of law—the laws and institutions of this and other nations. He recommended girls to learn arithmetic to a further extent than many now do, that they might qualify themselves for the pursuit of light occupations, in which men are at present principally employed. They could become compositors in printing offices, clerks in stores, and be otherwise engaged in occupations suitable to their health and physical powers, which would bring them better remuneration than they now receive.
He particularly urged, in education, the study of the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and other works of the Church; and expressed his desire to see phonography introduced into our schools, that the children may learn it with the rudimental branches of education. By this means, and by our young men acquiring it, this valuable art can become more generally known and brought into use.
He blessed the people in the name of Jesus; and called a vote of the congregation on the adjournment of Conference, which was adjourned until the 6th of October next, at 10 o'clock in the morning, to meet in the New Tabernacle.
Education—Employment of Females
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 8th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
A few words to the Latter-day Saints, and especially to our young men. We have a great deal of time to spare over and above going to the canyon, and working in the fields and in our shops. It is true this is not exactly the time of year to establish evening schools and lyceums, but we wish our young men to make preparation this summer, and send east to procure the necessary articles for the formation of societies in this and other cities throughout the Territory for the purpose of studying the arts and sciences. Now, if a man in the North, say sixty-eight or a hundred miles away, should have a limb broken, he has to send to this city for a surgeon. It is all folly; there is no more real necessity for it, if men would devote their time to the study of such things, than there is to send for a man to put a rafter or joint on his house, or a panel into his door.
As the subject of education is open, and has been from time to time during this Conference, I will now urge it upon the people—the young men and the middle-aged—to get up schools and study. If they are disposed to study physic or surgery, all right; they will know then what to do if a person is sickly, or has his elbow, wrist, or shoulder put out of joint, or his arm or any other bone broken. It is just as easy to learn such things as it is to learn to plant potatoes. I would like to urge these matters upon our young men, and I am convinced this meets the feelings of all the brethren. I do hope, and pray you, my brethren and sisters, to be careful to observe what br. Wells has said in regard to introducing into our schools the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Standard works of the Church, and all the works pertaining to our faith, that our children may become acquainted with its principles, and that our young men, when they go out to preach, may not be so ignorant as they have been hitherto. I would like very much to urge upon our young people, the sisters as well as the brethren, to pay more attention to arithmetic and other things that are useful, instead of acquiring a little French and German and other fanciful studies that are not of so much practical importance. I do not know how long it will be before we call upon the brethren and sisters to enter upon business in an entirely different way from what they have done. I have been an advocate for our printing to be done by females, and as for men being in stores, you might as well set them to knitting stockings as to sell tape. Such business ought to be done by the sisters. It would enable them to sustain themselves, and would be far better than for them to spend their time in the parlor or in walking the streets. Hardy men have no business behind the counter; they who are not able to hoe potatoes, go to the canyon, cut down the trees, saw the lumber, &c., can attend to that business. Our young men in the stores ought to be turned out and the sisters take their place; and they should study arithmetic and bookkeeping necessary to qualify them for such positions. I would also like our school teachers to introduce phonography into every school; it is an excellent thing to learn. By its means we can commit our thoughts and reflections to paper with ease and rapidity, and thus preserve that which will be of benefit to ourselves and others, and which would otherwise be forever lost. This is a delightful study! In these and all other branches of science and education we should know as much as any people in the world. We have them within our reach, for we have as good teachers as can be found on the face of the earth, if our Bishops would only employ and pay them, but they will not. Let a miserable little, smooth-faced, beardless, good-for-nothing Gentile come along, without regard for either truth or honesty, and they will pay him when they will not pay a Latter-day Saint. Think of these things. Introduce every kind of useful studies into our schools. I have been urging upon our young men for years to get up classes for the study of law. The laws of this Territory, of the United States, of the different States, of England, and foreign lands. Do this instead of riding over the prairies hunting and wasting your time, which is property that belongs to the Lord our God, and if we do not make good use of it we shall be held accountable.
Now, my brethren and sisters, I feel to bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I pray my Father in heaven to continue His mercies to us, and I pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God in all things. We will now bring our conference to a close.
Choir sang the anthem, "The Daughter of Zion."
President Kimball pronounced the closing benediction.
E. L. Sloan, Clerk of Conference.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 8th, 1867.
Reported by David W. Evans.
A few words to the Latter-day Saints, and especially to our young men. We have a great deal of time to spare over and above going to the canyon, and working in the fields and in our shops. It is true this is not exactly the time of year to establish evening schools and lyceums, but we wish our young men to make preparation this summer, and send east to procure the necessary articles for the formation of societies in this and other cities throughout the Territory for the purpose of studying the arts and sciences. Now, if a man in the North, say sixty-eight or a hundred miles away, should have a limb broken, he has to send to this city for a surgeon. It is all folly; there is no more real necessity for it, if men would devote their time to the study of such things, than there is to send for a man to put a rafter or joint on his house, or a panel into his door.
As the subject of education is open, and has been from time to time during this Conference, I will now urge it upon the people—the young men and the middle-aged—to get up schools and study. If they are disposed to study physic or surgery, all right; they will know then what to do if a person is sickly, or has his elbow, wrist, or shoulder put out of joint, or his arm or any other bone broken. It is just as easy to learn such things as it is to learn to plant potatoes. I would like to urge these matters upon our young men, and I am convinced this meets the feelings of all the brethren. I do hope, and pray you, my brethren and sisters, to be careful to observe what br. Wells has said in regard to introducing into our schools the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Standard works of the Church, and all the works pertaining to our faith, that our children may become acquainted with its principles, and that our young men, when they go out to preach, may not be so ignorant as they have been hitherto. I would like very much to urge upon our young people, the sisters as well as the brethren, to pay more attention to arithmetic and other things that are useful, instead of acquiring a little French and German and other fanciful studies that are not of so much practical importance. I do not know how long it will be before we call upon the brethren and sisters to enter upon business in an entirely different way from what they have done. I have been an advocate for our printing to be done by females, and as for men being in stores, you might as well set them to knitting stockings as to sell tape. Such business ought to be done by the sisters. It would enable them to sustain themselves, and would be far better than for them to spend their time in the parlor or in walking the streets. Hardy men have no business behind the counter; they who are not able to hoe potatoes, go to the canyon, cut down the trees, saw the lumber, &c., can attend to that business. Our young men in the stores ought to be turned out and the sisters take their place; and they should study arithmetic and bookkeeping necessary to qualify them for such positions. I would also like our school teachers to introduce phonography into every school; it is an excellent thing to learn. By its means we can commit our thoughts and reflections to paper with ease and rapidity, and thus preserve that which will be of benefit to ourselves and others, and which would otherwise be forever lost. This is a delightful study! In these and all other branches of science and education we should know as much as any people in the world. We have them within our reach, for we have as good teachers as can be found on the face of the earth, if our Bishops would only employ and pay them, but they will not. Let a miserable little, smooth-faced, beardless, good-for-nothing Gentile come along, without regard for either truth or honesty, and they will pay him when they will not pay a Latter-day Saint. Think of these things. Introduce every kind of useful studies into our schools. I have been urging upon our young men for years to get up classes for the study of law. The laws of this Territory, of the United States, of the different States, of England, and foreign lands. Do this instead of riding over the prairies hunting and wasting your time, which is property that belongs to the Lord our God, and if we do not make good use of it we shall be held accountable.
Now, my brethren and sisters, I feel to bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I pray my Father in heaven to continue His mercies to us, and I pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God in all things. We will now bring our conference to a close.
Choir sang the anthem, "The Daughter of Zion."
President Kimball pronounced the closing benediction.
E. L. Sloan, Clerk of Conference.