Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, August 27, 1871.

I have a few words of counsel for the returned missionaries, and all the Elders of Israel may heed them if they feel disposed to. You hear the Elders, when they return and get up in the stand, tell what happy days they have experienced on their missions; how they have enjoyed themselves, the Spirit of the Lord has rested upon them, how they have spoken to their own astonishment, words have been given them that never entered their hearts before, and when they have lifted up their voices in the name of the Lord to testify of the Gospel of the Son of God they have astonished themselves, and so on; you know what they say! Now, I wish to make this request: that the Elders who return from missions consider themselves just as much on a mission here as in England or in any other part of the world. There is no people need preaching to more than those who live in this Territory and in these mountains. The Latter-day Saints, or those who profess to be, need talking to just as much as a child who begins to prattle and run around the house. It gets into mischief continually and its mother has to keep talking to it to keep it from meddling with things that it should not. It does not know how to guide itself, and wants guiding and correcting all the time; but not more than the Latter-day Saints who gather together. Now, Elders of Israel, if you have the harness on, keep it on and lift up your voices to the people here and teach them the way of life and salvation; and teach obedience to the Priesthood, that they may receive the blessings which are promised to them who believe and obey the Gospel as it is revealed in the latter days. Will you hearken to this counsel, my brethren? I have not the least objection to the sisters considering themselves on missions to teach their children the way of life and salvation.

I feel like saying a few words about seeing so many empty benches here; but there is some excuse for this, for if you were to take this congregation, small as it seems, and try to put it into the common halls where our brethren have preached, you would find a portion of it out of doors; and very few meetinghouses in the eastern country would hold the people who are here this morning. Still there could be a great many more here. It is true that many attend Sunday school with the children in the morning, but if children who do not attend school were to receive proper teaching from their mothers, they would be at meeting on Sunday morning. Mothers, will you be missionaries? We will appoint you a mission to teach your children their duty; and instead of ruffles and fine dresses to adorn the body, teach them that which will adorn their minds. Let what you have to clothe them with be neat and clean and nice. Teach them cleanness and purity of body and the principles of salvation, and they will delight to come to these meetings. I attribute the wandering of our young people to the teachings of their mothers. You see young ladies here wandering after the fashions of the world; I attribute it to their mothers, and the mothers know but little more than their daughters. If you will take this counsel, and begin and teach your children as you should, we will have more here of a morning than we have generally. There are a great many people in this city who should attend meeting on a Sunday morning—enough to fill this house, besides those who go to Sunday school. When they were in the lands where they were hated and the finger of scorn was pointed at them, they delighted only in the society of their brethren; and when they had an opportunity to escape from their arduous labors, they would travel day or night to meet with the Saints. But here everything is so free, so easy and delightful, that they are here, there and everywhere but where they should be. A few Latter-day Saints, however—and I think the majority of them, are doing the best they know how. But our brethren, when they return from their missions, complain at what they see, and I do not wonder. Will you, Brother Dewey, set the example and come to meeting every Sunday? Or shall I, in a few Sundays, hear that you are gone on a pleasure excursion, that you are riding out here or there? How will it be with Brother Shipp and others who have been speaking? How long will it be before we hear that you have gone on the railroad to Wasatch or somewhere else on a pleasure excursion, or to your farm or to visit your brethren? There is one thing that we have to meet with here. In our community we have a few from the Society of Friends; we commonly call them Quakers. As far as I have known them, and I have known them as long as I can remember, if they do not work or visit on the Sabbath, they will mourn the whole week. They are so free and independent that they want to show the whole human family that they have no more regard for one day than another, and especially the Sabbath day. We have to meet with this influence here as well as other things; and unless our Quaker friends who come into the Church are continually led they will never come to meeting; they are sure to be fishing, going after hay or hunting their cattle; and these practices have their influence on others.

I wish to say to the Elders and mothers in Israel: teach your children as they should be taught and you will find they will never stray from the path of rectitude. There is more depending upon mothers than is generally supposed. You may take any nation in the world, and just let the mothers say there should not be a soldier in the army, and kings might call for soldiers, but they would be disappointed if they expected to obtain any. Mothers bear more influence in the nations of the earth than they are aware of. Take my counsel, and teach your children how to live, teach them to pray, to come to meeting; teach them to love the Lord and to believe and read the Bible, and when they grow up they will delight in doing right.

As for the so-called Christian world, all I wish to say about it I can say in a few words. Yesterday, when talking about the priests, I discovered there was considerable humor in our beloved brother who has been speaking to us this morning, and I joked him; and I will joke him again a little more severely, by telling a little anecdote of Sir Francis Train; you have all heard of George Francis Train, I call him “Sir” Francis. He says, in speaking of a certain dignitary, “Just sit down and tell me all you know in five minutes!” I make that application to all the so-called Christian divines—sit down and tell all you know about God, heaven and hell in five minutes; you can do it, it does not require any more time, for you know nothing. They say they believe the Bible; but if, when they open and read it, anyone of them can discriminate, and tell what part to believe and what to reject, let that man come forth, speak by the power of God and draw the line that we may know the truth; but if they have no revelation on the subject, let them lay their hands on their mouths, and them in the dust, and cry, “unclean!” So much for the so-called Christian world. As I said to our brother yesterday, I have been routed from a good home and plenty of means five times; but I never was routed from home and possessions without priests led the mob, never! And yet among the priests of the day there are a great many good, honest men. But in most of the communities in the world, those who are unruly, boisterous and wicked, can commit acts of wickedness, and those who are just will stand and look on until the evil is performed and wonder what is going on. There are thousands and thousands of people in the United States who deprecated the injuries that we received from the hands of mobs; but what did they do? Stood and looked on until all was over, and then said, “I pity them.” How much did they pity us? We had to pity and take care of ourselves, and we have learned to do it; but we do not say that all people are mobbers, or that all will persecute, for they will not; and I meet with a great many ministers who are gentlemen, who have hearts within them, and I bid them God speed! Do what good you can.

How often I have talked about the missionary system of Christendom! It is true that we do not believe in it exactly as they do, for we believe in sending out men without purse or scrip, that they may prove the people and see who will or will not feed a servant of God; and in this manner our Elders have traversed almost every nation on the face of the globe. But these Christian Missionary Societies have done an immense amount of good, and they will have the credit for it. God has got their credit marks, and he will justify them as far as they go; but when light comes into the world that they have not conceived of, and they reject it, what will be their condemnation? Let the Lord judge.

Now, you Elders of Israel, I turn to you again—you missionaries. I see a few of you here who have just returned home, but a good many are wanting. There are places here for all, but they are not here. They have been home a few weeks and what are they doing? Visiting with their families, or perhaps gone to the canyon after wood; and those who have just come home complain of the coldness of the people and that many are turning away from the commandments of the Lord. I say to those who complain of these things—see that you do not do likewise! Come to meeting and be ready to talk here. Our religion, our Gospel, is not to train a few men in all the sophistry that learning can impart, and enable them to address a congregation and nothing else; but our ministers or preachers work all the week in the store, at the mechanic’s bench, on the farm, in the canyon, or at whatever is wanted to be done, and when Sunday morning comes they get up here and preach a sermon; and if they cannot do that, we consider they do not possess the spirit of their mission. It is not so with the world. Our Elders must support themselves with their hands, as Paul did. I do not care whether they are tent makers or boat makers, let them earn their own living. I have. For my part, I consider that the honor God bestowed upon me in calling me to the holy ministry was enough for me to think it was my duty to support myself in this ministry and do honor to the cause, without asking any people for help. I have done so. I did, I believe, have a few shillings given to me when in England. When I landed there I had five shillings left. I stayed there a year and sixteen days, and when we left one of the best ships in Liverpool docks tied up eight days for the sake of bringing us home; and merchants and banking houses were at our service. I did business there in printing and dealing, and so on; but it did not tarnish my hands, nor stain my spirit, not in the least, and it would not today. We must live, and we must sustain ourselves, and come to meeting, and be ready also to attend ward meetings. Do not come and ask me if you may go to preach, pray or lay hands on the sick. Ask God to give you faith to perform your duties, to walk humbly before him, and to build up his kingdom on the earth. That is your duty. Yes, preach every night, we need a reformation here. Attend meetings in the various wards. Take your turns around from one ward to another. Preach to the people until they get the spirit of their mission and calling. We all have a mission as much at home as in a foreign land, and may God help us to improve upon and magnify it!

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, August 27, 1871.

First of all, I will inform this congregation and the world of mankind at large with regard to the life and character of Joseph Smith. As a prophet it only requires age to make his character as sacred as that of any man that ever lived on the face of the earth. I want to say a few words with regard to temperance. We are a temperate people; this is what we have set out to be. We have lived in this city a good many years, and, until recently, when a stranger arrived here and wanted to purchase liquor, he had to inquire, “Where can I find a place where they sell liquor?” It was not to be found; and I will say that such places would not be found today among this people or in these mountains were it not for the urgent request of outsiders. We have to bow down to the wishes and customs of our fellow men. There are a great many men here now in the mining interests, and they want to put up where they can purchase liquor, for many of them drink. As for the temperance societies which we have been hearing about, I can say that with all the stringency in getting laws passed to prevent the sale or use of liquor in the Eastern States, when those who were determined to obtain it could do so in no other way, they would get what appeared to be a beautifully bound book, with “Pilgrim’s Progress” on the outside, but in the inside it would be full of whiskey. As for our saying that the inhabitants of the earth shall stop using ardent spirits, we may say it, but they will not mind us. As far as the Latter-day Saints are concerned, we have rights, others have rights—all have rights; and I would to God that what our enemies say, with regard to the word of Brigham Young being law to the Latter-day Saints, was true; but it is not.

General Riley has been talking to us about temperance societies; the principles he advocates are excellent, first-rate. More than fifty-five years ago, in the same county where he lived, I was asked to sign a pledge. This was when I was a boy. He is about five years my senior. We are acquainted with the same people, towns, counties, neighborhoods and districts, and we have traveled the roads, and built up the towns and were acquainted in the country, and we know and understand its character at the present time.

Some people here take the liberty to sell and dispose of their liquor without license from the city. We have a city here—an organized city; we have our municipal laws; we have officers for this city appointed by the legislative power and enactments of this Territory; and we have somebody or other here, who say, “You have no law here only what we give you, and you shall know that we are the law to this people!” And are not our city officers under bonds of some sixty thousand dollars in the aggregate for spoiling a nasty place carried on contrary to law? Yes, they are, and held to bail by government officers. Well, what do we care about it? Nothing. That goes to a higher court, with a great many other matters. They will go to a court, I hope, of justice.

But we keep liquor here; we are obliged to do it to accommodate our neighbors who come here; and some Latter-day Saints take the liberty of drinking. As far as these are concerned they have a right to get drunk; but we have rights, and have a right to disfellowship them, or cut them off from the Church, and we calculate to do it whenever it ought to be done. We have been found fault with because we cut people off from the Church! What do you suppose the so-called Christian world care about our Church? Nothing on the face of the earth only to annihilate it. That is all they care for us, poor sinners, in the mountains. What do they care about our selling liquor? Nothing, if it will only lead our young men to destruction. That is what they want. Men are sent here, ostensibly, to guard the rights of the people, but in reality to destroy the people. What was the counsel and advice of Mr. Cass when the army of King James came here in 1857? Said he, “Send an army of young men to Utah to decoy and destroy the young women there, and that will break up ‘Mormonism.’” There are men here now who seem to think that it is their imperative duty to sustain, at all hazards, everybody in all acts which are opposed to the Gospel.

General Riley has been preaching temperance to the Latter-day Saints. I do wish they would observe it. And I will go a little further and say, I would like to see them leave off, not only all intoxicating drinks, but those narcotic drinks—tea and coffee, and the men their tobacco. Our lecturer, I believe, observes all these things. Look at him; if it was not for his grey head you would not suppose him to be over thirty-five years old; and I expect he could run a pretty good foot race. What has done this? Temperance. What has preserved me? Temperance. I was a young man in the same county with him, and young men would say to me, “Take a glass.” “No, thank you, it is not good for me!” “Why, yes, it is good for you.” Thank you, I think I know myself better than you know me.” Even then I said, “I do not need to sign the temperance pledge.” I recollect my father urged me. “No, sir,” said I, “if I sign the temperance pledge I feel that I am bound, and I wish to do just right, without being bound to do it; I want my liberty;” and I have conceived from my youth up that I could have my liberty and independence just as much in doing right as I could in doing wrong. What do you say? Is this correct? Am I not a free man, have not I the power to choose, is not my volition as free as the air I breathe? Certainly it is, just as much in doing right as in doing wrong; consequently I wish to act upon my own volition, and do what I ought to do. I have lived a temperate life; I feel as though I could run through a troop and leap over a wall.

Shall we preach to the Latter-day Saints? Yes. I thank the gentleman for his good counsel to you, Latter-day Saints. Observe it; and I say to strangers, I do wish you would observe it. I wish you would say to us, “Down with the grogshops!” If the strangers who come here to hunt minerals; those who are working them; those who are poor and those who are rich, and all classes, if they would say, “Down with the grogshops,” the thing would be soon done. Talking, I understand from the General, has an influence among the people, in helping to form public opinion. This is true; and if by talking we can turn the tide of the feelings of those who visit us, so that they will be in favor of the City Council passing an ordinance for closing drinking holes, they would soon be closed. We can say that we are not bowing down to the wishes of any person in the world any further than it is true policy to let every person have his rights. We can stop this drinking and shut up these grog shops here. I do not go down the streets to see them, and never have from the time the filth came into the streets. I did when the Latter-day Saints traded one with another in their stores, and there was no liquor, no swearing or low conduct, but every person meeting with and hailing his neighbor like a friend and brother; but for twelve years not a man or woman in this room has seen me walk down through what I call “Whiskey Street.” My eyes do not wish to see it. I never wish to hear another oath, or to see another evil action performed, for it is just as much as the people can do to revolutionize their own feelings and to overcome the evil within themselves without having to come in contact with the evils of others.

I will say with regard to the so-called Christian world, and the moral reform of which they talk so much, that they are an utter failure, so far as stemming the tide of evil among men is concerned; and if this Gospel that Jesus has revealed in the latter days does not do it, it will not be done. But we say it will be done. We shall continue our course, praying the Father in heaven to assist us in preaching the principles of righteousness, and we shall drive the wedge a little further and a little further, and by and by the world will be overturned according to the words of the prophet, and we will see the reign of righteousness enter in, and sin and iniquity will have to walk off. But the power and principles of evil, if they can be called principles, will never yield one particle to the righteous march of the Savior, only as they are beaten back inch by inch, and we have got to take the ground by force. Yes, by the mental force of faith, and by good works, the march forth of the Gospel will increase, spread, grow and prosper, until the nations of the earth will feel that Jesus has the right to rule King of nations as he does King of Saints. We are in this work, and we calculate to pursue it too; and we are not the least afraid. As I have told my brethren and sisters a thousand times, I have but one fear, and that is that the Latter-day Saints will not do just right. There is no fear in the life of the man or woman who will serve God with all his heart, keep His commandments, love mercy, eschew evil and promote the principles of right and righteousness upon the earth. Is this so? Yes, and I bear testimony to it.

I will turn again to the Latter-day Saints and to the world, and will say I would to God that the Latter-day Saints would take the word of Brigham Young to be law! I will defy the inhabitants of the whole earth to tell one word that he ever counseled that was wrong; or to point out a path that he ever advised man or woman to walk in but would lead to light, life, glory, immortality, and to all that is good or desirable by the intelligence that dwells upon the earth. What do you say, is that boasting? If any person has a mind to call it boasting, do so. It is righteousness that we want, it is purity and holiness that we are after. We are preaching to the people far and near; our Elders are traveling through the earth; strangers are coming here, and we are declaring to them that the Gospel of the Son of God is true. Whether they believe or not, it is no matter. That book (the Bible)contains the words of the Almighty, and I will repeat a few of them. Jesus says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” What do you say, hearers, is that correct? I look at the Christian world, and I say that the Lord Almighty must set up His kingdom, just as Daniel has said; and all the ordinances of that kingdom must be observed by its inhabitants, or it cannot go forth, be established and bring in the reign of Christ on the earth. The few words of Jesus which I have repeated, you can read for yourselves. We had some read this afternoon; and we can turn over the pages of the Bible and read for ourselves; but do not take one passage and say, “That is mine, but I will abandon all the rest, it is out of date.” No, sir, take the Bible just as it reads; and if it be translated incorrectly, and there is a scholar on the earth who professes to be a Christian, and he can translate it any better than King James’ translators did it, he is under obligation to do so, or the curse is upon him. If I understood Greek and Hebrew as some may profess to do, and I knew the Bible was not correctly translated, I should feel myself bound by the law of justice to the inhabitants of the earth to translate that which is incorrect and give it just as it was spoken anciently. Is that proper? Yes, I would be under obligation to do it. But I think it is translated just as correctly as the scholars could get it, although it is not correct in a great many instances. But it is no matter about that. Read it and observe it and it will not hurt any person in the world. If we are not to believe the whole of the Bible, let the man, whoever he may be, among the professed Christians, who thinks he knows, draw the line between the true and the false, so that the whole sectarian world may be able to take the right and leave the wrong. But the man Christ Jesus, who has revealed himself in the latter days, says the Bible is true and the people must believe it. Let us believe it, and then obey it; for Jesus says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” I do not know anything about loving God and not keeping His commandments. I do not know anything about coming to Jesus only by the law he has instituted. I do know about that. I know of the bright promises which he gave to his disciples anciently. I live in the possession of them, and glory in them and in the cross of Christ, and in the beauty and holiness that he has revealed for the salvation and exaltation of the children of men. I do wish we would live to them, and may the Lord help us.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday, August 20, 1871.

I will read a few sayings of our Savior, recorded in the second, and third verses of the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John:

“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

It is not very customary for the Latter-day Saints to select a text and to confine their remarks to the subject matter thereof; yet I do not know that there is any particular harm in doing so, provided we do not limit the operations of the Spirit of God upon ourselves. It is my most earnest desire, when addressing a public assembly, to understand the mind and will of God in relation to what should be said to them. No man, by his own wisdom, understands the wants of his fellow creatures in all respects, but the Spirit of the Most High understands the circumstances of all the people, and that spirit, having all power and wisdom, is capable of moving upon the hearts of His servants to speak in the very moment what is most adapted to the condition of the people.

I listened with great interest this forenoon to the many subjects which were briefly touched upon by Elders Woodruff and Smith, one of which, in a particular manner, seemed to rest with considerable bearing upon my mind: that was the condition of mankind in a future state, and the principalities, powers, glories, dominions, and exaltations that will be enjoyed by the true Saints. This is a subject of special interest to the Latter-day Saints, and we should look forward with feelings of great joy in anticipation of the future, and we should understand what is necessary for us to do in this short life, to secure the great blessings promised to the faithful hereafter. Jesus, in the passage I have read, has informed the world that there are many mansions in his Father’s house. This, however, was not spoken especially to the world, but to the Apostles and Disciples who were gathered around him. The Father’s house! There is a great deal comprehended in these words. Where is it, and what kind of a house may we conclude it to be? Are we to understand by the term house, used in this passage, small buildings such as are erected for our residence, here on earth, and if not, what are we to understand? I understand that God is a Being who, as the Scriptures declare, inhabits eternity. Eternity is His dwelling place, and in this eternity are vast numbers of worlds—creations formed by His mighty hands; con– sequently when we speak of the Father’s house we are to understand it in the Scriptural sense, in the idea that is conveyed by many of the inspired writers. It is declared in many places that eternity is His habitation. He is not the God of one little world like ours; He is not a Being who presides over a few isolated worlds in one part of eternity, and all the rest left to go at random; He is not confined to the worlds that are made, comparatively speaking, today; but all worlds, past, present, and future, from eternity to eternity, may be considered His dominions, and His places of residence, and He is omnipresent. Not personally; this would be impossible, for a person can only be in one place at the same instant, whether he be an immortal or a mortal personage; whether he be high, exalted, and filled with all power, wisdom, glory, and greatness, or poor, ignorant, and humble. So far as the materials are concerned, a personage can only occupy one place at the same moment. That is a self-evident truth, one that cannot be controverted. When we speak, therefore, of God being omnipresent we do not mean that His person is omnipresent, we mean that His wisdom, power, glory, greatness, goodness, and all the characteristics of His eternal attributes are manifested and spread abroad throughout all the creations that He has made. He is there by His influence—by His power and wisdom—by His outstretched arm; He, by His authority, occupies the immensity of space. But when we come to His glorious personage, that has a dwelling place—a particular location; but where this location is, is not revealed. Suffice it to say that God is not confined in His personal character to one location. He goes and comes; He visits the various departments of His dominions, gives them counsel and instruction, and presides over them according to His own will and pleasure.

But if eternity is His house, habitation, or residence, what are the mansions referred to by our Savior, mentioned in the text? I understand them to be places that the Creator has constructed like this present world of ours; for this world, in its future history and progress, will no doubt become one of the mansions of the Father, wherein His glory will be made manifest as it is in many other redeemed worlds. I consider that this idea of mansions has reference more especially to celestial mansions, or worlds that have been redeemed and made celestial. God has formed more worlds than can possibly be enumerated or numbered by man. If it were possible for man to count the particles of this little earth of ours; if he were able to enumerate the figures that would express these particles, it would scarcely be a beginning to the number of the mansions which God has made in the eternal ages that have passed—mansions that were made, first temporal and afterwards redeemed and made eternal. Mansions, no doubt, constructed somewhat similar to the one we now inhabit; and in the eternal progression of worlds they rise upwards and still upwards until they are glorified and are crowned with the presence of Him who made them, and become eternal in their duration, the same as our earth will eventually become. We know, according to the declaration of the Scriptures, that our earth was made some few thousands years ago. How long the progress of formation lasted we do not know. It is called in the Scriptures six days; but we do not know the meaning of the scriptural term day. It evidently does not mean such days as we are now ac– quainted with—days governed by the rotation of the earth on its axis, and by the shining of the great central luminary of our solar system. A day of twenty-four hours is not the kind of day referred to in the scriptural account of the creation; the word days, in the Scriptures, seems oftentimes to refer to some indefinite period of time. The Lord, in speaking to Adam in the garden, says, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;” yet he did not die within twenty-four hours after he had eaten the forbidden fruit, but he lived to be almost a thousand years old, from which we learn that the word day, in this passage, had no reference to days of the same duration as ours. Again, it is written, in the second chapter of Genesis, “In the day that He created the heavens and the earth;” not six days, but, “in the day” that, he did it, incorporating all the six days into one, and calling that period “the day” that He created the heavens and the earth.

When this world was formed, no doubt, it was a very beautiful creation, for God is not the author of anything imperfect. If we have imperfections in our world God has had nothing to do with their introduction or origin, man has brought them upon himself and upon the earth he inhabits. But however long or short may have been the period of the construction of this earth, we find that some six thousand years ago it seems to have been formed, something after the fashion and in the manner in which it now exists, with the exception of the imperfections, evils, and curses that exist on the face of it. Six thousand years, according to the best idea that we have of chronology, are now about completed; we are living almost on the eve of the last of the six millenniums—a thousand years are called a millennium—and tomorrow, we may say, will be the seventh; that is the seventh period, the seventh age or seventh time; or we can call it a day—the seventh day, the great day of rest wherein our globe will rest from all wickedness, when there will be no sin or transgression upon the whole face of it, the curses that have been brought upon it being removed, and all things being restored as they were before the Fall. The earth will then become beautified, not fully glorified, not fully redeemed, but it will be sanctified, and purified, and prepared for the reign of our Savior, whose death and sufferings we have this afternoon commemorated. He will come and personally reign upon it, as one of the mansions of his Father; and after the thousand years have passed away, and wickedness is permitted again, for a short season, to corrupt the face of the earth, then will come the final change which our earth, or this mansion of our Father, will undergo. A change which will be wrought, not by a flood of waters, or baptism, as in the days of Noah, cleansing it then from all its sins; but by a baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, which will sanctify and purify the very elements themselves. After the seventh millennium has passed away the elements will be cleansed, or in other words, they will be resolved into their original condition—as they were before they were brought together in the formation of this globe. Hence John says, in the 20th chapter of Revelation: “I saw a great white throne and Him that sat thereon, from before whose face the heavens and the earth fled away, and there was no place found for them.”

Now, this fleeing away of the literal heavens, and of the earth on which we dwell with all it contains, will be similar to the destruction or death of our natural bodies. We might say, with great propriety, when a man is martyred or burned at the stake, his body has fled away, its present organization is dissolved, and its elements are resolved into their original condition, and perhaps united with and dispersed among many other elements of our globe; but in the resurrection these elements are brought together again and the body reorganized, not into a temporal or mortal tabernacle, but into an eternal house or abiding place for the spirit of man. So the earth will pass away, and its elements be dispersed in space; but, by the power of that Almighty Creator who organized it in the beginning, it will be renewed, and those elements which now enter into the composition of our globe, will again enter into the composition of the new heavens and the new earth, for, says the Prophet John, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had fled away.”

He then beheld two cities, as is recorded in the 21st chapter of Revelation, descending from God out of heaven. The first one is called the New Jerusalem. The description of this city is not given in this chapter; we have no information regarding its size, or the number of its gates, and the height of the walls; all that we know is that John saw it descend out of heaven. Afterwards he was taken off into a high mountain and saw a second city descend out of heaven. A description of this, called the “Holy City,” is given. The number of the gates, the height of the walls, the nature of the houses, the streets, and the glory of the city are plainly given in the revelation. But when the first city, called the New Jerusalem, descended, he heard a voice say, “Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, henceforth there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, for the former things have passed away and all things are made new.” This will be the final transformation of this earth, and when that is effected it will become one of the mansions of our Father. It will be redeemed, or, we might say resurrected after it passes away. That renewed state will be eternal, it will never be changed; and it will be the eternal residence of those disciples to whom Jesus was addressing the words of the text.

Where will Jesus be? What is the particular creation assigned to him? I answer that our globe will become the abiding place of all the Saints from the days of Father Adam until the time that it passes away and is renewed again and becomes glorified, after which the tabernacle of God will be with men, and he will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and this creation from that time henceforth and forever will be free from sorrow; and from that period to all the ages of eternity there will be no more death, for death will be swallowed up in victory. The curse that came by the Fall will be entirely removed, and God, Himself, will light up the world with His glory, making of it a body more brilliant than the sun that shines in yonder heavens.

Some may inquire, “Do you think the sun is a glorified world?” Yes, in one sense. It is not yet fully glorified, redeemed, clothed with celestial power, and crowned with the presence of the Father in all the fullness and beauty of a celestial mansion, because it is still subject to change more or less. If it were fully glorified; if it had passed through its temporal existence and had been redeemed, glorified, and made celestial, and had become the eternal abiding place of celestial and glorified beings, it would be far more glorious than our eyes could behold, the eyes of mortality could not endure the light thereof. We can endure and rejoice in its present light and glory. It gives light and heat to the surrounding worlds, and thus renders them fit habitations for intelligent human beings. But were it glorified, as it will be hereafter, and as our earth will be, men such as we are, clothed with mortality, would be overpowered, we could not stand in the presence of its glory without being consumed. This earth, therefore, is destined to become one of the heavenly mansions.

And now, with regard to its being the place of the habitation of the Saints forever and ever, let me quote some proofs in relation to it from the Scriptures. Jesus, in his great and beautiful sermon on the mount, has told us of the blessings that should rest on his people, among which he says, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” This certainly could not have had reference to this temporal existence, for look at the meek who lived on the earth in the first ages of Christianity. Did they inherit the earth? No. What was their destiny? To wander about in sheepskins and goatskins, dwelling in the dens and caves of the earth, not being counted worthy by the wicked to receive an inheritance with them, yet Jesus said, “They shall inherit the earth.” When? If they do not inherit it before death they must after the resurrection. In proof that they will inherit it after the resurrection, let me refer you to the testimony of John, recorded in the fifth chapter of Revelation. John saw a great company of Saints in the presence of God the Father, and except those who were resurrected at the time of the resurrection of Christ, they were the spirits of men. They were singing a beautiful song, the purport of which was emigration. They had it in view to emigrate from their present home or location in the celestial paradise to some other place, and their song reads something like this: “Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and by thy blood hast redeemed us from all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.” This is the place of their future residence, and they rejoiced much in the anticipation of returning to their mother earth, the place of their nativity; they rejoiced exceedingly at the prospect of getting back again to their old homestead. They were absent a little season because of the wickedness that covered the earth, they were absent a little season because death overpowered their mortal tabernacles. The Fall had brought them down to the grave, but they rejoiced that the grave would no longer hold its captives. These spirits from all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples were rejoicing in the great day when they should receive their resurrected bodies and return again to their old homestead—the earth, to receive their kingdoms, thrones, and dominions. “We shall reign on the earth!” Not come to be persecuted and driven about as the meek always have been when the wicked have had power; not come to be scattered, peeled, and driven, as the ancient Saints were; not to be sawn asunder, beheaded, persecuted, and buffeted, as the servants and Saints of God have always been; but they will come here to reign: “Thou hast made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign on the earth.” The period during which they were to reign, as mentioned in the 20th chapter of Revelation, was one thousand years, and this was the introduction to their eternal reign. “Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection,” for on such the second death can have no power, and all such shall be priests to God and to Christ, and they shall reign with Him a thousand years. In their song they did not stretch forth to that eternal reign on the earth which will commence after the one thousand years have ended and the earth has passed away and been renewed. That was too glorious a theme to be recorded by John and for the inhabitants of the earth in their corrupt and fallen state to become acquainted with. If they rejoiced with such exceeding great joy in the prospect of returning to reign only for a thousand years, before the earth was fully redeemed, glorified, and made new, how much greater would be their joy, and how much more glorious would be the song, if they could see themselves made kings and priests to God, and knew they were about to commence a reign on the earth which would endure throughout the countless ages of eternity.

To prove that mankind, when they come out of their graves, will come into possession of the earth, let me quote a very familiar passage from the 37th chapter of Ezekiel. Ezekiel lived in the midst of a people who had apostatized in a great measure from the religion of their fathers, and who began to think that their hope was lost, and that they were cut off from inheriting the promises made to their fathers, because they saw that their fathers for many generations were dead and gone, and neither they nor their seed had come into possession of the Promised Land, according to the prediction made in the days of Abraham and Jacob. You recollect that the Lord promised Abraham and Jacob that they should have the land of Palestine for an everlasting possession. Not only their seed, but they themselves, Abraham and Jacob, were to inherit it everlastingly. Well might the Jews, when considering these promises, and looking upon the bones of Jacob and their old forefathers, who were righteous men, bleaching, as it were, in their sepulchers, be ready to find fault and say: “Our bones are dried, our hope is lost, the promise is not fulfilled, and we are cut off from our portion—that is the promised land given to us for an everlasting inheritance.” The Lord, to do away with such wicked and erroneous notions which were prevalent among the apostates of Israel, carried Ezekiel into the midst of a valley full of bones, and then told him to prophesy unto those bones and to say unto them: “O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord unto these bones: Behold I will bring up flesh and sinews upon you and will cover you with skin,” etc. And Ezekiel prophesied as he was commanded, and as he prophesied there was a great noise and a shaking and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And while he was examining these numerous skeletons, without either flesh, sinews, or skin, “Lo, the sinews and flesh came upon them and the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them.” Then the Lord said unto the Prophet: “Prophesy unto the wind, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”

Now, if we were to go to uninspired men and ask them the meaning of this, they would say it was the conversion of sinners to newness of life; but the Lord had another interpretation, which you will find in the following verse: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel,” including the old patriarchs, including their forefathers for many generations. The people in Ezekiel’s day said, “Our bones and the bones of our fathers are dry, and our hope is lost, for we are not brought into the inheritance of the land of Palestine, etc.,” but the Lord, by this parable of the valley of dry bones, wished to do away with this lack of faith among Israel, and His interpretation of it was this: “Behold, I will open your graves and I will bring you up out of your graves, and will bring you into the land of Israel.” Notice now, the Lord did not say He would take them off to some unknown region in the immensity of space, according to the notions of some of our modern poets, who look forward to a heavenly place beyond the bounds of time and space. When a boy I used frequently to attend the Methodist meetings, though I never joined any religious society; but I recollect a very beautiful hymn they used to sing about being wafted away to a heaven of some kind. I will repeat two or three lines of the hymn:

“Beyond the bounds of time and space, Look forward to that heavenly place, The Saints’ secure abode.”

I did not, at that early period of my life, see the inconsistency of this, and being very much charmed with the beautiful tune, I thought, of course, that the words were all right, until I, in after years, reflected upon the subject, and began to understand about the future residence of the Saints. I then could not understand the description of the heaven they sang about, I could not comprehend how any place could be located outside the bounds of space, which is illimitable, and has no bounds, consequently I concluded that it was merely the poet’s flight, and that it was not a scriptural doctrine, for when I came to the Scriptures, I found that the heavenly place spoken of by the ancient prophets that we are to look forward to is in our land, if we can find where that is. There are a great many people, though, who will not have any land, for the Lord never gave them any. A great many generations have lived without securing any land except by human laws, that the Lord never had anything particular to do with, and only permitted for the good order of society. But all human laws must perish when the Lord comes, for then the world will be governed by divine laws, and blessed are the people who have secured their landed estates from the Great Creator, who owns the earth, having created it by His own power, and who can give it to whomsoever He will. He gave to the righteous among the house of Israel the land of Palestine and the regions round about, and He says: “Behold I will open your graves and bring you into your own land, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” When the Lord has brought them out of their graves and has placed them in the land which He gave to their fathers they will fully comprehend that He will fulfil His promise. I would like to dwell on this subject further, and in doing so to refer you to the 37th Psalm, and to many sayings of the Lord to Moses about inheriting the earth forever, and so on; but we will pass by that to some other things that are on my mind.

We heard this forenoon that, when the Saints come into the possession of their everlasting inheritance and are exalted as glorified and eternal beings, to the increase of their posterity there would be no end. “No end!” What does that mean? It means that it will be eternal—that there never will be a period throughout all the future ages of eternity, but what they will be increasing and multiplying, until their seed are more numerous than the dust of the earth or the stars of heaven. They will multiply throughout all the ages of eternity, and the earth will be their headquarters. There is another principle connected with this. “What is it,” inquires one? They will not only people worlds, but they will create them. There is room enough to accomplish this when we consider that space is boundless. There is no end to the worlds that might be formed, for the materials existing in space from which to form them are infinite in quantity, and consequently can never be exhausted; for that which is infinite can, by no process whatever, be exhausted, no matter how many millions or myriads of creations may be formed out of it; and, consequently, though millions and millions, through their observance of the higher law that pertains to exaltation and glory, should be counted worthy to receive this earth as their everlasting inheritance; and should these millions and millions multiply their seed until they are as the sands on the seashore for multitude, yet there is room in boundless space for new creations and materials enough for the creation of new worlds, and for this innumerable offspring to spread forth and people them. Certainly they could not all dwell here: the earth would be overrun by them after awhile, but this would be one of the heavenly mansions, and their headquarters. And here comes in another doctrine. This forenoon you heard many of the principles and doctrines touched upon wherein this people differ from the outside world. I will now briefly call your attention to one.

We believe that we are the children of our parents in heaven. I do not mean our tabernacles, but our spirits. That being that dwells in my taber– nacle, and those beings that dwell in yours; the beings who are intelligent and possess, in embryo, all the attributes of our Father in heaven; the beings that reside in these earthly houses, they are the children of our Father who is in heaven. He begat us before the foundations of this earth were laid and before the morning stars sang together or the sons of God shouted for joy when the cornerstones of the earth were laid, as is written in the sayings of the patriarch Job. In the midst of all the patriarch’s trials the question was put to him: “Job, where wast thou when I laid the cornerstones of the earth, when the morning stars sang together for joy?” Job did not pretend to answer the question, but left it for the Lord. But the question was highly suggestive of a pre-existence, and of the fact that Job existed before Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden. Not his body, but the living being who inhabits the body, who thinks and reasons, and moves the body by his will, and that lives when the body is moldering in the dust; that being or those beings who shouted together when the cornerstones of the earth were laid. Why did they rejoice and shout together for joy when the cornerstones, or rather, when the nucleus was formed around which the materials of this globe were gathered together? Because, being intelligent, and knowing the path that led to immortality and exaltation, they saw a prospect before them of walking therein. But the point to which I wish to direct your attention now is a fact of a pre-existence—a principle believed in by this people, and which is new to them and the world generally; but it is not new, for it was taught in ancient times, and is a scriptural doctrine. Solomon says when the body is laid down the spirit will return to God who gave it. Now would there be any sense in that doctrine if we had never been there before? Could I say I will return to China, when I have never been to China. No, the word “return” would not correctly express the idea. If the spirit returns to God, it has been there before, and we are only strangers here, having been sent forth from our Father’s house to one of His mansions in its imperfect state. What for? To try us and give us experience, to place us in a school in which we may learn some things that we never could have learned if we had stayed at home, where we were at the time this earth was formed. By and by we will return home again. There is something comforting in the anticipation of returning home when we have been away for a long time; but if we never had been in heaven, in our Father’s house; if we never had associated with the heavenly throng and had never beheld our Father’s face we could not realize the feelings we now realize when we reflect that we are going back to where we once dwelt. Happy thought, to think that the memory, now clogged so that we cannot pierce the veil and discern what took place in our first estate, will by and by be quickened again and that we will wake up to the realities of our past existence. When a man goes to sleep at night he forgets the doings of the day. Sometimes a partial glimpse of them will disturb his slumbers; but sleep as a general thing, and especially sound sleep, throws out of the memory everything pertaining to the past; but when we awake in the morning, with that wakefulness returns a vivid recollection of our past history and doings. So it will be when we come up into the presence of our Father and God in the mansion whence we emigrated to this world. When we get there we will behold the face of our Father, the face of our mother, for we were begotten there the same as we are begotten by our fathers and mothers here, and hence our spirits are the children of God, legally and lawfully, in the same sense that we are the children of our parents here in this world. We are so called in the scriptures. It is written in the epistle of James: “Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father of our spirits?” Again, we read that Jesus was with the Father from before the foundation of the world; and in his last prayer he prayed that he might be restored to that glory which he had with the Father before the world was.

Now, who is Jesus? He is only our brother, but happens to be the firstborn. What, the firstborn in the flesh? O no, there were millions and millions born in the flesh before he was. Then how is he the firstborn? Because he is the eldest—the first one born of the whole family of spirits and therefore he is our elder brother. But why these spirits came to inherit mortal tabernacles is a question worthy of consideration. This world is full of sin, sorrow, affliction, and death, and mankind see nothing, as it were, but mourning and sorrow, from their birth until they go down to the grave; then why send these heavenly spirits to dwell in mortal tabernacles, corrupt, fallen, and degraded as we are in this world? It is to learn, as I have already said, certain lessons that we never could learn up in yonder mansions. Learn to understand by experience many things pertaining to the flesh that we never could learn there, that when we should be redeemed by the blood and atonement of our elder brother, the firstborn of every creature, and brought back into the mansions whence we emigrated we might appreciate that redemption, and understand and comprehend it by experience and not by precept alone. We might bring up many arguments with regard to experimental knowledge. Who that is born blind can know by experience, or in any other way, the nature of light? No one. You might tell the blind man, who never saw the first glimmer of light about its beauties, you might speak of its various hues and colors, and of the benefit of being able to see, but what could you make him understand? He would not know light from anything else, and when you had talked to him for a hundred years about the beauty of light, he would not have a comprehension of it. Why? For the want of experience; he must experience the sense of sight or he cannot understand its worth. When his eyes are opened and the light beams forth upon the optic nerve it creates a new experience, by calling into play a new sense, and he learns something he did not before comprehend. He could not learn it by being taught. So in regard to coming from yonder heavenly creations to this world. We learn by our experience many lessons we never could have learned except we were tabernacled in the flesh.

But another and still greater object the Lord had in view in sending us down from yonder world to this is, that we might be redeemed in due time, by keeping the celestial law, and have our tabernacles restored to us in all the beauty of immortality. Then we will be able to multiply and extend forth our posterity and the increase of our dominion without end. Can spirits do this? No, they remain single. There are no marriages among spirits, no coupling together of the males and females among them; but when they rise from the grave, after being tabernacled in mortal bodies, they have all the functions that are necessary to people worlds. As our Father and God begat us, sons and daughters, so will we rise immortal, males and females, and beget children, and, in our turn, form and create worlds, and send forth our spirit children to inherit those worlds, the same as we were sent here, and thus will the works of God continue, and not only God himself, and His Son Jesus Christ have the power of endless lives, but all of His redeemed offspring. They grow up like the parents; that is a law of nature so far as this world is concerned. Every kind of being begets its own like, and when fully matured and grown up the offspring become like the parent. So the offspring of the Almighty, who begot us, will grow up and become literally Gods, or the sons of God. Here is another doctrine wherein we differ from the world, perhaps not so much differ either, for they do sometimes believe in that passage of scripture which speaks of Gods. “If they call them Gods unto whom the word of God comes,” says Jesus, or words to that effect, “why then do you find fault with me because I make myself the Son of God?” If those prophets and inspired men, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, and others to whom the word of God came were Gods in embryo why do you find fault with the only begotten of the Father, so far as the flesh is concerned, because he makes himself the Son of God? We, then, shall become Gods, or the sons of God.

This puts me in mind of a certain vision that John the Revelator had on the Isle of Patmos. On that occasion he saw one hundred and forty-four thousand standing upon Mount Zion, singing a new and glorious song; the singers seemed to be among the most happy and glorious of those who were shown to John. They, the one hundred and forty-four thousand, had a peculiar inscription in their foreheads. What was it? It was the Father’s name. What is the Father’s name? It is God—the being we worship. If, then, the one hundred and forty-four thousand are to have the name of God inscribed on their foreheads, will it be simply a plaything, a something that has no meaning? Or will it mean that which the inscriptions specify?—that they are indeed Gods—one with the Father and one with the Son; as the Father and Son are one, and both of them called Gods, so will all His children be one with the Father and the Son, and they will be one so far as carrying out the great purposes of Jehovah is concerned. No divisions will be there, but a complete oneness; not a oneness in person but a perfect oneness in action in the creation, redemption, and glorification of worlds.

I thought I would make a few remarks on these subjects, inasmuch as they were broached this morning. You begin to understand, strangers, what the Latter-day Saints’ views are in regard to the multiplication of the human species to all ages of eternity. You begin to understand what is meant by that passage in the New Testament in the writings of Paul, that the man is not without the woman in the Lord, neither is the woman without the man. You will find it in the eleventh verse of the eleventh chapter of Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. Here is a mystery which the whole religious world perhaps have not understood. They suppose that old maids and bachelors are just as honorable in the sight of God as though they were married. It is not so according to the words of Paul. If a man be in the Lord he must not be without the woman and the woman must not be without the man. Why? Because there is an eternal union to exist in the marriage covenant between the male and female to carry out and fulfil those great purposes of which I have been speaking—namely, the peopling of the mansions of our Father in the future. And those mansions will multiply to all eternity; there will be no end to the increase of worlds, and no end to the inhabitants of those worlds; and the father of the spirits who go forth, take tabernacles, and are redeemed, will be king over his own sons and daughters in the eternal worlds, through all the ages of eternity. He will not go and rob his neighbor of his children to set up a kingdom of his own. He must have a woman in the Lord, and the woman must have a man in the Lord if they ever carry out the great and eternal purposes of which I have been speaking.

Much might be said in this connection with regard to the doctrine of plurality of wives. There is a difference between the male and the female so far as posterity is concerned. The female is so capacitated that she can only be the mother of a very limited number of children. Is man thus capacitated? Was not Jacob the patriarch of old capable of raising posterity by all his wives? He certainly was; and were not many of the ancient prophets and inspired men capable of raising twenty, forty, fifty, or a hundred children, while the females could only raise a very limited number on an average. In the resurrection, when the four wives of Jacob come out of their graves, will he divorce three of them and only keep one? Or will they all multiply and spread forth their dominions under the old patriarch while eternal ages shall last? And would a monogamist have power to fill a world with spirits sooner than a polygamist? Which would accomplish the peopling of a world quickest, provided that we admit this eternal increase, and the eternal relationship of husband and wife—after the resurrection as well as in this world? In that state they do not marry nor give in marriage. Why? Because marriage is an ordinance that has to be attended to here, and unless it is secured in this life for eternity it cannot be secured in the resurrection, for they neither marry nor are given in marriage there. They do not baptize after the resurrection, they do not confirm and administer the ordinances pertaining to this life after the resurrection. All these things have to be attended to here, then we have a claim to the blessings here and hereafter. If a man would obtain an eternal increase and eternal kingdoms without number for his posterity to inhabit, under the direction and control of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, he must secure the right to these blessings in this life. When Adam and Eve were married they were married for eternity, from the very fact that they were united together before they fell, before death entered into the world. Death was not considered in the marriage covenant. The first example of marriage on record was between two immortal beings—two beings who would have lived until now if they had not sinned, and the end of that marriage covenant would never have come; but notwithstanding this, throughout the whole Christian world, when the marriage ceremony is performed the minister stands up and says: “I pronounce you husband and wife until death does you separate;” when death separates you the marriage covenant is at an end. Can they live together after the resurrection by virtue of these covenants made by uninspired men? No. Why? Because they were only married for a certain definite period, and that was until death, when that comes the time is run out. The covenant is no longer binding. It is not legal in the sight of heaven for eternity. But when a man is united to a woman by virtue of that priesthood which has power to seal on the earth and it is sealed in heaven, their marriage covenant is not dissolved, but it will stand and be good and lawful as long as eternity endures, just like the covenant entered into by our first parents. Perhaps you may think that Brother Pratt is rather enthusiastic and fanatical in his ideas to suppose that immortal beings can multiply; but I would ask any person who has read the first and second chapters of Genesis if the command which was first given to multiply was not given to two immortal beings who had not yet fallen? If, therefore, two immortal beings, were then commanded to multiply, why should it be thought incredible that immortal beings who are raised from the grave and restored to all that which Adam and his wife possessed before the Fall, should have the power to do the same?

Then again, it oftentimes happens that a monogamist, or the man with but one wife, loses that wife; and by the Scriptures he is permitted to marry again. If he loses a second wife it is lawful for him to marry a third wife, and so on. Now if we admit the eternal covenant of marriage between the first pair—two immortal beings, and that they were commanded to multiply, then, if the same order of marriage is to be continued, and we become immortal, and all the man’s three wives who have died in succession come up out of the grave, must he divorce all but one, or will he have them all? And if he must divorce any, which must he divorce, and which must he claim? Does not everything that is consistent and reasonable, and everything that agrees with the Bible show that plurality of wives must exist after the resurrection? It does, or else there will be a breaking up of the marriage covenant.

I do not know but I ought to apolo– gize for detaining you so long; but the subject is interesting to my own mind and I trust it has been interesting to the hearers.

Discourse by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday, August 13, 1871.

I feel like bearing my testimony to the Gospel of the Son of God, and I have it upon my mind to impress on the Latter-day Saints one particular item of our faith, and that is to take a course to possess the Spirit of the Lord. According to your experience and mine you cannot understand the things of God but by the Spirit of God. If we were to examine the character of the Jews in the days of the Savior we would learn this one fact—that the people at that time were about as destitute of the Spirit of the Lord as any nation ever need be. In our day it seems that the Spirit will actually prompt people to liberal thinking, to liberal actions and to liberal government, and not to be as suppressive as they were in the days of the Jewish nation and other nations that then bore rule; although in Christendom there have been times when governments have been very oppressive, and when the people were obliged to think as they were told, and when the doctrines they believed in must be according to the precepts and teachings of priests; but the present age is more liberal. The time has come when the Lord is commencing to pour out his Spirit upon the people. According to the words of the Prophet the time is to come when the Spirit of the Lord shall be poured out upon all flesh. He says, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit.” This appears to be the commencement, and I am very thankful for it. Still, according to the experience of those who examine themselves, and the operations of the different spirits upon themselves, we learn that the power of evil is very great, and we are more given to it than to possess the Spirit of Christ. Yet the Spirit of the Lord enlightens every man that comes into the world. There is no one that lives upon the earth but what is, more or less, enlightened by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. It is said of him, that he is the light of the world. He lighteth every man that comes into the world, and every person, at times, has the light of the Spirit of truth upon him.

When we look at the conduct of the Jews and of the Romans in Jerusalem, and other nations around, among whom Jesus traveled, we find that it was very little influenced by those mighty miracles that we think, talk and preach so much about. I mean the Christian world. They cry to their hearers, “Look at the Savior, look at his acts, behold his doings! What miracles he wrought! How he suffered for us,” and so on. What did the Jews or Romans care about all this? Did they believe in him? It appears not, or but very few of them. And, as we have just been hearing, it was the same among the multitudes who followed him; although he fed them, and they saw his miracles, yet they understood nothing of the power by which his mighty works were accomplished. It was just so with the young man who was born blind, whom the Savior healed. “Who opened your eyes,” said the Scribes and Pharisees. “Why, this man who is going about preaching, who says he is the Savior, the Son of God—the king of the Jews.” The priests replied: “That is nonsense; you do not pretend to say that this man opened your eyes!” “Well, all I know about it is, that he spat on the ground and made a little mortar from the clay and anointed my eyes, and before that I was blind, but now I see.” “Well, do not believe on him, he is an impostor, he is deceiving the people;” and when we examine and understand the facts in relation to this personage whom we call the Savior of the world, there were not, strange to say, as many persons believed on him as have believed on Joseph Smith in the latter days. Not that Joseph was the Savior, but he was a prophet. As he said once, when some one asked him, “Are you the Savior?” “No, but I can tell you what I am—I am his brother.” So we can say. But Joseph was a prophet; and so we testify, declaring that we know it. But how, in the world, do you know it? Because somebody has made clay and anointed your eyes? No. The young man did not know the real character of the personage by whom his eyes were opened, nor he never would know unless the Holy Ghost—the Spirit of revelation, rested upon him to such a degree as to manifest to him that Jesus was the Christ.

This is a matter that we should well consider. Jesus fed the multitudes miraculously; he walked on the water, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and raised the dead to life, but what of all this? Did it prove that he was the Christ? I recollect once, when on my travels, hearing some divines try to prove that everybody ought to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because of the miracles he wrought. When they had argued some time I took the liberty of saying, “Gentlemen, who were they who testified of these great miracles that you speak of?” It was an Elder in Israel who was arguing with them, and trying to prove to their minds that Joseph was called of God to open up this last dispensation. They spurned every argument and ignored every Scripture that was brought forward; but yet, they said, we ought to believe on the Lord Jesus because of his great miracles. “Who were they,” said I, “who testified of these miracles? I will return you your own words. You say that this gentleman is one of Joseph Smith’s disciples, and a party concerned and has an interest in establishing the fact that he was a prophet and was called of God. If he is a party concerned, were not Peter, Paul and Jude parties concerned? And when you get the names of all who have written in the New Testament—eight in number—you find they were all interested in establishing the divinity of the Savior, they were all parties concerned and had an object in view in endeavoring to establish the fact that he was the Savior. This gentleman has told you that there are twelve men who testify that they saw the plates from which the Book of Mormon was written; they saw and handled these plates, and they witness to the world that the Book of Mormon is true. Here are twelve living men, who can be spoken to, against eight men who have been dead for about seventeen hundred years.” Well, but these great miracles, these wonderful miracles!

I do not wish to speak the least derogatory to the character of him, or whoever performed these miracles in the name of the Lord; but I mention this to show how men’s minds are wrought upon and how they look at things. In my conversation I asked those gentlemen if they believed the Bible? Yes, and they were very fervent in bringing forth the great miracles of Moses, who was called to lead the children of Israel. “Well, what did Moses do?” “Why, so and so.” “And you say that Jesus raised the dead?” “Yes.” “If you will turn to the Old Testament, you will find that a certain woman, called the witch of Endor, raised up Samuel the Prophet. Did Jesus ever raise up a prophet?” They had to acknowledge that he did not. “What greater work did Jesus do than a witch, that our fathers in Massachusetts used to hang up by the neck and burn, or make them swim across the bay, and if they went across, that was proof they were witches or wizards; and if they could not get quite across, but sank, they might possibly be innocent, but they were at the bottom of the sea. What proof have you that Jesus wrought any greater miracle than the witch of Endor—a wicked woman, who, to please wicked Saul, brought the Prophet Samuel from his grave?”

Well, now, examine the character of the Savior, and examine the characters of those who have written the Old and New Testaments; and then compare them with the character of Joseph Smith, the founder of this work—the man whom God called and to whom he gave the keys of Priesthood, and through whom he has established his Church and kingdom for the last time, and you will find that his character stands as fair as that of any man’s mentioned in the Bible. We can find no person who presents a better character to the world when the facts are known than Joseph Smith, Jun., the prophet, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, who was murdered with him.

I will come now to my text again, and will ask the Latter-day Saints, Do you know that Joseph Smith was a prophet? Yes. How do you know it? Why, father and mother says it is so; Elder such-a-one says it is so, and I believe it. They prove their doctrine by the Bible, and I am forced to believe the Bible through the traditions of the fathers; and these Elders establish the truth of their doctrines beyond all controversy from Scripture, and I cannot deny it, hence I believe Mormonism, or the Gospel.

Now, the question is, how much good will it do me to believe the Gospel on the evidence of others, without possessing the spirit of the Gospel? This is a question that I can answer very readily. There is no man or woman on the earth that will live according to the laws of God, but will possess the Spirit of God. This answers the question. But suppose we believe and we do not quite live this law. We embrace the Gospel, we gather up with the Saints, and yet we live in the neglect of our duty and beneath our privileges; we do not call upon the Father in the name of Jesus with that sincerity and earnestness necessary to bring down the revelations of the Lord upon us, and we live in this manner for days and years together; by and by something or other comes along that we do not like, we cannot understand it, we have not the spirit to understand it, and consequently we reject this and reject that; and if the Church is just right and its leaders are just right, why the individual is not right, and he turns away from the holy commandments of the Lord Jesus, and goes back to the beggarly elements of the world, like the dog to his vomit, or the sow to her wallowing in the mire.

Now, let me ask the Latter-day Saints, you who are here in this house this day, how do you know that your humble servant is really, honestly, guiding and counseling you aright, and directing the affairs of the kingdom aright? Let you be ever so true and faithful to your friends and never forsake them, never turn traitor to the Gospel which you have espoused, but live on in neglect of your duty, how do you know but I am teaching false doctrine? How do you know that I am not counseling you wrong? How do you know but I will lead you to destruction? And this is what I wish to urge upon you—live so that you can discern between the truth and error, between light and darkness, between the things of God and those not of God, for by the revelations of the Lord, and these alone, can you and I understand the things of God. When Jesus preached to the people they were destitute of the Spirit of truth, and if they believed his teachings for the moment, as soon as they went away the Spirit left them and they were again in the dark, and they did not become the disciples of Jesus. So it is now. For instance, a great many strangers come here; they see our work, they give us praise, they acknowledge our faithfulness, industry, prudence, economy and so forth. How do they know that we are preaching the Gospel? “Oh,” say they, “we do not know anything about that; we do not come here to be Mormons.” But suppose they were perfectly honest before God and sought unto him until they got the Spirit of revelation, they would be convinced that we told them the truth, or else that we did not preach that which we profess to teach, one of the two. We know all about it, but they do not. Did the people in the days of the Savior? No, they saw his miracles, but they enjoyed no more of the Spirit of truth than some of the strangers who visit us. One thing is very remarkable, and should be noticed by strangers who come here, and that is, the change that takes place in their own feelings. Let me say this to strangers, I mean those who have any regard for truth and holiness; when you are here in this house or city, and you commune with the Latter-day Saints, there is a spirit of peace, a holy reverence for truth, righteousness, goodness, mercy and virtue rests upon you; in fact, you are influenced by that spirit and influence which hover over this people; but what do many of you say when you go away? No longer ago than yesterday a reporter said to me, “While in California, judging by what I heard, I supposed you had no improvements here, you lived in dugouts, you had no schools, and that the people did not look as the people do anywhere else—quite another kind of people—neither industry, judgment nor discretion amongst them; but I am perfectly disappointed, my whole mind is revolutionized, and I see things so different to what I expected to see them, that I am really another person here.” What will he write about us? If he does as others have done, we may expect to see a batch of misrepresentations from him just as quick as he gets away and the spirit of the enemy takes possession of him. Such men cater to the world and to the ungodly priests that the world is afraid of. But I will confine this wholly to the political world. “Yes,” says the senator, or the man who wishes to be a senator, representative, governor or any officer, “if I do not cater to these priests I shall lose my election.” But I would see them further in heaven than they will get in ten thousand years before I would cater to them. Truth, honesty and uprightness in everything, and if that will not stand upon its own basis, falsehood, deception, lying to and deceiving each other certainly will not, either here or hereafter. It is the honest and honorable, or, in other words, it is truth and righteousness, that will stand the day of God Almighty. When the Lord Almighty thunders from the heavens to try the souls of the children of men they will want truth and righteousness.

But to return to my question to the Saints, “How are you going to know about the will and commands of heaven?” By the Spirit of revelation; that is the only way you can know. How do I know but what I am doing wrong? How do I know but what we will take a course for our utter ruin? I sometimes say to my brethren, “I have been your dictator for twenty-seven years—over a quarter of a century I have dictated this people; that ought to be some evidence that my course is onward and upward. But how do you know that I may not yet do wrong? How do you know but I will bring in false doctrine and teach the people lies that they may be damned? Sisters can you tell the difference? I can say this for the Latter-day Saints, and I will say it to their praise and my satisfaction, if I were to preach false doctrine here, it would not be an hour after the people got out, before it would begin to fly from one to another, and they would remark, “I do not quite like that! It does not look exactly right! What did Brother Brigham mean? That did not sound quite right, it was not exactly the thing!” All these observations would be made by the people, yes, even by the sisters. It would not sit well on the stomach, that is, on the spiritual stomach, if you think you have one. It would not sit well on the mind, for you are seeking after the things of God; you have started out for life and salvation, and with all their ignorance, wickedness and failings, the majority of this people are doing just as well as they know how; and I will defy any man to preach false doctrine without being detected; and we need not go to the Elders of Israel, the children who have been born in these mountains possess enough of the Spirit to detect it. But be careful that you do not lose it! Live so that you will know the moment the Spirit of the Almighty is grieved within you. Do you ever see such times? I do. I watch you. I see, for instance, a company of young people go and mingle, perhaps, with old people, and hear them laughing, joking, and talking nonsense and folly. By and by darkness comes—leanness of the soul; and one says, “My head don’t feel right; my heart is not right; my nerves are not right; I do not know what is the matter, but I do not enjoy myself here this evening.” Do you know what is the matter? You ought to live so that the very moment the Spirit of the Lord is grieved, stop that instantly, and turn the attention of every individual to something else that will retain the good Spirit of the Lord and give you an increase of it. This is the way to live.

Have you this experience, sisters? Yes, many of you have. We need not go to the Elders of Israel to ask them. Do you see people apostatize? Yes. Will more go? Yes, many more. It is a day of trial—a day wherein the Lord will try the hearts of the children of men; and he is taking a course now with individuals and with nations, to make them exhibit the very center of their hearts, as governments, as nations, as cities, as heads of families and as individuals, that he may reveal the secrets thereof, that they may be known to each other. Consequently you can see the necessity of every person living so as to have the Spirit of revelation.

Brother George A. Smith has been speaking about our little trials in Missouri. I do not wish to cast reflections on any person, but I do not acknowledge that I ever received persecution; my path has been so kind from the Lord I do not consider that I have suffered enough even to mention it. But when the words of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs were read by General Clark, with regard to our leaving the State or renouncing our religion, I sat close by him, although I was the very particular one they wanted to get and were inquiring for; but as kind Providence would have it they could not tell whether it was Brigham Young they were looking at or somebody else. No matter how this was done, they could not tell. But, standing close by General Clark, I heard him say, “You are the best and most orderly people in this State, and have done more to improve it in three years than we have in fifteen. You have showed us how to improve, how to raise fruit and wheat, how to make gardens, orchards and so on; and on these accounts we want you; but we have this to say to you, No more bishops, no more high councils, and as for your prophet,” and he pointed down to where Joseph lay, right in the midst of the camp, “you will never see him again.” Said I to myself, “Maybe so and maybe not; but I do not believe a word of it.” “And,” continued he, “disperse, and become as we are.” Do you want I should tell you what I thought? I do not think I will. I thought a kind of a bad thought, that is, it would be considered so by a very religious person, and especially if he was well stocked with self-righteousness; but I would as soon as not tell what I thought to those who have not much of this and are not very pious, and it was, “I will see you in hell first.” Renounce my religion? “No, sir,” said I, “it is my all, all I have on this earth. What is this world worth as it is now? Nothing. It is like a morning shadow; it is like the dew before the sun, like the grass before the scythe, or the flower before the pinching frosts of autumn. No, sir, I do not renounce my religion. I am looking beyond; my hope is beyond this vale of tears, and beyond the present life. I have another life to live, and it is eternal. The organization and intelligence God has given me are not to perish in nonentity; I have to live, and I calculate to take such a course that my life hereafter will be in a higher state of existence than the present.” Said he, “Forsake your religion, and become as we are!” I had been round the country enough to know the practice of both priest and people. On Saturday they would get together and run horses, throw up coppers to see who would treat, get pretty drunk, and perhaps get up a good sound quarrel, and then the priest would step in half drunk, and with long face and sanctimonious drawl preach on the evils of intemperance and so on. “Become as you are? God forbid,” said I. You are as low and degraded as possible, living here without schools, orchards or mills, like the brutes almost, in your little cabins! Bacon and hominy! Bacon and Indian bread, honey and milk, and they were perfectly satisfied. As I heard one of these great nobles say, on a certain occasion when at his house; we were holding a two-days’ meeting; he did not belong to the Church, but his family did. Said he, “Mr. Young, I have a great deal of property and some money, and I do not know what to do with it, I think I will go up to your place and buy.” He had a log house, all in one room, with six beds in it. Not a light of glass to light the room; and just to instruct my sisters how to cook, I will tell them something about the first meal we had there. A twelve-quart tin milk pan was set on the table, filled with beef, stacked as you see cannon balls, up to the peak or roof, in arsenals. I think there was about two ounces of butter on the table, white as cheese curd. This was in the month of August, when the fat beeves were standing around, and I do not know how many cows, sheep, oxen, horses, geese, turkeys and fowls were running round his yard; and I do not think that his pile of beef in the milk pan had a half or a quarter of an ounce of fat on it. Said they to us, “Help yourselves, lay hold and help yourselves;” and we did, to a piece of dry bread, dry beef and a little “clean” butter—we always called such butter “clean,” because it looked so white. I recollect on Sunday morning, you will excuse me for telling this anecdote, after we had sat down and had eaten a little, the lady of the house said, “Brother Young, take a piece of pie! Brother Kimball, take a piece of pie.” They had a large peach orchard, with hundreds of bushels of ripe peaches, probably not all worked up into brandy, but still they could not afford a ripe peach for a pie. The lady put a piece of pie on the plate, and I cut a little off and turned it over and looked at it, and said I, “Yes, I will taste your pie, for I never saw the like before in my life; did you, Brother Kimball?” “No, S-i-r, I n-e-v-e-r did.” There were peaches that had fallen from the trees before they were ripe, cut in two and the pits taken out, put on a piece of dough, not even the fuzz wiped off, and then another cake put over the top, nothing else inside but this, and then baked in a bake pan, or “Dutch oven,” as we used to call it. “It is peach pie, Brother Brigham; Brother Kimball, will you take a bit of pie, it is peach pie.” I never saw the like before, and there the man sat, as happy and contented as could be. And this is like Missouri, all over, as it used to be. “I do not know what to do with my means,” and yet he had not a light of glass in the place, and had to open the door to see to eat; and six beds in one room. We slept there with the family, not with the wife, but with the whole family—men, women and children. Said the owner of the place, “I declare, I think I will go and purchase some land.” I said to him, “How would it do to have this floor fixed and made comfortable?” It was made of oak boards sawed out and dried up, and you might have shoved your hand down between each one; and it was just so with the chamber, and when a person walked on it, it went “clatter,” “clatter,” “clatter.” Said I, “how would it be to have this floor planed, matched and nailed down, so that when the children walk over it it will not make so much noise? And how would it be to have a window? When the weather gets cold, it will be pretty uncomfortable to have to open the door to see to eat, knit, sew and so on?” “Well,” said he, “I declare I never thought of that;” and I do not suppose he ever had in his life. I dare not say much, so I abridged my remarks, and wound up as quickly as possible. The gentleman, I believe, continued to live there, and for anything I know, he is there still; at any rate he did not come up to the gathering place and buy property. This was the style of living there, and they wanted us to adopt it, and become as they were. “No, sir,” said I, “I am for improvement.” I guess General Clark lived in just about such a house, and I think the others did. We printed the first papers, except about two, set out the first orchards, raised the first wheat, kept almost the first schools, and made the first improvements in our pioneering, in a great measure, from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean; and here we got at last, so as to be out of the way of everybody, if possible. We thought we would get as far as we could from the face of man; we wanted to get to a strange land, like Abraham, that we might be where we should not be continually wrong with somebody or other, and have them crying, “Oh, you Mormons!” and have the priests preaching, the press printing, the drunkard swearing, and all, high and low, rich and poor, wishing these poor “Mormons” were out of the way. We got out of the way as far as we could; and if we can get out of the way any further and do any good, we are ready to get out of the way; but I think we are as far out of the way as we need to be; and we have got on the highway which has been cast up, and I think we had better stay here.

As far as our doctrines are concerned, come on my brother from the “Mother Church,” down to the last one that has come out with something new. Come on, you revivalists, what have you got? If you have anything better than we have, come up here and let us have it. Our belief and doctrine with regard to the human family is that if we know more than you, we will give our knowledge to you, then you will know as much as we; and by the time you have acquired it we will know a little more, and be ahead every time we impart knowledge. Like the teacher in the school, no matter whether he is teaching a, b, c, a-b ab, or in the higher branches, while teaching others, he or she is also increasing. While those who, in the providence of God, are the possessors of knowledge and wisdom, are dispensing them to others, they are increasing their own store. That is our principle of action. Take the poor, do not go down to the poor and the ignorant, lift them up, and give them all we have; and we go ahead and get more, and impart to the inhabitants of the earth until they are filled with wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

To my text again—

How do we know that Jesus is the Christ? By the revelations of the Spirit of God. How do we know that the Bible is true? We know that a great deal of it is true, and that in many instances the translation is incorrect. But I cannot say what a minister once said to me. I asked him if he believed the Bible, and he replied, “Yes, every word of it,” “You do not believe it all to be the word of God?” “Most assuredly I do.” Well, said I, you can beat me at believing, that’s certain. As I read the Bible it contains the words of the Father and Son, angels, good and bad, Lucifer, the devil, of wicked men and of good men, and some are lying and some—the good—are telling the truth; and if you believe it all to be the word of God you can go beyond me. I cannot believe it all to be the word of God, but I believe it as it is.

How do we know it is true? By revelation. How do we know that prophets wrote the word of the Lord? By revelation. How do we know that Joseph Smith was called of God to establish his kingdom upon the earth? By revelation. How do we know that the leaders of this people teach the truth? By revelation. How do we know the doctrine of baptism for the remission of sins to be true? It is written in the Bible; but the Christian world deny it, because it is not manifested to them by the revelations of the Lord Jesus. They have not the keys of revelation, although some believe baptism by immersion, but they do not believe it is for the remission of sins, except one society, which came out from the Close Communion Baptists, founded by Alexander Campbell. He baptized for the remission of sins. At this time I was a Methodist. Said I, “Why not lay on hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost?” “O,” said they, “we have no authority to do that, it is done away.” “How do you know that baptism for the remission of sins is not done away? Your arguments confuse themselves, and these self-confounding arguments are all chaos to me. If you have the right to baptize for the remission of sins, you have the right to lay on hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost; and if you have this power and authority, of course you have prophets, and possess the various gifts and graces recorded in the New Testament. Do you lay hands on the sick?” “Oh, no.” “Do you prophesy?” “We do not believe in it.” Most Christians disbelieve in these things, but “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” is their great point; and, so far as it goes, it is good. But unless we obey his Gospel, where God and Christ are we cannot live hereafter, but shall have to take another kingdom, live in another place and be administered to by those who are higher. What do you say, is that correct? I will just read a word or two and then stop. Here is the doctrine. I am not going to say anything about it, but will just read it. “For, for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.” First Peter, 4th chapter, 6th verse.

What does that mean? Not only in the world, but out of the world, they who expect to receive any salvation at all must hearken to the requirements of heaven, thus far, to entitle them to the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, that they may live by the revelations thereof, and walk no more in darkness, but in the light of life. I do wish that each and every one of us would do that. Are we able to do it? Certainly; it is the simplest thing in the world. Well, then, just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. “Oh,” say the Christians, “we do believe.” Well, then, come forward and be baptized for the remission of your sins, and receive the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, then you shall receive the witness, and you shall be the possessor of the Spirit of revelation according to the gifts and graces of God as he dispenses them to you—speaking in tongues, interpreting the same, prophesying, dreaming dreams, and so forth, for all these are by the selfsame Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ.

If we will live so that Christ can make us one through our obedience, where are wars and contentions? All will cease. Where is the spirit of bickering? There will be no more of it. How much pleasanter it would look, and how much better it would be for the world if these things were to cease! “Well,” say the world, “you Mormons, forsake this obnoxious doctrine and practice of having more wives than one.” For heaven’s sake, then, cease killing the men, and let them live and take the women, or you will oblige us to take more than we know what to do with. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, obey his doctrine, cease your warring and contention, beat your swords into ploughshares and your spears into pruninghooks; make railroads, build colleges, teach the children, give them the learning of the world and the things of God; elevate their minds, that they may not only understand the earth we walk upon, but the air we breathe, the water we drink, and all the elements pertaining to the earth; and then search other worlds, and become acquainted with the planetary system, the dwellings of the angels and the heavenly beings, that they may ultimately be prepared for a higher state of being, and finally be associated with them. I wish we would do it; I pray the Lord to do it, but he will not, unless we help him.

Discourse by President George A. Smith, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday, August 13, 1871.

In the providence of our Heavenly Father we are permitted once more to assemble for the purpose of partaking of the Sacrament of our Lord and Savior. It appears that on the night previous to his arrest, he gave to his disciples this ordinance. It was in a manner instituting anew the ordinance that Israel had observed from the time of leaving Egypt—namely, the feast of the Passover. When we assemble for the purpose of partaking of this ordinance it is very important for us to realize and appreciate the position which we take, for we witness to our Father who is in heaven, by the partaking of the bread and of the water, that we do remember him; and while we take the bread from the same plate we should not hold within our hearts feelings or sentiments other than what are right. To use the expression of the Savior, in the ever memorable sermon on the Mount, “When thou bringest thy gift to the altar, consider whether thy brother hath aught against thee.” Every man who receives the principles of the Gospel of peace and obeys the ordinances of initiation into the Church is under obligations to lead a straightforward, moral and upright life, to deal justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly in observance of the principles which he has received. To neglect these things, to suffer ourselves to stray from them, to become forgetful of the principles and ordinances of the Gospel, under all circumstances, should be avoided. If we love each other, as we should do, we should never be found speaking evil of each other. In almost all communities, so far as my knowledge of history extends, one of the great banes of society is a disposition to tattle, to speak evil one of another; and I have noticed that this habit has not always been forsaken by those who are called Latter-day Saints; but at times there seems to be a feeling of willingness to retail scandal. When we come to partake of the sacrament if we have injured our brother, sister or neighbor, it is our duty to make these things right, and to come wisely, prudently and conscientiously. If we harbor evil thoughts, or are the slaves of evil passions, when we stretch forth our hand to partake of the sacrament, we may be guilty, peradventure, of fulfilling that dreadful position referred to by the Apostle—“He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to his own soul.”

There are certain principles which God has revealed, by the observance of which we are entitled to his Holy Spirit; but when Latter-day Saints neglect their duties and fail to observe these principles and defile their bodies they cease to become fit temples for the Holy Spirit to dwell in, and the light that is in them becomes darkness. It seems that at the last supper Peter was so sanguine, so fully determined and set in his faith that he declared to the Savior, though he should die with him yet would he not deny him; and yet in a very few hours after, when he saw his Master seized rudely by the high priests and soldiery, and dragged away, and a crown of thorns placed upon his head, he denied him. When his Master was first taken Peter was ready to fight for him. He was like a great many Latter-day Saints I have seen—they would much rather fight for their religion than try to live it. It was so at that time with Peter. He drew his sword and was ready to cut and slay, but his Master said to him, “Put up thy sword,” and he healed the wounded servant. Peter did not understand that; it did not look like the temporal dominion he expected to see Jesus possess; and when he was accused of being one of his disciples, he answered, “I know not what thou sayest,” denying him, to whom, but a few hours before, he had expressed such strong attachment. When Peter went out, the cock crew, and then he remembered the words of Jesus, and he wept bitterly. It is said of this Apostle that when he came to the end of his earthly career, which was crucifixion by the hands of his enemies, he requested that he might be crucified with his feet upwards; because he had denied his Master he was unwilling to be put on the cross in the same position.

This weakness exists in the breasts of all human beings, more or less; all have their times of trial, and their days of temptation and suffering. We remember, in the days of our Prophet Joseph Smith, whom God sent us in these last days with the dispensation of the fullness of times, and the restoration of the Gospel and Priesthood, that many, who stood by him and professed to be his most warm and ardent friends, not only turned away at his death, but in many instances became bitter enemies. This weakness exists, and there are reasons why it exists in the human heart. For instance, God requires his children to pray; but through labor, business and care they frequently fail to fulfill the requirement either in their families or in secret, and in a little while their minds become darkened; and in consequence of this neglect the Spirit of the Lord withdraws from them, and they forget what they once knew. You let a man among the Saints indulge in any habit prohibited in the Gospel, and the same result will follow if continued. If he allow himself to take the name of the Lord in vain, and continue in it, the Spirit of the Lord will withdraw from him. If he allow himself to be guilty of dishonesty, corruption, licentiousness or anything that is prohibited in the Gospel of peace, peradventure, his mind becomes darkened. He, today, might bear testimony that he knew this to be the work of God; and he might, by neglect of duty, in time become so darkened that he would conclude he hardly did know it, and finally that he did not know it. These are the results of losing the light of the Holy Spirit, hence the exhortation that every man who partakes of the sacrament should be careful, and make it a time of reckoning—bringing our minds up to the standard and knowing that we are right.

I notice in the observance of the Word of Wisdom, a manifestation of the Holy Spirit connected with it. Whenever a person has failed to observe it, and becomes a slave to his appetite in these simple things, he gradually grows cold in his religion; hence I constantly feel to exhort my brethren and sisters, both by precept and example, to observe the Word of Wisdom. We should not be thoughtless, careless nor neglectful in the observance of its precepts. “Why, it cannot do any hurt,” says one, “to take a glass of ale!” I recollect seeing a man once in England, who said to me, “Mr. Smith, how can it be possible that it can injure a man to drink the matter of half a pint of ale?” He had had so much that he could not stand without leaning against a fence, and yet he could not see how it could injure a man to take a half pint; but if he had not taken the first half pint he could have stood as well as anybody. It may as well be said, and no doubt often is, How can it hurt a man to chew tobacco or to drink tea? It injures, because it creates a disturbance in the human organization, and that disturbance, if continued, creates an appetite to which its possessor becomes a slave, and it shortens his days; and while living his condition is such that he cannot as efficiently perform the duties devolving upon him as he otherwise could.

We have every reason to be thankful that God has preserved us from the wrath of our enemies. He has led us by the inspired hand of his servant Brigham into the valleys beyond the Rocky Mountains, in the Great Basin; and he has blessed the desert land, that with the labor and toil of twenty or twenty-four years, has become manifest in stretching forth the curtain of the habitations of Zion. We have every reason to be thankful for these blessings, for previous to that time we are all well aware that we did not taste of but very little of what might be called religious liberty; for the very moment that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized by Joseph Smith, with six members, the hand of persecution and oppression was raised to destroy it. It not only extended to scandal and abuse, but to personal violence and to a long-continued succession of vexatious lawsuits; to the tearing down of houses, daubing men with tar and feathers, and driving from place to place. I have heard the scandal brought up occasionally that the Mormons were driven from Jackson County, Missouri, for stealing horses. Now the facts of the case are that there is not, nor can be found on record in the county of Jackson, a solitary syllable in any docket or record of any court the account of any crime or charge of crime against any individual belonging to the Church of the Latter-day Saints. From the time they settled there until the expulsion, amongst them it was one straightforward scene of good behavior. The charges on which they were driven were specified, published and signed by a large number of distinguished individuals, and these were that they (the Mormons) “differ from us in religion;” and that they also “anoint the sick with holy oil,” and “They openly blaspheme the most high God, and cast contempt on his holy religion by pretending to receive revelations direct from heaven, by pretending to speak unknown tongues, by direct inspiration, and by diverse pretenses derogatory of God and religion and to the utter subversion of human reason;” “that the ‘Mormons’ tampered with the slaves,” &c. It is very true that the Mormons in Jackson County, Missouri, were not slaveholders; but the laws of the State on that subject were so very rigid that it required no mob power to enforce them; and as every office in the State, both civil and military, was held by men not “Mormons,” and especially in the county of Jackson, it is not likely that there would have been any difficulty to enforce the law. The declaration on which the mob was organized, and which was signed by clergymen and other gentlemen, was “The civil law does not afford us a guarantee against this people,” which was as much as to say, they were a law-abiding people. Well, but did you practice plurality of wives? Not at all, the principle was unknown in the Church; it had not been revealed, and every man and woman in the Church was rigidly, to all intents and purposes, strict monogamists. In 1838-9 these Latter-day Saints were expelled from the State of Missouri, and no charge of practicing polygamy existed against them; but when they were gathered together and received their grand sentence under the exterminating order of the governor of the State, they were told that if they “assembled together again and organized with bishops and presidents they should be utterly destroyed;” but they were required to leave the State and that in a very short time, which they did, leaving all their property. It is very well known that some three hundred and eighteen thousand dollars were paid by Latter-day Saints for land in the State of Missouri, and that very few if any of them, ever got a dollar for that land, and it belongs to them to this day; and when the great and glorious day shall come that the Constitution of the United States shall become absolutely the supreme law of the land, guaranteeing to all men the right of life, liberty and property, the Saints can inherit this land and live and enjoy their faith there as well as anywhere else. All these things had occurred, and the hand of persecution did not stay until, in 1844, it had slain the prophets, and, in 1845-6, had driven the people, and robbed and peeled them of the property they had accumulated in Illinois, and in 1857 the pioneers’ advanced guard, led by President Young, succeeded in making a road, and founding a colony in this valley.

In 1843 the law on celestial marriage was written, but not published, and was known only to perhaps one or two hundred persons. It was written from the dictation of Joseph Smith, by Elder William Clayton, his private secretary, who is now in this city. This revelation was published in 1852, read to a general conference, and accepted as a portion of the faith of the Church. Elder Orson Pratt went to Washington and there published a work called the “Seer,” in which this revelation was printed, and a series of articles showing forth the law of God in relation to marriage. From that time to the present the power of the enemies of the Latter-day Saints to persecute them seems to have been broken; for since then we have never been compelled to forsake our inheritances. The press and the pulpit have, of course, been called into requisition more or less, and a great amount of lies and scandal has been published, and politicians have endeavored to make capital and money out of exterminating the “Mormons,” and fortunes out of “Mormon” blood, and more or less difficulty has occurred; but during that period the Saints have been able to proceed along with their work. They have laid out a hundred and fifty towns and cities, and have built them up to a greater or less extent, extending their settlements five hundred miles through this great desert. They have also been able to hold in check the savage tribes of Indians and to gain influence over them; and with a few interruptions, arising from the reckless character and conduct of transients, have been enabled to maintain towards them a peace hitherto unknown in any State or Territory in the midst of an Indian population.

It required faith and energy to settle in such a country. For the first three years after the settlement commenced hardly any person dared to eat as much food as his appetite craved; so scarce were provisions that it was necessary to economize and eke out every little supply to its greatest possible extent. A great many became discouraged and disheartened, having the idea that the country could never be reclaimed; many went away, but generally returned after awhile, quite surprised at the progress made during their absence. Our visitors look at our city and say, “What a beautiful place! how did you find so lovely a place?” I can answer. When we reached here it was a naked sage plain, bearing very little sage, the land being too poor; but industry and a wise and careful application of the water to the soil has produced the vegetation here to be seen. For a while after we came here we could occasionally hear of rejoicing from pulpit and press that “Joseph Smith, the arch-impostor,” as they called him, was dead, and that the “Mormons” were driven into the wilderness, where they would all perish, and they should never hear anything more about them. Yet it only took a few years for them to discover that this people were yet alive, and that they were living in the exercise of their faith, and making themselves felt, known, realized and understood in the world. Now, inasmuch as God has thus blessed us and extended to us so many great privileges, it is very important that we should abide in the faith wherein Christ has made us free, and live in the exercise of that religion, and not by any means suffer ourselves to fall into snares, temptation, wickedness or evil. We have every reason to be thankful to our Heavenly Father for his many blessings.

Our organization as a church differs widely from almost every other. For instance, almost every denomination has, in its organization, a plan for the support of a minister—a salaried gentleman. When we commenced to preach the Gospel to the world without purse or scrip, without money or price, these ministers were generally the first to raise the hue and cry, to tar and feather, and throw rotten eggs at us; to drive us from our homes and tear down our habitations; and in every mob, from the commencement to the close of the persecutions, were to be found men professing to be ministers of the Gospel; and although the denominations to which they belonged might not be disposed to persecute, yet they disgraced them by taking part in such proceedings. It is said that the men who slew the Savior believed they did God service, and it is probable that the ministers, professors of religion and others, who, with blackened faces, surrounded Carthage jail and murdered, in cold blood, the Prophet and Patriarch of the Church, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, thought they also were doing God service, although they were guilty of the most brutal and disgraceful murders ever perpetrated on the earth.

There is one thing very peculiar in relation to us. I have noticed it from the fact that I have been a student, to some extent, of the history of the Puritan fathers who settled in New England. It is very well known that they escaped from tyranny in their mother country; they were oppressed there in their religious faith. Their views were of a different kind to those of the established church; and it was in consequence of oppression of this kind that they sought a home in the wilds of America; and in almost every instance, as soon as they had established a home, they commenced making rules and proscribing everybody who differed in opinion with themselves. You will notice this, especially if you read the early history of Massachusetts. The colonists of that State were very stringent in particular items of faith and practice. I have always felt a little proud of the noble heart of my fourth great-grandfather Zaccheus Gould, because he actually had the courage to keep the Quakers at his farm the very night after they had been proscribed by the colonial government and expelled from Salem, and for this and supplying them with the common necessaries of life and then allowing them to proceed on their way in the morning, he was fined and compelled to stand up in the church, and hear his confession read. But I am proud of the feelings and sentiments of the man that, although a Puritan, he had so much humanity in him.

I notice, in looking over the history of New England, that our Puritan fathers lacked an understanding of the power of principle. If a man preached a sermon that did not please them he must leave the colony; he could not retire to his farm, lot or inheritance, and there attend to his own business; no, they would frequently tear down his house, put him aboard a ship and send him away. Numbers of instances of this kind are on record; and the sect most noted for its principle of nonresistance to all men—the Quakers, were whipped and tarred and feathered, and some of them put to death; and numbers of them were expelled from the colony, and that, too, by men who, we cannot doubt, believed in their own hearts, that they acted from good motives. They did these things from a determination that they would cleanse the people. Still, after awhile, this feeling wore away.

I notice, from the very commencement of our settlement of these valleys that there never has been a law enacted or regulation made but what would affect the interests of all societies and denominations alike. There have been no special acts on this account. As a matter of course, persons have been cut off the Church, but their civil rights, and their privileges under the laws have not been in anyway abridged. Had our fathers, in New England, simply disfellowshipped Mr. Williams as a member of their church, and allowed him to baptize people by immersion if he choose, it would have been an entirely different thing from compelling him to leave the colony.

This spirit of intolerance is yielding to the march of enlightenment, in our own age and day, but still we as a people have suffered severely from its effects, for that alone compelled us to seek a home in these deserts. But it is gratifying to reflect that we have not nourished that spirit of persecution in our hearts, for from the time that emigrants commenced passing this way up to the present, ministers of every denomination, men of repute among their own people, have been called upon and invited, and, whenever they have desired it, have had the privilege of preaching to our congregations, and have held meetings and organized churches in our cities without interruption. These facts are before the world. There are scores of ministers who have spoken in this stand, many of whom have declared to the public that they never spoke to so large an audience and never expected to speak in so large a house in their lives; but when a Latter-day Saint Elder has called upon them and asked for the privilege of preaching, their answer has been in effect, “Why, no; I have a right to preach in a heathen temple, but I cannot open my temple to a heathen!” Such men dare not trust their congregations to hear the truth, or peradventure, to hear error. We have had here some of the most eloquent preachers, I believe, of the present age; and we were delighted that they should display their eloquence in our midst. And if they have anything better than we have we want it; and we think it is quite right for the younger portions of our community, who have not had the privilege of hearing the religions of the day preached in the world, to hear them here; and the more of it the better, if they desire it. But the elder portion of those who profess our faith have generally belonged to or been associated with different religious denominations; for as our Elders have preached abroad they have gathered from every bundle and of every kind; and that portion of our people are as thoroughly acquainted with all the religions and the religious tenets taught at the present day as any people can be. But it is not so with the younger members of our Church, hence when we had a Methodist camp meeting here, President Young and the Elders gave an invitation to all the people, and especially to the young, to go and hear the teachings there given. That was the reason they had such immense congregations. The camp meeting did not attract the miners; they cared nothing about it; they had seen and known and learned all they wished about them long ago. They did not come here to hunt Methodism, but silver and gold. But our people turned out, especially in the evenings, by thousands, and heard them speak and formed their own opinions. I have been at camp meetings in my boyhood, and I did not think the one held here a fair specimen—not what a camp meeting used to be thirty-five years ago.

If a faith will not bear to be investigated; if its preachers and professors are afraid to have it examined, their foundation must be very weak. Those who come into the Church of Latter-day Saints, if they are faithful, learn in a short time, and know for themselves. The Holy Spirit and the light of eternal truth rest down upon them, and you will hear them, here and there, testify that they know of the doctrine, that they are acquainted with and understand it for themselves.

There has been a great howl from the pulpit and the press calling upon the government of the United States to exert its power to suppress a practice in the faith of the Latter-day Saints. Now the fact of the case is, it is out of the power of any government or nation to regulate religion at the present age; it is a matter that must regulate itself. You may drive men from their homes, rob them of their possessions, murder their leaders deprive them of their civil and religious rights, but you cannot change their opinions by such arguments; and when men have recourse to them it only signifies that the foundation upon which their system is based is very weak, and that their only hope of enforcing their own and suppressing the views of others is by force. Shame on the low degraded feelings which prompt such measures. In every land freedom of thought and opinion and the liberty to preach and practice whatever religion you wish should be guaranteed and the only method of manifesting disapproval of the course of others in these respects should be to disfellowship them from their churches. All should have this privilege. It feels good for a man to believe as he pleases; and if you undertake to check this, do not put to death, daub with tar and feathers, or tear down the dwellings of those who differ from you. Where is the liberty, justice and uprightness of such a course? I have been through the mill a little, and understand how it feels.

For my own part, however, I believe that mankind generally are getting wiser on this subject. Our Puritan fathers never succeeded in forcing their peculiar views on others, and in time, even among themselves, everybody could say about what he pleased; or at any rate the particular points upon which there was the greatest trouble were taken away. So it will be in the present age.

It is very well understood that, by many of the people, the law of marriage is regarded as something instituted by God; and that men, in their laws and regulations on the subject, have undertaken to govern their fellows too much. Our fathers Abraham and Jacob and many of the prophets took steps in this matter, which are now denounced by a large portion of Christendom as very wrong; and yet these very persons, in their prayers and preachings, claim that they are going to “Abraham’s bosom.” I can tell any man that wishes to murder, rob and plunder, and deprive of liberty a Latter-day Saint because he believes and practices plurality of wives, that he need never expect to dwell in “Abraham’s bosom,” for Father Abraham will not cast his wives out to receive such narrow-minded men. I can further tell them that, if ever they come to the gates of the New Jerusalem, they will there find the names of the twelve sons of Jacob; and if they believe with all their hearts that Jacob and his sons, most of whom were polygamists, were wicked men, and most of the sons bastards, they had better stay outside; in fact they will not be permitted to enter. Unless they can acknowledge these twelve sons as lawful and legitimate sons, in accordance with the law of God, they will have to stay outside, and “without are dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, idolaters,” and everybody that loves and makes a lie.

May God enable us, one and all, to be truly prepared to enter through the gates into the city, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday, June 25, 1871.

As Brother Smith and myself, with others, will take our leave of this place tomorrow morning for a preaching tour through the northern settlements, we wish to say a few words. My remarks will be for all, both Saint and sinner; those who are Saints, those who wish to be, and those who wish not to be. I will read the fifth paragraph of the seventh section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. On referring to that place you will find the following words:

“And they who are not sanctified through the law which I have given unto you, even the law of Christ, must inherit another kingdom, even that of a terrestrial kingdom, or that of a telestial kingdom. For he who is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom, cannot abide a celestial glory; and he who cannot abide the law of a terrestrial kingdom cannot abide a terrestrial glory; he who cannot abide the law of a telestial kingdom, cannot abide a telestial glory; therefore he is not meet for a kingdom of glory. Therefore he must abide a kingdom which is not a kingdom of glory.”

These words set forth the fact to which Jesus referred when he said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” How many I am not prepared to say; but here are three distinctly spoken of; the celestial, the highest; the terrestrial, the next below it; and the telestial, the third. If we were to take the pains to read what the Lord has said to his people in the latter days, we should find that he has made provision for all the inhabitants of the earth; every creature who desires, and who strives in the least, to overcome evil and subdue iniquity within himself or herself, and to live worthy of a glory, will possess one. But, “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” says the Savior; he has prepared places for his children; but the Saints, we who have received the fullness of the Gospel of the Son of God, or the kingdom of heaven that has come to earth, are in possession of those laws, ordinances, commandments and revelations that will prepare us, by strict obedience, to inherit the celestial kingdom, to go into the presence of the Father and the Son. While Jesus was here on the earth his followers inquired about his future dwelling place, for they all wanted to be with him. Said they, in effect, “Where thou goest, we want to go; where thou dwellest, we want to dwell;” and they said, “Where shall you live hereafter, and what will be your state and condition?” Said Jesus, in reply, “I am of the Father; I was with him before the foundations of the world were laid; I and my Father are one, we shall live together;” and he said also, “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to the lives,” (it reads in our Bible “Leadeth unto life,” but if it were translated correctly it would be, “Leadeth to the lives,”) “and few there be that find it.”

Jesus traveled and preached, worked miracles, and labored diligently by day and by night, and when he had finished how many were there to stand by him? How many were there to believe and confess him before the scribes and Pharisees? After traveling with him and seeing him feed the multitudes with a few loaves and fishes, heal the sick and open the eyes of the blind, how many friends had he when he came to the cross? How many of his disciples were there to say, We are the disciples of this man whom you are about to crucify? They stepped out of the way. Well might Jesus say, “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth to the lives, and few there be that find it.” We may say, and justly too, that the conduct of his disciples was very remarkable; for, as much as they thought of their Master, and as long as they had followed him, there was not a man to stand by him in his trying hour. It was but a few hours before that they had eaten supper with him, when, we are told, “Jesus took the bread, blessed and brake and gave to his disciples, and said, ‘Take and eat ye all of this;’ and he took the cup, saying, ‘Take this and drink ye all of it, this is my body in the New Testament and this is my blood in the New Testament.’” All this was a few hours before his crucifixion; and when his death drew near every single man, to a man, forsook him. During his trial, probably you all, even to the children, have read the story a great many times, when Peter was accused of being one of his dis– ciples by a damsel who sat or stood by, he denied it, saying, “It is not so, I am not one of his disciples;” and when a second time he was accused of being one of his disciples, he said, “No, it is not so, I firmly deny it, I am not one of his disciples.” And when a third time the same accusation was made he cursed and swore about it.

Now I make an application of this right here. As much as we think of that ancient name and character—the Savior, which age and antiquity have rendered so sacred to the Christian world that they profess to revere them, compare the course his immediate followers took, with the course taken by the followers of Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the latter days, as much as he is despised and his name ridiculed. There is scarcely any, no matter how high socially, who can speak of him with sufficient respect to call him “Mr.” or “Joseph” Smith, but they generally refer to him as “Joe” Smith; yet, much as he is scorned and despised, he had hundreds and thousands who would have gone to the death with him when he went to death, but Jesus found not a man. Joseph Smith, though he spent only fourteen years in presiding over this people, organizing the Church, proclaiming the Gospel and receiving revelations, yet had hundreds and thousands of men and women who were ready to go to the death with him.

I wish now to look at my subject a little more, and will refer to the present condition and future prospects of the inhabitants of the earth. If we had time to read we could show to you, Latter-day Saints, that the Lord is more merciful to the people than we are. He has compassion on the works of his hands, while we, through the fall, have a disposition, in common with all mankind, that is revengeful, and apt to give way to passion, wrath, malice, anger, bickering, contentions, hateful feelings and unbecoming words. All men are subject to this; but the Latter-day Saints should be above it; and I wish to caution them, and to inform them that if they expect to enter the celestial kingdom they must overcome this weakness and the wicked dispositions they have inherited through the fall; they must subdue, and become masters of them in the name of Jesus, and become compassionate to all. I have traveled a great deal in the world; and though, through the evil that is within me, it is natural for me to contend, and if I am opposed to oppose in return, and if a sharp word is spoken to me to give a sharp word back, I have done so but rarely. It is wrong, and we must subdue the inclination.

It has been mentioned here about the Saints leaving their homes and being persecuted. They may be again for aught I know; and if in the providence of God it is permitted to chasten us for our wickedness and for yielding to sin, I hope we shall be able to bear it patiently; but if the Latter-day Saints will live their religion and exercise faith in the name of Jesus, they will be able to overcome every besetting sin within themselves; and then we shall be able to overcome every foe without, and we will live and outlive all the slander, falsehood and prejudice now heaped mountain high against and around us by many individuals in the nations. We will live it down, live it into oblivion. But shall we turn away from the holy commandments of the Lord and join hands with the wicked and ungodly to make our faith popular? No, God forbid. I am happy in believing, in knowing and in proclaiming, that the Lord Almighty has so organized his king– dom on the earth and he so rules it that no man will have the privilege of coming into and abiding in it, and receiving a fullness of its blessings through covetousness, selfishness or any spirit of idolatry. In the contemplation of this I rejoice, and I am exceedingly glad that the Lord has so ordered it that no man can be saved in his sins and in his iniquity. All will have to come to the Lord and be sanctified through the grace of Christ by faith in his name; without this, I am happy to say, that none can be purified, sanctified and prepared to inherit eternal glory.

Well, Latter-day Saints, will you live your religion? Sometimes I do not know about this. I see and realize so much with regard to the power of Satan on the earth, the evil propensities of mankind and the weakness of human nature, that I do not know whether the Latter-day Saints are going to abide all that will come upon them. Whip them and they will acknowledge the Lord, abuse them and they will be Saints. Have we any ensamples? We have. You take plenty of these who are around here, who have been in this Tabernacle, and some probably who are here today, and when they were in their own country, poor, distressed, with not enough to eat, scanty clothing, no house of their own to live in, not any property, not worth a chicken, and the finger of scorn pointed at them from Monday morning until Saturday night, and they would go weeping through the streets bearing precious seed, and declare that “the Gospel is true, Jesus has spoken from the heavens, the angel has flown through the midst of heaven and delivered the Gospel to the children of men, the kingdom of God is set up, the word of the Lord is within me and I am ready to declare it to the people;” and they would go weeping week after week, month after month, and year after year, in their poverty and wretchedness; but bring them here and put them in a condition to gather around them a few hundreds or thousands, and they will lift their heel against the Almighty; and when I think of this I do not know how many of the Latter-day Saints will apostatize. Let us be in a condition now, if we could step forward directly into a position in which we should be equal with our neighbors, equal with the corruptions of this world, equal with the wicked, and we should have praise and popularity. I am glad it is not so. If we could have the favor of the wicked world, and have the blessings heaped upon us and be fostered as other people, communities and territories are, probably it would lead away a great many. It is all right now. If we will bear all these things and be patient, and live our religion whether we have enough to eat or half enough; whether we have a good house to dwell in, or we live in tents, wagons, or in dens and caves, and love the Lord and delight to do his will and walk humbly before him, and overcome every passion and evil propensity, and subdue the old man within us that Christ may live within us—the new man to his glory, we will inherit celestial glory. But no person will be sanctified without the law—the law which the Lord has given, will be observed by few comparatively, when we take into account the vast numbers who have lived on the face of the earth. There is no prospect whatever of multitudes of them being sanctified by the law of Christ. What we shall do for them in the Millennium it is not for me to say altogether. We shall do a great deal, there is no question about it. It is a matter of great rejoicing, and should bring forth gratitude from the hearts of the whole world of mankind, that the Lord has promised a day of rest. The day will come when Jesus will rule King of nations, as he now does King of Saints, and this glorious rest that the Saints have been looking for for thousands and thousands of years, from the days of Adam until now, will arrive. They have been looking for the absent body, just as John the Revelator says, He saw the souls under the altar crying, “How long, O Lord?” We are waiting for the absent body, how long shall we look for it? It will come again by and by, and the spirit and the body will be reunited; but how many will be prepared to enter the celestial kingdom unless they are officiated for it is not for me to say. But if we preserve ourselves in the truth and live so that we shall be worthy of the celestial kingdom, by and by we can officiate for those who have died without law—the honest, honorable, good, truthful, virtuous and pure. By and by it will be said unto us, “Go ye forth and be baptized for them, and receive the ordinances for them;” and the hearts of the children will be turned to the fathers who have slept in their graves, and they will secure to them eternal life. This must be, lest the Lord come and smite the earth with a curse. The children will go forth and revive this law for those who have slept for thousands of years who died without the law. Jesus will prepare a way to bring them up into his presence. But were it not for the few who will be prepared here on the earth to officiate when the Lord shall come to reign King of nations, what would be the condition of the world? They would sleep and sleep on; but the way is prepared for their redemption.

Now, those who cannot abide the law of the celestial kingdom cannot abide the glory of a celestial kingdom. All Christians are looking for celestial glory, but can they abide it? They cannot; it would consume them, for “our God is a consuming fire.” They think they could abide a celestial kingdom; but they could not. They will have to abide another kingdom and another glory, according to the lives they lead and the knowledge they possess here. When we look at it, we should have compassion and we should be charitable. I want to say: a great many priests have been here and I have spoken before them; if there be any here today I say to them and to every priest on the face of the earth, I do not care whether they be Christian, Pagan or Mahommedan, you should live according to the best light you have; and if you do you will receive all the glory you ever anticipated. We should not be prejudiced against you in the least; even if you are against us and declare falsehoods about us we should not retaliate. But how prone we are to rebuke if we are rebuked, or if we receive a sharp word to return one. The Latter-day Saints have to overcome this; and the world may cry out and say all manner of evil against us, but, my brethren and sisters, let us so live that it will be said falsely. If we do this, happy are we; but if truthful, woe be to the Latter-day Saints! Let all evil spoken of the people called Latter-day Saints be falsely spoken, as some that I heard a week tonight. Shall I mention it? How quickly “old Adam” rose within me, when the gentleman speaking pointed his finger, and said, “You murderers!” And I thought, “Will you not prove it?” I did not say a word; I thought about it a minute, and concluded that it was not worth noticing. He did not say you “Latter-day Saints,” but his congregation was mainly composed of Latter-day Saints, and said he, “You murderers!” Could he prove this? No, no, he could not. Could any man prove it? Not that man that lives on the face of the earth; it cannot be proved. Why? Because the Saints are free and clear from the crime, that is the reason. Let the evil they speak of us be just as false as that was when they were going to bring us all to judgment!

I believe I will venture to say a little further. The gentleman said all would be brought to judgment, and said he, “You who have two wives will be there!” I thought to myself, “Glory, alleluia, we shall be along with you father Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and with Moses and the prophets.” I do not wish to say one word to cast a reflection whatever; but pity, pity! Open the Bible and read from Genesis to Revelation, and the whole amount of the Christian religion, and all that they can teach and tell is, “Come to Christ, come to Christ!” Why, certainly, that is right. Come to Christ, and with it forsake our sins, and when we do this, keep the commandments of Christ and fulfill the law just as he did. Said he, “I come not to destroy the law but to fulfill it;” and he declared that every jot and tittle thereof should be fulfilled. Now pardon me, but if I am a Saint my heart would be filled with pity, oh, how pitiful, and yet I could say, and with justice and truth, though it might sound harshly to the ears of some, “O, fools and slow of heart to believe” all that is written of Jesus and the prophets, of the latter-day work, of the Millennium, of the coming forth of the kingdom of God upon the earth, of the cleansing and revolutionizing of the inhabitants of the earth, and preparing them for the coming of the Son of Man! I could say to the whole Christian world, justly, “O fools and slow of heart to believe what is written in the Bible and other books concerning these things.”

I say “other books,” for we believe in other books as well as the Bible; but do we on that account believe in an untruth? No. I heard something this morning about our religion being vulgarly called “Mormonism.” I say not vulgarly called so. Mormon was a good man, and he is in heaven, or in a good place at any rate; and the Book of Mormon is named after him, and we believe it. What does the word mormon mean? In the strict sense, and as it was translated by the ancients, it means more good. Mormon, more good; and “Mormonism” embraces all the truth that there is in heaven and on the earth; and if there is any in hell it belongs to us. Every truth in the sciences and in the arts, and all the knowledge that God has given to man in mechanism, and in fact on the earth, which is but a small speck among the creations of God, and the whole universe, all is incorporated in and constitutes what the world call “Mormonism.” If we have errors, and seeing that we are just like other people, it is natural to suppose that we are not free from them, they should be overcome. There is no other people on the face of the earth that have the law of God as the Latter-day Saints have it. They believe in the ordinances of the house of God, they believe in the laws that the Lord has revealed for the salvation of the children of men. All these holy ordinances are embraced in our faith. We try to live according to them, and that too strictly; and when aught is said against us I only ask my brethren and sisters to live so that it will be said falsely—live so as to be guiltless—be innocent, full of faith, good works, charity, love, long-suffering, patience, godliness and brotherly kindness. If we fill up our lives with these good works, happy are we, no matter where other people go or what they say or do; or whether they ever give us our rights according to their estimation or according to ours. If we do this God will give us our rights. We live in peace and prosper, and live in hope; and if we do our duty we shall live down every obstacle, every opposing foe, every opposite spirit and influence that is raised against us as a nation or as nations; and live, as I hope will be our constant aim, so as to glorify God. Not to gain the flatteries and fellowship of the world, for I would not give a snap of my finger for them; for as the world is I want not their fellowship. I should have their good feelings! Why? Because I do nothing only to do them good. There is not a professed Christian on the face of the earth but what, if he knew what we know, would pray for the Latter-day Saints. Why? Because we have the keys of salvation to the children of men, which have been restored to the earth by the Almighty in these latter days, and we are doing everything we possibly can for their salvation.

Talk about persecution, why that only comes from those who hate the truth. When falsehood is spoken against this people, no matter by whom, whether priest or people, it comes from a foul, wicked heart. Some say we are all wicked. Yes, we are all wicked; but we should not allow our tongues to utter forth many things that are uttered. We are not pure enough yet; we are not holy, we are not sanctified; no, the Latter-day Saints are not sanctified, and if any person thinks that we, as a people, are a pattern for the human family, we would just refer him and all mankind to the commandments and revelations which the Lord has given for the salvation of his crea– tures; they are perfect, but we are imperfect. We are trying to be perfect, and trying to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, and to honor his name, character and laws, and to spread them as far as we possibly can to the east, west, north and south, and to gather up all that will be gathered into the celestial kingdom; but to shake hands with the world and fellowship them, no, no! In the first place they will not fellowship us, and in the next place we cannot fellowship them. We will fellowship every good word and every good thought and every good deed; but we cannot fellowship them in rebelling against the truth.

Speaking of persecutions, neglects, slights and insults, was it an insult for the President of the United States, after calling upon our men to redeem this land from a foreign government, which we did, so far as the whole of Upper California is concerned, for it was acquired by the Latter-day Saints from the Mexican Government; and over it we hoisted the American flag, and have maintained it ever since; and then for our Chief Magistrate to make war upon the people who had actually added so much to the public domain and placed it under the banner and flag of their Government, to send an army to waste us away and destroy us, was it generous? Did it evince brotherly kindness? Was it according to Christian light? Was it according to the New Testament, the sayings of the Savior, or the acts of the wise and the good? We leave everybody to judge. Still they did not do it, no, nor they will not do it either.

What did we do when we came here? A few words upon this. Did we manifest to the world that we knew how to take care of ourselves? What did we bring with us? Five times have I been broken up and left a fine property behind. I never looked after it, for I knew that the earth was the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and that he could give me what he pleased, hence I never looked behind, but marched forward, right ahead five times. What did we bring here? Nothing; we came here comparatively, as the old saying is, naked and barefoot. We have lived here twenty-four years, and now we are told that if we can convince the people of the United States that we can actually govern, control and sustain ourselves, why, we can have a State Government, so as to get us a little land to school our children and help ourselves a little. I suppose from this that they wish to imply that up to this time we have not proved that we can sustain and govern ourselves. What is necessary, judging by the standard of civilization, to prove this? What does it take to constitute a people capable of governing and controlling themselves? Now, mark, in the estimation of civilization it requires a settlement, territory and subjects for this territory; and then it requires certain ingredients within this community, to constitute civilization. Where shall we begin? We will build a grogshop, that will be the first thing, and have a few groceries; and we will bring on the liquor. The description of an outfit to the mines in early days will answer to illustrate and fill up the picture. The first thing was a barrel of whiskey, then ten pounds of dried beef, and a box of crackers; what next? A ten gallon keg of whiskey and four pounds of cheese, ten of butter, then another barrel of whiskey, next ten pounds of dried beef, two sacks of flour, and so on. Now, after we get a parcel of grogshops and can see, every Saturday, men drinking in the streets, hurrahing, running their horses, having children run over, and perhaps get to fighting and somebody’s head broken, or some one shot down, and have some gambling saloons, then we are ready for a meetinghouse, and here comes the priest through the streets mourning over the sins of the people, crying, “Oh what a wretched place this is.” That is civilization. You will excuse me, this is no overdrawn picture, but is a representation of what is misnamed civilization. But is it so in the eyes of Heaven? No, it is civilization in the eyes of filth and corruption, that is what it is.

To call this civilization is like saying to a kind, judicious and loving mother, “You are not capable of taking care of your children, we will put them out.” What is the matter, mother? And the mother says, “Why, my children obey me. I make no request of them but what they comply with; and they are willing and obedient. I teach them morning and evening to pray; I teach them to read the Bible, to be good, not to tell falsehoods, but to be truthful and honest, and not to take a pin’s worth from their neighbors; not to contend with each other about their toys.” And this mother is kind, loving and agreeable, and her children love her, and in the morning run with open arms and salute her with, “Mamma, how glad I am to see you, are you well?” And at night when going to bed the mother says, “Good night, my darlings, come and let me give you a kiss.” But this mother is not worthy of her children, and they must be taken from her and put out; she is too kind to them, and has perfect control over them. That is what they are afraid of. And the father, when he comes from his work, his store or, mechanics’ shop, is met with smiling faces, and “good evening, father, or papa,” and he has a kiss for each of them, and has a kind good night for all, and perfect love and peace reign in their midst. But that mother and father are unworthy of those children; the way they have trained them is not civilization. Whip them, teach them to quarrel, fight, knock each other down, and finally kick them out of doors! That is civilization according to the notion of the world. This is a comparison and it may be a strong one; but lay it in the balance and see how it will weigh. Will they among whom such manners and principles prevail be prepared for the celestial kingdom, or for a terrestrial or telestial kingdom, no matter who they are? I think not. They will have to abide a kingdom where there is no glory.

Well now, why not take this family and let papa and mamma train up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and teach them every good moral principle, and faith in the name of Jesus? To my certain knowledge children in our community, when mamma has been sick, have said, “Mamma, are you not better?” “Why do you ask my little dear?” “Why,” says the little girl, “I have prayed for you; are you better?” “Yes, my dear.” I have witnessed many and many a time children praying for the father or for the mother, and that mother or father would be healed through the faith of the child. But this is not civilization. No; hence you Latter-day Saints must not have any lands to make use of to school your children. You must be tied up, you must be ruled over; you are not capable of governing and controlling yourselves. And yet thousands and thousands of them who say this will admit that we have the best organization and are the best governed community they have ever seen. But what is the matter when they get away? Why papa and mamma kiss the children, and the children kiss papa and mamma, and this will not do, it is not civilization. Kick, cuff and scold from morning to night must be the story, “then we are ready to receive you!” Shame on such conduct! Shame on such statesmanship!

“Well, I don’t like your peculiar institutions!” We have never been driven yet for our peculiar institutions which they talk about, and if we can beat them in peculiar conduct I am mistaken! I have seen men come here, who moved in the highest society on the American continent, and “Who have you got with you?” “My wife,” he says, and by and by you find out it is not his wife, but a woman he has hired to come here. In one instance a judge came here with a woman who had been turned off by a Congressman, and she sat on the judgment seat with him and claimed him for husband; but when he had got through with her, “You can go now, I do not want you any more.” Will a “Mormon” do this? No, never, if he does he will be damned; and any man who does will go to hell, now mark my word for it. And this is civilization!

Can they inherit these glories? No, the Lord has revealed the fact that the people must be sanctified; and if they cannot abide and be sanctified by a celestial law, they cannot inherit this glory; and they must abide and be sanctified by a terrestrial law and inherit a terrestrial glory. But we will pick every man and every woman on the face of the earth that we can possibly save and give them life and salvation through obedience to the requirements of Heaven. That is the way it is given, obtained and enjoyed. The spirit of the Gospel comes by obedience to the Gospel.

I want to say a few things to the Latter-day Saints, for I have not half freed my mind. Will you live so as to make your calling and election sure? You have a work to do, and it requires a holy life to prepare you to do it. Now I charge you again, and I charge myself not to get angry. Never let anger arise in your hearts. No, Brigham, never let anger arise in your heart, never, never! Although you may be called upon to chastise and to speak to the people sharply, do not let anger arise in you, no, never! Let us sanctify the Lord God in our hearts and live to his honor and glory and all is right with us; and by and by we shall see what comes to those who say to us, “You can’t have your rights.”

I will just say to the nation in which I live, and which gave me birth: The Lord God Almighty has a controversy with you and he will bring you to judgment, and no power can hinder it. It is the decree of the Almighty in the heavens, and will be so. Let us prepare for it, Saint and sinner. This life is but a moment, and is only preparatory to a higher state of glory. We are in darkness and ignorance here; but it is to give us an experience that we can step into a higher state of knowledge, understanding, light and intelligence. That we may come up higher and higher, and not be reduced when we enter the next state of existence, I say to the inhabitants of the earth, for God’s sake and for your own sakes, do take that course that when you step into another room, or lay down this mortal tabernacle, you will be prepared for a higher state of glory. It will not be present civilization that will prepare you for that; but strict obedience to the requirements of heaven in all honesty, sincerity, purity, lowliness of heart and faithfulness to our God. May he help us to do it. Amen!

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, June 18, 1871.

Let me call the attention of this congregation to a portion of the Word of God contained in the 46th and 47th verses of the last chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke—

“And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”

These are the words of our Savior to his disciples after his resurrection, and just before he was received up into heaven. The Apostles who heard these words had gone forth among the Jewish nation and preached in their numerous cities, towns and villages the Gospel of the kingdom, declaring that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. They had gone forth crying repentance in the midst of the people, and had pointed them to Jesus as the Messiah, and now, after the resurrection, when Christ, in fulfillment of the prophets, had been sacrificed for the sins of the world, a new commission seems to have been given them. Jesus said unto them, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature;” and in another place—the last chapter of Matthew, the commission reads: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

These Apostles received a divine commission to preach the Gospel of the Son of God to every people under the whole heavens, first to the inhabitants of Judea and Jerusalem. They were to commence there to fulfill this great commission; they were not permitted to go forth and begin the great proclamation, to open the door of the kingdom in all its fullness and glory, until qualified; but were commanded to tarry, as it is recorded by one of the evangelists, at Jerusalem until they were endowed with power from on high. Then they were to go forth to all the world and proclaim repentance and remission of sins, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus in its fullness, Jerusalem was to be the tarrying point, until then.

We accordingly find, as is recorded in the first and second chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, that they did tarry in that city, waiting for the power that was needful to enable them to carry out the commission which had been given to them. They could not fulfill the duties of that great mission without power from the heavens; they needed something more than human power; they needed that Spirit from on high which was promised them just before the crucifixion of Christ. Said he, “It is expedient for me that I go to the Father for your sakes, for if I go not to the Father the Comforter will not come; but if I go to the Father I will send him unto you.” Without this Comforter it was impossible for them to accomplish the duties of that great and solemn commission that was given them by our Lord himself. They needed the Comforter for various purposes. Jesus had told them that it should take the things of the Father and show them unto them; and that it should lead them into all truth and show them things to come. That is, it should make prophets and revelators of them, and inspire them to deliver the word of God to the inhabitants of the earth. Without this they could not magnify and honor the office of the Apostleship, which was the ministry to which they had been ordained. They needed the spirit of revelation, they needed power to commune with the heavenly hosts, with God the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, that they might be able to impart their will to the inhabitants of the earth, according to the heed and diligence which mankind might be disposed to give unto them.

On the Day of Pentecost, a great feast which had been observed by the Jewish nation for many generations, there were gathered at Jerusalem, not only the Twelve Apostles, but also all the disciples of Jesus who had not apostatized, to the number of about a hundred and twenty souls—those of the ministry, the Seventies as well as the Twelve. They were gathered together in one place, in an upper room of the Temple; and they were engaged in fervent prayer and supplication before the Lord. What for? For the endowments and qualifications necessary to assist them in the work of the ministry. While they were thus assembled, praying and exercising faith with one accord, in the Lord and in his promises, they heard a sound as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting, and there appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them—that is, upon the hundred and twenty souls that were present, and they were filled with the Spirit of God, baptized with the Comforter, with the Holy Ghost and with fire; they were immersed in it, really baptized by immersion.

After having received the Holy Ghost or Comforter it immediately began to make manifest a supernatural power upon those men of God. They were unlearned men, most of them, or most of the principal ones, at any rate, were unlearned; they had been engaged, as we heard this forenoon, at the business of fishing, and no doubt had lacked the opportunities for the acquisition of learning which many of the scribes, pharisees, high priests and religious people of that day enjoyed. The Apostles and disciples of the Lord Jesus were not doctors of law and divinity, they had not been educated and qualified for the ministry in any theological school, seminary or university, but they received the Spirit of God, which manifested unto them the will of Heaven, and though they understood only their mother tongue, the power of the Spirit bestowed upon them enabled them to speak in the various languages and tongues of the earth, and to declare the things of God therein on that occasion.

There was then assembled a very great company of Jews, also proselytes, who had come from the surrounding nations to Jerusalem to keep the feast of Pentecost, according to their usual custom, and they heard of the marvelous work that was transpiring in the midst of this little company, and they heard unlearned men declaring, in the several tongues in which they were born, the wonderful works of God. This was marvelous; it was not the result of human power, but it was by the operation of the Holy Ghost. However, in that large congregation there were some who were disposed to accuse the disciples of folly. The followers of Jesus did not belong to the popular orders of the day. They were not high priests; they did not belong to the learned scribes or pharisees, but it was known that, as a general thing, they were illiterate men, and when the people saw this extraordinary manifestation of the power of God through them many ascribed it to the effects of new wine; said they, “It cannot be anything else,” and they accused them of being actuated on that occasion with the spirit of intoxication or drunkenness. But Peter, with the Eleven, stood up in the midst of the thousands there assembled, and opened the proclamation of the Gospel at Jerusalem according to the commission they had received, and what we wish to understand this afternoon is how, or in what manner, did he preach on that occasion? In other words, what was the plan of salvation he declared to the thousands of the children of men then gathered together? If we can find this out, we can ascertain what the Gospel is.

When they were accused of being under the influence of new wine, Peter, holding the keys of the kingdom, stood up and said, “This is not the effect of new wine, as ye suppose;” and as an argument to prove that they were not intoxicated he informed them that it was only the third hour of the day. In those days, probably, people did not get drunk at all hours, as they do in these, and according to the custom then, the third hour was too soon. Well, if the effects now made manifest to the people are not the results of drinking new wine, to what do you ascribe them? Said Peter, “This is that which was spoken of by the Prophet Joel, who says, ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and upon my servants and handmaidens will I pour out of my Spirit, in those days, and they shall prophesy; and I will show wonders in the heavens above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapour of smoke; the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall be turned into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord shall come.’” Here, then, was a prophecy repeated by the Apostle Peter to prove what was the cause of the effects manifested on that occasion.

There is one thing in relation to this quotation from the prophecies of Joel to which I wish to call your special attention. Peter did not say, this is the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, for we all know that it was not then fulfilled. The Spirit was not poured out upon all flesh; all men and women were not made prophets on that occasion, consequently the prophecy was not fulfilled. Peter said, “These cloven tongues of fire, and this Spirit that has been poured out upon these hundred and twenty individuals is the same Spirit which Joel said should be poured out in the last days upon all flesh.” That promise, down to the nineteenth century, has never been fulfilled; the Spirit has never yet been poured out upon all flesh, making all men and women living, prophets, seers, revelators, &c. The work was begun on the Day of Pentecost; but the sun was not darkened on that occasion, nor the moon turned into blood; the signs that were to precede the second coming of the Son of God were not then shown forth, and consequently the prophecy was not fulfilled. It yet remains to be fulfilled. I would like to ask what are we going to do with the whole Christian world which declare that there are to be no more prophets, revelators or inspired men, when the word of the Lord through Joel says all flesh are to become prophets—that is, all who are spared on the earth, for there will be a tremendous destruction before that is fulfilled? The wicked will be swept from the earth, and all who remain will become revelators, prophets and inspired men, getting visions and revelations and foretelling the future. What shall we do with the sayings that have gone forth and been inculcated and promulgated by numerous sects and parties, that the day of visions, revelations and prophecies has passed? But we will pass on.

After having quoted this prophecy, to show that the Spirit that man should receive under the Gospel dispensation was to give them revelation and prophecy, and to show that the Spirit then being poured out was that spoken of by Joel, the Apostle refers to what David the psalmist said about Jesus, and about his sufferings, death and resurrection; and having quoted what the prophets—witnesses that were dead, had to say about the Holy One, they, as living persons, the oracles of God then in the midst of the people, bore witness that Jesus was the very Christ, and that the Jews had put to death the Holy One; these combined testimonies convinced many that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. This was not a popular doctrine in those days, as it is now. There are millions at the present day with whom it is popular to believe in Christ; they do so traditionally, and because it is customary in the nations where they were born; they believe it because they have had millions of copies of the word of God published in their midst, and spread broadcast over the nations of Christendom. But in those days very few believed it, the very great majority of the people believed him to be a wicked impostor, and regarded him as the offscouring of all things, the friend of publicans and sinners; and they said that he cast out devils by the power of Beelzebub; they called him a Sabbath breaker, a wicked man, and so on; and the most religious people of those days were his greatest persecutors, and as they had influence over the rest it was very unpopular indeed to believe that he was the true Messiah. But the arguments brought forth in the first Christian sermon after the resurrection of Christ were sufficient to send conviction into the hearts of many thousands of people. They believed or professed to believe in their ancient prophets, and when they were quoted in relation to Jesus, and the testimony of living witnesses was borne they cried out, in the anguish of their hearts, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” As much as to say, we see that our nation has crucified Jesus, the Christ; we thought he was an impostor and that he ought to die, but now we are convinced that he is the Holy One, and that he has indeed risen from the dead; and is there any salvation for our nation, seeing that it has put Jesus to death? These were the feelings of sincere, sin-convicted persons on that occasion, and they cried, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

I sometimes think that if they had lived in our day they would have had so many ways pointed out to obtain the forgiveness of their sins that they would not have known which way to turn, and perhaps would not have had much confidence in what was said to them on the subject. But these men, being under the influence of the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, knew precisely what these convicted sinners should do in order to obtain the pardon of their sins. Now mark the answer, and see if it agree with the ways taught by the Christian sects. Peter said unto these inquiring souls, who believed and were pricked in their hearts, for belief comes before repentance, for a person who did not believe would not repent. Peter said, “Repent.” What more? “Come to the mourner’s bench?” Oh no, that is not written there. Come here to the “mercy seat, and be prayed for?” Oh no, nothing of that kind was said. Then what else were they to do besides repent? Said Peter, “Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the Holy Ghost.” What do you mean, Peter, by the Holy Ghost? Do you mean that same Holy Spirit—the Comforter that you have just received, and that has rested upon the hundred and twenty individuals who are followers of Christ? Yes, for he had just told them that it was the effects of the Holy Spirit which they had been witnessing, and they, no doubt, felt anxious to receive the same, for the Holy Spirit was that which would enable them to prophesy, see visions, dream dreams, and guide them into all truth, reveal unto them the things of the Father, and show them things to come, hence it was a Spirit greatly to be desired, and they wished to know how they might obtain it; and here was the path. It is very plain and very simple. Can it be wondered at, then, that so few in Salt Lake City wanted to go to the “Mourner’s bench,” at the Methodist camp meeting, after having heard and obeyed these principles. No. They have heard these principles for years and years, and having tested them, the fables of sectarianism possess no charms for them.

Seeing then that the pardon of sins is what the penitent soul desires, how is he to obtain it? By being baptized. What? Do you mean to say that sinners can obtain pardon by being baptized in water? “What effect,” inquires one, “has water in washing away sins?” It would have no effect whatever if God had instituted some other way; but, seeing that he has not, but has commanded sinners, first to believe that Jesus is the Christ; second, to repent of their sins; and third, to be baptized for the remission of their sins in his name, that is the right way; and though the water, independent of the blood and atonement of Christ and the commandment of God, has no efficacy whatever to wash away sins, yet it has great power because of these things, for the man that complies with this ordinance witnesses to God that he believes in Jesus and his Gospel and is willing to comply with its requirements. But if men should say, “There is no efficacy in water, and we will take some other way to obtain the pardon of our sins; the water is only to answer a good conscience towards God, and is not particularly essential,” do you think they would obtain the pardon of their sins, after hearing the Gospel preached in its purity and fullness by a man having authority from God? They might pray until they were as old as Methuselah, “Lord pardon, forgive and blot out our sins,” but do you think the Lord would hear them. Not at all. Why not? “Is it not written,” says a person of this class, “that the Lord is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children?” Yes, but it must be remembered that this is written of those who have believed, repented, and obeyed the Gospel; it was not written concerning unbelievers and the disobedient. When they have once believed in Jesus Christ and have been baptized for the remission of their sins, they can call upon God in all confidence and he is more willing to give his Holy Spirit unto them than earthly parents are to give good gifts unto their children, and you know how willing they are to do that, for they like to see their children joyful and happy. So it is with our Heavenly Father. He likes to see his children who have repented and obeyed his Gospel joyful and happy, and he is willing to give good gifts unto them; but he never can to those who do not keep his commandments. They may pray until they are greyheaded and they are about to fall into their graves and their sins would not be pardoned.

But again. Peter informs the inquiring believers on the Day of Pentecost that if they would repent and be baptized they should not only receive the remission of their sins, but they should also receive the Holy Ghost. Was this promise only to the people then present? No, for if we read the next verse we find that “the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Is not that promise universal—to every people, nation, kindred and tongue, Jew and Gentile, bond and free? Yes, the promise is to all the Lord our God shall call; not only to the three thousand baptized on that occasion, but to all afar off. Does not that scope in all languages, nations, kindred and ton– gues? Yes. What! Shall they all receive the Holy Ghost? Yes, if they will comply with these conditions. Shall they all be pardoned if they will repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of their sins? Yes. Now, what effect would that vast multitude expect to follow the reception of the Holy Ghost by them? Supposing this congregation had been present eighteen centuries ago at Jerusalem at the first Gospel sermon preached after the ascension of Christ, and that, in the anguish of your hearts you had inquired what you must do to receive the pardon of your sins and how you could obtain the Holy Ghost, and what effects that Holy Ghost would have had upon you, would you not have expected to receive something precisely similar to what the hundred and twenty had received upon whom it was poured out? Could you have expected anything else? No. But it is very different with the Christian sects today; they think the Holy Ghost will perform everything ascribed to it except the supernatural powers and effects; but when it comes to revelation, prophecy, dreaming dreams, foretelling future events, casting out devils, healing the sick, discerning of spirits, speaking in and interpreting other languages and tongues, they boldly declare, as I heard in my boyhood, and again during the past week, that these wonderful and miraculous gifts were only intended for that day and age of the world. All the other effects are to continue, but they are to cease. The Spirit is to purify, sanctify, justify, to give love, joy, peace, long-suffering, patience, hope, and all these great and glorious effects that are promised in the word of God; but when it comes to these other effects, they are all to be done away. By whom? By Christendom, by those professing to be the teachers and leaders of the people. By what authority do they do these things away? Can they find within the lids of this Holy Bible, from beginning to end, that a period should ever arrive, so long as there was one soul on the earth to be saved or pardoned of its sins, that these miraculous effects should cease. No, they have taken this responsibility upon themselves, and it is a very fearful responsibility indeed to say that they are done away. I would not dare to do it, I should be afraid of fulfilling that prophecy delivered by Paul, when he says that, “In the last days perilous times shall come; men shall be lovers of their own selves, proud, boasters, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, incontinent, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” I do not, want to come under the declaration of Paul; I do not want to be numbered with those who fulfil this prediction that he uttered about the people of the latter days. He was not speaking altogether of the wicked world that made no profession of religion. He was not referring to atheists and deists, and those who did not profess Christianity; but of professed religionists, people who profess to believe in the Bible and in Jesus, having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.

If you can tell me any way by which the power of godliness can be more effectually denied than to do away the effects of the Holy Spirit as they were manifested on the Day of Pentecost and in all the Christian churches so long as there were any on the earth; I say if there is any more effectual way of denying the power of godliness than to do away with this power and say it is not necessary, I do not comprehend it. I, myself, should not know how to deny the power of godliness any more effectually than to say these things were done away. And yet when I was a youth, before I was nineteen years of age, I used to attend Methodist meetings mostly, though I never joined any society; and I heard these ideas advanced from their pulpits; there was to be no such thing as healing the sick in the name of Jesus; no such thing as foretelling future events; no such thing as obtaining new revelation, for the canon of Scripture was closed; no such thing as receiving the gift of discerning of spirits, or beholding angels and ministering spirits; no such thing as speaking in other tongues or languages by the Spirit of God. I heard all these things preached then, and I heard them again last week at the Methodist camp meeting here in this city. I did not know but spiritualism, so-called, had made a change in the world during the last forty-one years; but I find that the same old story still exists as in the days of my youth. They still cry, “All these things are done away, they are not necessary in this age of the Christian world.”

Who told you they were not necessary? Has God spoken anew and told you that revelation had ceased to exist? Why, no, that would be a contradiction in terms, that would be a new revelation, if he had spoken anew. How did you find out, then, that they were not necessary? I cannot find it in the Scriptures, indeed I find directly to the contrary—that they are necessary; and here let me quote a passage that was quoted this forenoon, in the 4th chapter of Ephesians. Speaking of the gifts that Jesus gave, the Apostle says when he ascended up on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. I have already repeated the gifts he did give through the inspiration and power of the Holy Ghost, that was made manifest upon those who obeyed the Gospel. He gave, says the Apostle in this fourth chapter, some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, pastors and teachers besides all these other miraculous gifts I have named.

Now let us see if we can ascertain from the following verses how long these gifts were to continue in the Christian Church. That will settle the question. They were given, said he, for the perfecting of the Saints. Before we proceed to the other reasons for which they were given, let us examine this first for a moment: “They were given for the perfecting of the Saints.” I have heard Christian ministers, that ought to know better, misleading the world and their congregations, by declaring that these gifts were given to convince the world of mankind who were unbelievers in ancient days, and to establish Christianity in the earth, and the latter once done on a firm foundation, they were no longer needed.

We will now see what Paul says. “They were given for the perfecting of the Saints.” Indeed! Are there Saints in these days in New York, in the New England States, in the Southern and in the Northern States, in Great Britain and in the nations of Europe, and among all the nations of what is termed modern Christendom? “Oh, yes,” says one, “we have over two hundred millions of Christians among all these nations.” Indeed, then you have these gifts, I suppose; for remember they were given for the perfecting of the Saints. Do you mean to tell me that there are Saints, and they have all become perfect? “Oh, no,” says one, “we do not pretend to say that the Roman Catholic, the Greek Church, and all the various denominations of the Protestant Churches have become perfect yet.” Very well, these gifts were given for the perfecting of the Saints, and if you are Saints where are your gifts? For does it not follow that if you have no gifts you are either perfect Saints or not Saints at all? For if you are not perfect Saints these gifts must be among you. Do you know any way to perfect Saints independent of these gifts? I do not. If the Bible has taught any other way I have never happened to find it. I know of no way in which Saints can be perfected without inspired Apostles and prophets and the gifts here named. But see the inconsistency I am now about to point out! Here are five gifts named that Jesus gave when he ascended up on high. The first one is an Apostle, the second is a prophet; then come evangelists, pastors and teachers; and we might go on and enumerate eight or ten more gifts that were given. Now, why split these verses in two? I ask all Christendom why do they separate these verses in two, and say, “We will believe that pastors and teachers and evangelists are necessary in all ages of Christendom to perfect the Saints, but when it comes to the other two gifts—Apostles and prophets, they are not necessary?” Why? Because it involves a miraculous power. An Apostle must have revelation and the power of inspiration to get more Scripture; and if this were allowed it would overturn their creeds, and the power of godliness would again be upon the earth, and the Christian sects cannot bear the idea that there should be any such thing as the power of revelation or vision, or the power to understand the future; no, that is all done away. Has Jesus told you to make this separation in the gifts, to retain some of them and say the others are done away? Is there any more right, in the nineteenth century, than of a preceding period, for the head, in the human body, to say to the hand, “I have no need of thee?” No, the hand is just as necessary now as in the first century of the Christian era; hence evangelists, pastors and teachers, which are still believed in as being necessary to perfect the Saints, have no right to say to the Apostle or the prophet, “We have no need of thee in the Church.”

But the gifts of the Spirit were not only given for the perfecting of the Saints; there was another object in view—they were for the work of the ministry. Now I presume that the two hundred millions of Christians will not pretend to deny that the work of the ministry is needed; and if the work of the ministry is needed then are inspired Apostles and prophets needed, for they were given for the work of the ministry as well as to perfect the Saints; so long, therefore, as the work of the ministry is needed there should be inspired prophets and Apostles on the earth.

A third object for which they were given was the edifying of the body of Christ. Now I really believe that the body of Christ, if it can be found on the earth, needs edifying, unless its members have come to that perfect day that is spoken of in the 13th chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. Let me refer to that chapter, for it furnishes an additional proof that these gifts were to continue in the true Church; not, of course, among apostate Christendom, among those who have no authority. Speaking of charity, the Apostle says—

“Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

“But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

“For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

Now, here is proof positive; this shows how long these spiritual gifts would be needed. Now we know in part and prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come that which is in part shall be done away. As much as to say that while the Church remains in this mortal state we are but children in Christ Jesus. Here we only know in part and prophesy in part; we speak in tongues, and so on; but when that which is perfect is come that which is in part shall be done away. Now can anyone tell me whether that day of perfection has come for the Church or not? If it has, these gifts should be done away; but if not, they should still remain. Can we find any clue in the words I have quoted to the nature of the period when the Saints shall come to perfection! Yes. Here in this life, we only know in part, we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away. Now we see through a glass darkly, that is while the Church is in this mortal state; but when that which is perfect is come we shall see face to face. This shows that we shall be in our immortal state before these gifts are done away—I mean in the true Church, of course they will not be in false churches; but in the true Church they will always exist, until we know even as we are known; when we come into the presence of the Almighty, when the veil is rent asunder, and we look upon the face of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. We shall not know in part in that day, nor prophesy in part; neither shall we heal the sick there; there will be no gift of healing needed, for there will be no one to be healed. Neither shall we speak in tongues then; tongues will cease; for the Lord will turn unto his people a pure language. They will have the language of angels, the language of God the Father, and will all understand one another and will have no need of the gift of tongues.

Here, then, are evidences that the Christian world cannot get rid of; here are testimonies that condemn the whole of them; not only those of this generation, but all who have lived during seventeen centuries that are passed who have had the wickedness in their hearts to say, “The power of godliness is not needed in our day,” and that the canon of Scripture is closed, and there must be no more prophets to receive new Scripture.

The gifts which I have been describing are the effects of the Holy Ghost. Now we hear almost every society praying the Lord to send the Holy Ghost. Their cry is, “Let the Holy Ghost come down upon us now; let it be with us this very moment; let us have its influence and enjoy its operations now.” But they know nothing about it; they have never received the Holy Ghost, neither can they until they comply with the Gospel ordinances—repent of their sins and be baptized for their remission. “But,” says one, “do not you remember good old Cornelius? Was he baptized?” No, He received the Holy Ghost before baptism. But had he any promise of it before? No. The Lord, on that occasion, had a special object in view, which is named in the history of the transaction. Cornelius seems to have been the first Gentile, whom the Apostle Peter, in opening the door of the Gospel to the Gentiles, was commanded to visit. The Jewish nation was exceedingly prejudiced against the Gentiles. Peter happened to have six proselytes from the Jewish nation with him on that occasion. Oh, how bitter they were against the Gentiles! They thought the Gentiles had no part or lot in the matter; and notwithstanding the commission that the Lord had given to the Apostles, he had to work a miracle to convince Peter, so strong were the prejudices of the Jews that the Holy Ghost and the Gospel blessings were not for the Gentiles. You recollect Peter’s vision, in which the Lord let down a sheet by the four corners, full of all manner of beasts, clean and unclean, and Peter being commanded to arise, slay and eat; and his not being willing to do it because it was contrary to the law of Moses. But he was told that the Lord had cleansed the contents of the sheet, and he was forbidden on that account to call it common or unclean. You recollect that the Lord sent an angel, as he always does when he has a Church on the earth, to a certain man called Cornelius. This man had been praying, he wanted to know how to be saved. The Lord had heard his prayers, and had sent an angel to him, and the angel said to him, “Cornelius, thy prayers are heard, and have come up before the Lord as a memorial. Now send to Joppa for one Simon, whose surname is Peter, and he will tell you words whereby you and your house will be saved.” What! Cornelius not in a state of salvation, and he a praying man? No doubt he was in a state of salvation, so far as he understood; but he was ignorant and did not understand how to get into the celestial kingdom. He knew nothing about the birth of the water and of the Spirit, that we heard about this forenoon, without which no man can enter into the kingdom of God. Yet he had given much alms, and his prayers had come up as a memorial before God, and the Lord had pity on his ignorance and sent an angel to him. But the angel did not see proper to tell him what to do to get into a more full state of conversion; he simply told him to send for Peter—a man of God, promising him that he would tell him how to be saved. Peter, being warned beforehand, by the vision, went down to the house of Cornelius, nothing doubting, taking these six Jewish converts with him, full of all their Jewish prejudices. When Cornelius had given an account of the visit of the angel to him, Peter began to preach Christ and him crucified, and while he was speaking the Holy Ghost fell on Cornelius and his household, and they spake with tongues and magnified God.

Do you suppose that the Holy Spirit could have been retained by Cornelius supposing he had refused to obey the ordinances of the Gospel? No, it was only given as a witness and testimony to convince the Jewish brethren, who were with Peter, that the Gentiles might have salvation as well as the Jews; for when they began to speak in tongues, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, Peter turned to his Jewish brethren, and said, “Who can forbid water that these should not be baptized?” And he commanded them, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to be baptized. What, a command? Yes. Had Peter the right to give that command? Yes; for the angel of the Lord had said to Cornelius, “He shall tell you words whereby you and your house shall be saved,” and his command to them to be baptized was some of his words unto them.

Supposing that Cornelius had said, “Oh, baptism is not essential, it is not among the fundamental principles of salvation; it is one of the nonessential, outward ordinances, etc., and is of no consequence. I have received the Holy Ghost, I am a Christian, I believe in your words; I have offered my alms to the poor, and they have come up before the Lord; I am good enough, there is no need for me to be baptized,” how long would the Holy Ghost have remained with him? Just the moment that he had refused to obey this commandment the Holy Ghost would have fled from him and his house. The only way for him to retain the gift that comes through obedience was to be baptized, though on that occasion it was given without promise, and without baptism. Baptism, recollect, is for the remission of sins, and the Holy Ghost comes afterwards; but on this occasion it was given before it; but he could not have retained it, it would have left him, and he would have been in seven-fold greater darkness than before had he refused to obey the words of this inspired messenger. The Jewish brethren could not forbid water after the manifestation of the power of God on that occasion; their prejudices were done away by a miracle.

Now, because the Lord varied on that one occasion and gave the Holy Ghost before baptism, how many there are who want to do away with baptism, and to seek some other way for those who are convicted and laboring under a feeling of sorrow and mourning for their sins; but there is an ordinance connected with the receiving of the Holy Ghost. If there is an ordinance connected with the baptism of water, so there is in relation to the higher baptism; and the Lord made his servants, the Apostles, ministers not only of the word, but also of the Spirit. They were able ministers of the Spirit; that is, they had authority to administer the Spirit. They could not do it of themselves; but when God calls a man and gives him authority by revelation and sends him to preach his Gospel, and people listen to that Gospel and are willing to be baptized, that man has the right to baptize them; and if he is ordained to the Apostleship or to those offices that have the power to administer the higher ordinance of the laying on of hands, and he lays hands on, God will acknowledge that ordinance. He will acknowledge baptism by giving remission of sins; and he will acknowledge the laying on of hands by sending from heaven the gift of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, in ancient days, when Paul went to Ephesus he found certain persons there who had been baptized. They thought, no doubt, they were very pious, and perhaps concluded that they were in a state of salvation. They had heard of and received what was called John’s baptism, but when Paul asked them if they had received the Holy Ghost since believing they said they had not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. Then Paul perceived that they had been taught by some impostor—some person who had no authority, who pretended to be preaching John’s doctrine, who had told them nothing about the Holy Ghost. John, when he baptized the people, told them there was one coming after him mightier than he who baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire; but these Ephesians had been taught by some person who had no authority, and who had left out a part of the doctrine of salvation, as preached by John, just as the Christian sects do at the present day. Paul saw that their baptism was illegal, and he preached unto them Jesus Christ, and when they had heard this they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul laid his hands upon them the Holy Ghost fell upon them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.

Again, when Philip went to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to the people, he had no right to administer the higher ordinances of the laying on of hands; he had not been ordained to the power. He had the right to baptize them in water and he baptized a large number of men and women among them; and when the Apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they came down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost, for as yet he was fallen on none of them; and they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost.

Do you not see that this higher blessing of the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost comes through the laying on of hands, which is an ordinance just as much as baptism by water, both of which have to be administered by a man called of God, or the Lord will have nothing to do with it.

We have thus pointed out to sinners, this day, how they may be converted. How do you like it? Is it according to Scripture? If it is not reject it; but it is the same doctrine that we have taught for forty-one years in this Church. It is the same doctrine that has been published by the Latter-day Saints throughout the length and breadth of our Union; it is the same doctrine that we have carried to the nations afar off; it is the same doctrine that the Lord sent an holy angel to deliver to Joseph Smith—a youth, and commanded him to preach, and ordained him to the Apostleship, commanding him, by revelation, to ordain others; it is the same doctrine that tens of thousands have received. Do they receive the promises? Is the Holy Ghost given? If it is, all these gifts are given; and if the Latter-day Saints are not in possession of these gifts, they are not in possession of the Gospel, and are no better off than the Baptists, Methodists or Presbyterians, and we all know they have not the Gospel; we all know they have not the power of God among them. They do not believe in it, they say it is done away. We all understand this. Well, Latter-day Saints, you are no better if you have not these gifts. But you have had forty-one years’ experience, and I think you know whether you have them or not. If you have, blessed are ye; but if you have them not, it is time you waked up and began to hunt around for the Gospel if it can be found on the earth. If you have not these gifts, then the angel has not come with the Gospel according to promise; but if you have, the angel of God has flown through the midst of heaven and committed the everlasting Gospel to the children of men, and you have been the receivers of it. Amen.

Discourse by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday, June 11, 1871.

The circumstances which surround us at the present time are of a very peculiar character; probably at no period of our history has the work of the Last Days attracted the attention and the curiosity of the people generally to the extent that it does today. There are several reasons for this, but that which, more than anything else at this time, has directed the minds of the world to Utah is the discoveries of mineral in our Territory. This has undoubtedly added greatly to the interest which has ever been felt in this strange land, and in the strange people who inhabit it. The best method of disposing of us and our system has given rise to much controversy and discussion in years past. That we ought to be disposed of in some manner has been a very general opinion and feeling in certain quarters; there has seemed to be a disposition manifested by some persons to do something so as to effectually dispose of the system called “Mormonism.” They have apparently felt that it was in the way and ought to be removed, or that something should be done to retard its growth and progress, and the influence which it is exercising in the world. Did we not know through our own bitter experience in the past that this feeling is entertained by a great many people, it would be difficult for us to imagine that such is the case, for an examination of our principles, and an understanding of their bearing, operation and effects would certainly not lead to conclusions of this character. So far as I myself am concerned, if this matter were submitted to me without my knowledge and past experience in relation to it, I should say that the principles and doctrines believed in and practiced by the Latter-day Saints, and the results which have been wrought out by their operation would not have had the effect of creating animosity or ill will, or any feeling other than kind, brotherly and affectionate.

What is there about this system called “Mormonism” that should evoke the terrible amount of animosity and hatred which have been displayed at various times? The Latter-day Saints believe in Jesus Christ, they believe that he is the Savior of the world; that he died for man’s redemption; that, through his death, we may, by obedience, be brought into the presence of the Father, and made heirs of eternal glory. The Latter-day Saints believe that mankind should repent of and forsake all sins, and be baptized in the name of Jesus for their remission; the Latter-day Saints believe that they should not only be baptized for the remission of their sins, but that baptism should be administered by those only who have authority. Not vague or ill-defined authority, based upon a commission given to others centuries ago; but an authority proceeding from God that will be recognized on earth and in heaven. The Latter-day Saints believe that, having repented of sin and been baptized for the remission of it, they who have complied thus far with the Gospel requirements, should have hands laid upon them for the reception of the Holy Ghost; and that they who thus lay on hands should have authority from God to officiate in this ordinance.

Is there anything about or connected with this faith that should excite opposition, create ill feeling and arouse hatred? Certainly, when we look at this dispassionately, we must admit that there is not.

Is there anything connected with this faith, or the principles to which I have referred, that does not harmonize with the Scriptures? Peter, who preached the first sermon of which we have any account after the resurrection of Jesus, declared precisely the same principles which I have alluded to as being part of our belief. The other Apostles taught the same principles, and enforced them upon the people to the extent of their ability and power. I know that there are difficulties and contentions in the religious world as to the mode and efficacy of baptism; some assert that immersion is not the true mode; but we are willing to stand by the Scriptures and to abide by their decision, feeling assured that, if they be taken literally, those who read them will have a perfect conviction that immersion is the only true mode. But even should there be a difference of opinion on this point, it is not of such a character as to stir men up in deadly hostility towards us.

There may also be a difference of opinion in relation to the laying on of hands. Some may say this is only necessary where men are ordained, and that it is not right or proper for all the members of the Church of Christ to receive the imposition of hands. But as I have said in reference to baptism so I say of this ordinance: it is clearly revealed in the Scriptures and can readily be substantiated from them that the members of the Church of Christ in ancient days had hands laid upon them for the reception of the Holy Ghost, and that it was the ordinance and the only ordinance instituted in God’s economy for the bestowal and the reception of that gift.

Well, is this all the Latter-day Saints believe in? No. I do not expect to be able to tell all we believe in, or to allude to every principle this afternoon; but these are the first principles which we have proclaimed to the world. In addition to these there is another—namely, the gathering together of the people of God. Wherever the Elders of this Church have gone they have said, and testified to the people, that the time in which we live is the gathering dispensation alluded to by the ancient prophets, when God’s people should be gathered from the various nations of the earth to one place, according to the predictions of John the Revelator, David the psalmist, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and all other prophets whose writings we have in this book. They, in simplicity, have called upon the people everywhere to repent, and to gather together; and these, in substance, are the principles which the Elders of this Church have declared unto the people wherever they have traveled; and it is because of these principles and their proclamation that so much persecution has been stirred up.

I know very well the feelings of the world, and perhaps of some who are listening today to this brief enunciation of our principles and the causes of our persecutions. Say they, “If these were the only principles taught by the Latter-day Saints we cannot think they would have been persecuted, there must be something behind this. It cannot be possible that, in this enlightened age, men and women should be persecuted and reviled and their names cast out as evil for believing these doctrines?” A prevalent idea has been that this prejudice against us owes its origin and continuation to our belief in a plurality of wives; but when it is recollected that the mobbings, drivings and expulsion from cities, counties and states which we have endured, and our exodus to these mountains all took place before the revelation of that doctrine was publicly known, it will be seen at once that our belief in it has not been the cause of persecution. I have an idea on this point in relation to this much-talked-of and much-abused doctrine, and it is this: I believe that from the day it was taught to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and embraced in the faith and lives of its members we have risen in power and grown in influence; we have gained favor with and enjoyed the protection of the Heavens such as we never possessed before. All the prosperity, seemingly, that we enjoy today has been bestowed upon us since the proclamation of that principle and its adoption by us into our faith and practice. There has been an almighty power hedging us round about and encircling us from that day until the present time; and though men have plotted and schemed and have devised mischief, and formed machinations and combinations against the Latter-day Saints, their schemes have fallen to the ground; their combinations have proved unavailing, and we have been delivered time and time again since we came to these valleys.

There is good reason why this is so. If this principle be from God, as we solemnly testify it is, surely God would stretch forth his arm to defend and deliver a people who would be so valiant and trustful as to go forth in the face of so-called civilization and popular prejudice in the nineteenth century, and embrace and practice that doctrine, and assume all the consequences which its practice involves! Surely God, who would reveal such a principle to his people and call upon them to obey it, would defend those who had the courage to sacrifice themselves if it were necessary to carry out what they believed to be God’s behest! He would stretch forth his arm, exert his power and fulfill his promises to deliver those who would thus go forth in humility and meekness and carry out a principle that he had revealed unto them!

This is the view which I take of this matter. Instead of our being left to the power of our persecutors to a greater extent since its revelation and practice, we have had greater freedom and security, and have been blessed as we never were before. It was not on account of our belief in this that we have been hated. Joseph and Hyrum Smith were slain in Carthage jail, and hundreds of persons were persecuted to the death previous to the Church having any knowledge of this doctrine. What then was the cause of the persecutions of the people, and why should they have been singled out and made so remarkable above other people, many of whom believe in several of the principles that they believed in. There is not a religious denomination in Christendom which does not believe in Jesus Christ; I do not know of one that does not believe in repenting of sin and also in some form of baptism. They may differ in opinion as to the mode, efficacy and necessity of the ordinance; some may and do call it essential, while others regard it as nonessential, but it is generally believed in; and there are also denominations which believe in the laying on of hands. I do not know of one that believes in the gathering of the people together, still there are people or communities who do gather together, besides the Latter-day Saints. What is it then that makes us so marked? I will explain it in a few words, as I understand it. It is because the Latter-day Saints believe that God has restored from the heavens the everlasting Priesthood—that eternal authority by which man acts upon the earth as the ambassador of God. It is because we have testified that God has restored this once more to earth and we have received it, and that by virtue of it we act as Apostles, members of the seventies, high priests, elders, bishops, priests, teachers and deacons, and in the several offices God has placed in his Church. This is the secret, my brethren and sisters and friends, of the opposition that is and has been waged against the Church of God. We might go forth and preach belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance of sin, and baptism for the remission of sins, as Alexander Campbell did; we might say, as some of the sects do, that it is necessary to lay on hands; we might gather the people together, and do any or all of these things, but if we did not have the right to exercise heaven-bestowed authority there would be no particular opposition to us. Of course, the nearer a man draws to God, and the more he lives according to the plan which God has prescribed, the more opposition he meets with. Satan will stir up strife, animosity and hatred against him. On this account Luther, Calvin, John Wesley and other reformers have been persecuted. The nearer they came to the truth, and the more zealous they were in proclaiming it, the more opposition they met with. Men, in reasoning upon this subject, say that every sect, at the commencement of its career, is persecuted because men are not familiar with its doctrines; but, when they become known, opposition and persecution cease. They predict this about the Latter-day Saints; but the truth of the matter is this: if every new sect is persecuted, it is because it fearlessly denounces the sins, follies and vices of the age, and so long as they continue this, so long are they persecuted; but the moment they assimilate to the world, gloss over its follies and go with the stream and float with the popular current, opposition ceases. This has been the case, more or less, with every sect; but when men predict this of the Latter-day Saints they do not understand the nature of the work in which we are engaged; they do not comprehend the nature of the claims that we make; they have no understanding of the authority that we exercise. The distinction, to which I have referred, between us and others is that we claim to have the Holy Priesthood.

“But,” says one, “has not this authority always been on the earth? Why, ministers have gone forth and preached now for centuries, authorized by the divine commission of the Apostles—’Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.’ On the strength of this commission they have gone forth for centuries, and why do you Latter-day Saints claim additional authority? Has the authority not existed ever since the days of the Apostles?”

If it has, where are its fruits, where are its powers, and where is the proper exercise thereof exhibited? Shall we go to the Church of Rome and inquire of it? It claims to have uninterrupted Apostolic descent from Peter, down through the ages until we reach our own day. Say the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Calvinists, and all Protestant sects, “No, she is the mother of harlots, she has defiled herself; that church is false, and God has taken from her the authority she once had. If we go back to the middle ages you will find that her popes have been corrupt, and there have been times when there were more than one pope, and if history can be relied on a woman once occupied the papal chair; therefore we Protestants abhor her and call her the mother of harlots; we have come out of her and have renounced her and her wickedness. Neither she nor her priests have any authority.”

But the Catholic, on the other hand, maintains that his church and his alone has the authority, which Protestant Christendom declares she has lost. And here a question arises in my mind, for as the Protestant churches say that the Catholic Church is the mother of harlots, I turn to the mother and ask who and where are her daughters. Is Lutheranism a daughter of hers? Is Calvinism a daughter of hers? Is the Church of England, founded by Henry VIII., a daughter of hers? If they are not, where are her daughters? Where shall we look for them, if not in the midst of the Protestant churches? If I go to the Episcopalians and ask them for their authority, what reply do they give me? “We exercise that which has come down to us from the Catholic Church. We came out of that church because of her impurity, but we brought with us authority to build another church, and ours is the Church of God.”

But, says the Catholic Church, “We have severed you from us;” and I, as a Latter-day Saint, say to the Episcopalians: If the Catholic Church had authority to give you the priesthood, and you derived it by imposition of hands from the Catholic clergy, then it had power to deprive you of that authority; if it had power to bestow authority it had power to withdraw that authority; and the Catholic Church did excommunicate Henry VIII., Latimer, Cranmer, and all who took part in that defection, and branded them as apostates, and, if they had any authority, deprived them of all they possessed. The same is true of the Lutheran and Calvinist churches, and all others who descended from her.

But there is another view to be taken of this matter. Jesus said to his Apostles: “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned; and these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils,” &c.

Now, my Protestant brethren, if you take one part of this commission, why not take the whole of it? You say that by virtue of this authority which Jesus gave unto his Apostles, you go forth and preach the Gospel; but if you take this part of the commission, why not take the whole, and have the signs following them that believe your teachings, and have devils cast out, the sick healed, &c.

In asking these questions I do not wish to be harsh or to reflect on any sect, but only, in honesty, to place the truth before you from my standpoint. Say the so-called Christians, in answer to the above questions: “We do not believe in these things; this power has been withheld, it was only bestowed in the Apostolic age, and was necessary then for the establishment of the Gospel.”

If that is so, where do you find authority for making the assertion? If you take part of this commission given by Christ to his Apostles, what right have you to reject the remainder? Why not reject the whole? I say that, by a parity of reasoning, if you take a part you ought to take the whole. You cannot consistently take one portion of Scripture and say, “This applies to me, or is mine, and I have a right to act by the authority it confers;” and then to say of the other, “I dismiss it, and want nothing to do with it.” That is mutilating the word of God, and wherever you find men who have authority from God to act in his name, you will find these gifts and blessings attending their administrations, just as in ancient days.

Suppose a descendant of John Adams, the first minister of this government to the Court of St. James, should find an old document that had been given to him by the Continental Congress authorizing him to go and act as its minister. He reads this document in which his ancestor’s name is mentioned and in which he is duly empowered to act as ambassador for the United States, and he says, “Here is a document, I have it, the original that was given to my great ancestor. I do not see why I should not go and act as ambassador. This document was not given to me, it is true, but I want to act in this capacity.” He goes across the water, travels to London, goes to Court, and presents his document and says, “I am empowered to act. I am sent over by the United States as ambassador to the Court of Great Britain.” “Where is your commission?” “Here.” “Why, this is an old document, it was given to John Adams. Is that your name, and are you the man?” “Oh no, I am not the man, but I am a descendant of his.” This would be just as consistent as for a minister of religion in this day to claim authority because he has a record of the commission which Jesus gave to his disciples. If one case is consistent, so is the other; if one is not, then the other is not.

My brethren, sisters and friends, you now, probably, begin to see the reasons why the Latter-day Saints claim that God has restored the authority and the everlasting priesthood; you now, probably, begin to see some reasons why God should send his holy angels from heaven to earth again.

“But,” says one, “I thought there were going to be no more angels, prophecies or revelations. I have been taught that the canon of Scripture was full, and that it was not necessary for God to speak again to man on the earth.”

Oh, this delusive idea! This damnable doctrine which has been preached until Christendom is completely filled with unbelief, so that the man who believes in revelation and that there is a necessity for it is set down as one who is unworthy the society of his fellows! Oh, the dreadful effects which have followed the proclamation of this fallacy for so long a period! What are the effects, resulting from it, that we see today? Christendom rent asunder, divided into sects and parties, the name of Jesus derided and sneered at, and the pure Gospel lost because of the propagation, for centuries, by so-called Christian ministers, of the soul-destroying and damnable heresy that God cannot or will not speak to man again from the heavens; that God will not reveal his will, send his angels, or exercise his power in the affairs of earth as much as he did in ancient days. Look at the effects of this! Travel in all our cities of the Atlantic and Pacific, and what do you see? Men and women professing to be followers of Jesus Christ, and yet all divided and split asunder, and quarrelling and contending—even members of the same church divided asunder. The Methodist Church North, and the Methodist Church South; the Presbyterian Church North, and the Presbyterian Church South; the Baptist Church North, and the Baptist Church South, and thus the religious world is divided and split asunder, and there is no authority to say what is truth or who shall proclaim it; there are none to say in the midst of the people, “Thus saith the Lord,” or “Here is the path, walk ye in it;” and if a man comes forward claiming that he has this authority he is met with the accusations:

“You are deluded, you are an impostor, you preach false doctrine, we will have none of your teaching. Men who believe in prophesy and revelation are liable to be deceived, and we are afraid of you, we do not know but you will deceive us. Jesus said there should be false prophets, we believe you are one of them.”

And thus they fortify and encase themselves in their unbelief and reject the word of God, and if Paul or Peter were to rise from the dead, and go amongst them and proclaim the principles they taught anciently, they would close their churches and chapels, and would say, “We will have none of you, you will deceive us, you are one of the false prophets spoken of,” forgetting that, if there are false prophets, there will, in all probability, also be true ones; and that it would be inconsistent to talk about false prophets if there were no true ones. There never is a counterfeit, bogus or imitation without a true one to copy after! Can you wonder, brethren and sisters, that the world is in the condition that it is, when unbelief has been handed down for generations, until it permeates the minds of all, both priest and people, even the children learn it in the Sunday schools, until every fiber of their minds becomes indoctrinated with the idea? The present condition of the Christian world is not to be wondered at, the wonder is that belief and faith exist to the extent they do. There are a few things more I would like to say in connection with this subject while I am upon it. One is that a perusal of the Scriptures will clear up one point in our minds respecting the principle of revelation and communication between God and man. There is not a servant of God of whom we have any account, from Genesis to Revelation, who did not receive revelation. Can any person point out a man who was one of God’s servants, of whom we have any account in the Scriptures, that did not receive revelation? Not one. It may be said, and is argued, “Why is it, if it be God’s will that man should have revelation from him, that the world has been so long without it?” This is very easily explained. You recollect that Jesus, on one occasion, went into a certain place, and it is said concerning him that he could not do many mighty works there because of the people’s unbelief. Unbelief, therefore, has a tendency to prevent the communication of God’s will to man by closing the channel of communication. And another very good reason is that when men were on the earth who did have these communications they were not allowed to live. Every such man was hunted and persecuted, and his life was sought after until there was not one left who had the power, authority and great gift and blessing to say to the people, “Thus saith the Lord;” and revelation and the spirit of revelation were withdrawn from man, and the whole earth fell into unbelief and darkness, and gross darkness prevailed over the hearts of the people. It is a very excellent reason why revelation should cease when the earth was drenched with the blood of Heaven’s messengers, and that blood was crying for vengeance on those who had slain them.

But there was a time predicted by the Prophets—John saw it, and has said in his revelations, “I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.’” Now the testimony of the Latter-day Saints is that God has sent this angel, and has actually restored the Holy Priesthood—that authority which was held by the Apostles and Jesus in ancient days, and by Joseph Smith, an humble, unlearned, but Godfearing boy, in our day. Joseph sought the Lord diligently and earnestly to know which was the right way; his mind was distracted by the various claims set forth by one sect and another, and he was determined to seek unto the Lord for wisdom, for he had read in the Epistle of James, that if any lacked wisdom and would ask of God, he would give liberally and upbraid not. He did so, and the Lord communicated to him that in his own time he would establish his Church, on the earth. He also told him not to join any of the churches then in existence, for all had departed from the right way. Eventually he was ordained; but in the first place, anxious to be baptized, he sought the Lord to know in what way he should obtain the ordinance of baptism, and the Lord sent an angel—John the Baptist, him who held this authority in ancient days and who baptized Jesus, and he laid his hands on the head of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, and ordained them to this authority. “Well,” says one, “I cannot believe this; if they could have got it from Peter Waldo, from the Catholic Church or the Baptist Church, I might have believed it; but to think that an angel came, shocks me, and it is more than I can believe. It is fanatical, and none but fanatics believe angels come to earth; there is deception in the idea.”

Oh, foolish generation! How could the power of God be restored from heaven, how could the world be united again, how could men be brought into one fold, and how could these dissensions and divisions be healed and removed unless God exerted his power? When the Lord does exercise power it is in his own way. If he chooses to send an angel, he will do so, and will not ask you or me whether we will accept and are suited with it or not. He sent an angel on this occasion to restore to earth the authority to baptize for the remission of sins, and that messenger laid his hands on the heads of Joseph and Oliver and gave them that authority, and they commenced to baptize.

But there was the authority to baptize with the Holy Ghost, or laying on of the hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, yet remaining to be restored. All of you who are familiar with the experience of Philip who baptized the eunuch, and who went to Samaria and preached the Gospel, know that we have no account of him laying on hands for the Holy Ghost. When the Apostles at Jerusalem heard that the Samaritans had been baptized by Philip, they sent two of their number to lay on hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost. These two had authority to baptize, and they also had authority to lay on hands; and when they came to Samaria they laid hands on the baptized believers, and they received the Holy Ghost, and they spake with tongues and prophesied. Philip had the same authority as John had—namely, the authority to baptize; but it appears from the record that he had not authority to lay on hands. This was the position of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery after having been ordained to this priesthood. They had authority to baptize, but there was something still lacking. They were men who would not run before they were sent; they would not claim authority that had not been bestowed upon them. They waited the good pleasure of the Lord and he sent to them Peter, James and John. You recollect that Jesus, on one occasion, asked Peter whom men said he, the Son of Man, was. They said some said one thing and some another. Then said Jesus to them, “But whom say ye that I am?” and Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” That is, he had not received that knowledge from man, but from God; and said Jesus, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.” What rock? “Oh,” says the Catholic, “upon Peter, he was a rock, and the Church was built upon him.” “No,” Say the Protestants, “not upon Peter, but upon Jesus.” “Now,” says Jesus, “upon this rock.” What rock? The rock of revelation—the principle upon which he was talking. He had spoken to Peter and told him that flesh and blood had not imparted to him certain knowledge which he possessed, but “my Father which is in heaven; and upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” They never can prevail against a Church built on the rock of revelation. “Upon this rock will I build my Church, and I will give unto thee, Peter, the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heavens, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Now this Peter, who held this authority when it was withdrawn from the earth, still held it as an angel in the presence of God. What messengers better adapted to the exigencies of the case than Peter, with his two associates, James and John, to come and lay hands upon Joseph Smith and ordain him to the authority to preach the Gospel and to lay on hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost? It is the exercise of this authority, thus bestowed, which has gained the thousands from the various nations of the earth that people these mountain valleys! It is this authority which has enabled the Elders of this Church to traverse remote continents and islands of the sea without purse or scrip, and, in the name of Jesus Christ, proclaim his Gospel in its ancient simplicity, God confirming the word by signs following—the very same work and the very same results that followed the preaching of it in the days of Peter and his fellow Apostles.

How very singular, is it not, that Joseph Smith should have claimed to receive the authority from John the Baptist! How very singular that he should claim authority from the ordination of Peter, James and John—that is, if it were not true! How very singular! And then, to add to the singularity of the whole case and to the remarkable features of it, to think that the Elders of this Church have accomplished a work precisely similar in many respects to that which the ancient Apostles accomplished! Wherever they went and the people received their testimony they were of one heart and mind. And has it not been so in our day? We find in this Territory men representing nearly every country. They have come here by thousands from remote continents and isles of the sea, and they are united, not so much as they should be, or as they will be; but still there is amongst them a remarkable amount of union, peace, love, and goodwill, and an absence of litigation, drunkenness, theft, and the evils and vices that prevail in the world. The people are united, and from every hamlet, and every habitation over all this extended country, from north to south, their united prayers ascend morning, noon and night to God, to bless his servants and to bear off the Holy Priesthood and Apostleship. Yes, in all this land, and throughout the earth wherever the servants of God have gone, these same principles prevail and are observed by those who have received their testimony. The Saints are united; they sustain the authority which God has restored; for be it known there is an authority now on the earth by which men can declare to the people, “Thus saith the Lord,” just as we might suppose a servant of God would do anciently.

Do I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet because it was told to me in my childhood? Do I believe that Brigham Young is an Apostle and prophet because it has been told to me? Partly, but more from the fact that God has borne testimony to me by the revelations of the Holy Spirit; and I have grown in the belief and knowledge, and I know that Joseph was a prophet; I know that he was ordained of God; I know that he had the authority which he professed to have, and that it is in the Church; and I know, too, that the same signs follow the believers as did anciently, and the Church will grow and increase and spread abroad. It is on this account, my brethren and sisters and friends, that we are so hated, for the adversary knows it, and hence this persecution which seems so causeless.

May God bless us, help us to keep his commandments, to discern the truth, and to cleave to it all our days, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Tabernacle, Ogden City, June 4, 1871.

It is a great work to instruct ourselves and each other; and to bring ourselves into perfect subjection and to an understanding of principle. We know what it is to meet with obstructions, difficulties and contradictions of various kinds; and this people know pretty well what it is to have to contend with the influences of the wicked world; but we have reason to rejoice and be exceeding glad that we are not in the same circumstances now that we have been heretofore. We have peace here in these mountains, and since we arrived in these valleys we have been free from those obstructions with which our pathway was constantly strewn before. It is frequently asked me why we left the States and the society of our Christian brethren. My reply has invariably been, “We stayed with you just as long as you would let us, and when you would let us stay no longer we had to hunt up some other place, and we came to the valleys not out of choice but out of necessity.” It is true that we have had some little things to contend with here, but it amounts to no more than a war of words. Our religion will bear investigation, and we invite the Christian world to investigate and to exchange ideas concerning faith and principles.

Brother Wells has been telling you about some of the influences that we had to contend with in Illinois. This gentleman was not a “Mormon” when we went from Missouri to Illinois, neither was he when we left that State, and he was in a position to know what the feelings of the people were; his neighbors composed the band that slew Joseph and Hyrum in the jail at Carthage. He is acquainted with the circumstances. He says he has put them from his mind as much as possible, and does not think of them. I am happy to hear it. I wish we may never be under the necessity of again referring to what we have passed through; but we shall be, there is no question; and if we have to meet with influences of another character now, all that we have to do is to be prepared for them; and if the Lord brings us into circumstances in which we shall be as willing to live our religion and pray as some are to fight, it will be much better for us. We have many Elders in Israel who would much rather fight for their religion than pray. As for a person being saved in the celestial kingdom of God without being prepared to dwell in a pure and holy place, it is all nonsense and ridiculous; and if there be any who think they can gain the presence of the Father and the Son by fighting for instead of living their religion, they will be mistaken, consequently the quicker we make up our minds to live our religion the better it will be for us. If we live so as to enjoy the spirit of the faith that we have embraced there is no danger of our being deceived.

To those of our Christian brethren who have come here, not to join a mob to kill or persecute the Saints, but to see how many of those who have obeyed the Gospel they can induce to forsake the holy commandments of the Lord Jesus and to follow after phantoms, I say the quicker this war of words commences and the fiercer it is carried on the better it will be for the Saints. So we say come, brethren, come with your big tents, your meetinghouses, your arguments and all the philosophy you are in possession of, for we have a religion that we would like the inhabitants of the earth to understand. We have nothing in the dark, nothing but what is good for man; and we would say to all try our religion. We have tried and we understand the religions of the world; and in some remarks I made yesterday I ventured to say that our youth know more of heavenly things than old men do in the Christian world. If any doubt this, just take our children and question them, and if they have the courage and boldness, see how quickly they will lead members of the sectarian world into waters so deep that they cannot see the shore. But if a war of argument is desired or intended, I do not mean contention, but an exchange of ideas, we are willing to give to all who want them the principles of the Gospel of life and salvation, and they can give to us all they know of the Gospel as they have embraced it, which is no more nor less than a system of morals or ethics, and is excellent as far as it goes. But the Gospel that we have embraced includes every principle of morality and virtue that is taught by any person on the earth, whether he does or does not know or profess to know Christ.

If we are brought into circumstances where we have the privilege of telling strangers what we believe in we are very willing to do so; but the first thing with them is, “Oh, your strange doctrine, your peculiar doctrine!” How often this is said to me in my office. I say to them, “What peculiar doctrine? Will you please to name it?” The reply is, “Well, you know you have a peculiar doctrine;” and the ladies stand anxiously waiting for somebody or other to give it a name. I sometimes say, “Is it plurality of wives you mean?” “Yes, yes, that is the doctrine.” If I were to answer my own feelings to such parties, I would answer them and say, “That is nothing; so far as a plurality of women goes, you men, if you will allow me this vulgar expression, ‘knock the hind sights off the Mormons.’” But that is vulgar, and so let it pass.

“But,” say they, “what of your peculiar doctrine? What did you come to the mountains for? What did you leave us for? We suppose it was on account of your peculiar doctrine.” I reply, “Pause! Wait a moment! When we left the confines of what is called civilization the doctrine of plurality of wives was not known by the world, and was not taught by us, and was known only to a very few members of our Church; but since we have declared this revelation we have dwelt in peace and safety, so we were not persecuted for that, sure. We did not leave Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, or any other State or neighborhood within the confines of civilization for believing in the doctrine of a plurality of wives.” I say this to all who hear me. I want our young folks to understand this, or they may perhaps grow up with the idea that we were driven from our homes in consequence of our belief in celestial marriage. I want all our young, and all who believe the Gospel and all who do not believe it, to know that we were driven for believing in the Old and New Testament; not for believing in the Book of Mormon, but in the Bible, and then practicing it in our lives. This, and this only, is what we were driven for. It is now called the “one-man power;” then it was “the ‘Mormons’ clan together;” and this was the rock of offense or seemingly so; but in reality it was the same then as now and now as then—we as a people believe in the Scriptures of divine truth, and we are united in endeavoring to live according to the precepts thereof.

When Brother Wells was speaking he said the Christian religion had failed. I will say just what he meant to say—namely, that professing the Christian religion has failed to bring the world into subjection to moral laws. I would not say that Christianity has failed; the religion of Christ has not failed, but those professing this religion have failed to bring the world into subjection to good and wholesome laws. You may take up politics, for instance, and in our own country there are a great many parties who differ in their views and opinions with regard to governing a nation, and on every hand they are contending against each other. This division exists even among the professing Christians. The Catholics and Quakers are probably less divided than others, but they are far from being one in politics; and the same is true to a greater extent of the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, and so on. When we see a religion, and one which is claimed to be the religion of Christ, and it will not govern men in their politics, it is a very poor religion, it is very feeble, very taint in its effects, hardly perceptible in the life of a person. The religion that the Lord has revealed from heaven unites the hearts of the people, and when they gather together, no matter where they are from, they are of one heart and one mind. Those who have no idea of the effects of the Gospel attribute the oneness it produces to the influence of individuals now living on the earth, instead of giving God the glory, praise and honor.

The religion of heaven unites the hearts of the people and makes them one. You may gather a people together, and no matter how widely they differ in politics, the Gospel of Jesus Christ will make them one, even if among them were found members of all the political parties in the country, I do not know how many different political parties now exist in the country. There used to be only Federals and Democrats, then Whigs, Republicans, Locofocos, Barn-burners, and Free-soilers. Then the “Know Nothings” sprang into existence. I believe the Ku-Klux is a new political organization; and I have heard that, in the City of Washington, the Anti-Ku-Klux, another political party, has recently been organized. If members of all these various organizations were to obey the Gospel and gather together, the religion of heaven would clear their hearts of all political rubbish and make them one in voting for principles and measures, instead of men, and I think that any religion that will not do this is very feeble in its effects. The Christian religion, or what is called so, has failed to subdue the world; but what will the Gospel of Jesus Christ do? If the Gospel that we preach, and which we are trying to set before priest and people—for we want all to know and understand it—if it does not have the effect of convincing men and women of the truth sufficiently to induce them to yield obedience to its ordinances and to embrace the doctrine of life and salvation, and accept the overtures of mercy, learn Christ and obey him, it will drive them to the wall of infidelity. Do we believe this? It must be so. Do others believe it? No, they do not. The Christian world do not know that they are infidels in their belief in regard to the character of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Priesthood and its laws and requirements. If a man does not believe that he ought to be baptized for the remission of his sins, he is an infidel to baptism. My definition of the term infidel is that if any principle or doctrine is set before me, and I say I disbelieve it, I am neither more nor less than an infidel to that principle or doctrine. Are the sectarian world infidels according to this definition? Yes, and if we had time we would take some passages of Scripture and prove it. Take, for instance, the character of the Savior, and the sectarian world are infidel on this point. What do they believe about it? I do not know what they believe, and they do not know themselves. Many of them do not know that they believe anything. They would he glad to believe if they knew what to believe. But not knowing what to believe, they say, “We do not know, we do not understand, we cannot tell. We understand some things by reading the Scriptures; but the ministers tell us they have a spiritual meaning.” Now what does this favorite saying of the ministers—“a spiritual meaning”—convey to the mind? Something or other that you and I do not understand, that is all. Well, then, partially, I will say, to a certain degree, it leaves us in infidelity. This is the situation of the sectarian world today—they do not know what to believe, and consequently they are full of unbelief and doubt, and we say that our children ought to know enough to teach the whole world with regard to these things. The divines of the day, when, they have graduated from the schools, seminaries and colleges, so far as their knowledge of heavenly things goes, are a bundle of trash and ignorance. I meet with some occasionally, however, who are very religious. I met with a gentleman in my office last Friday evening, who was very tenacious on some points touching morality. He put me in mind of a great many I have met in my travels—strong, staunch Christians. What did the religion of that individual consist of? I told you yesterday—ignorance and impudence—that is about the amount of it. Such men would be Christians if they knew how, they would like to be. But will they receive the truth? Our doctrine and practice is, and I have made it mine through life—to receive truth no matter where it comes from. Is there truth in heaven? Yes, it dwells there, it is the foundation of the heavens. Is there truth on earth and beneath the earth? There is. Is there truth in the words of a good man? Yes. In the words of a wicked man? Yes, sometimes; and there is truth in the words of an angel, and in the words of the devil, and when the devil speaks the truth I should have the spirit to discriminate between the truth and the error, and should receive the former and reject the latter. For example, you read in Genesis about the formation of the earth and the creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden. By and by the devil comes along and tempts Eve, by offering her the fruit of a certain tree, assuring her at the same time that the very day she ate of it her eyes would be open and she would see like the Gods. Did the devil tell the truth? He did. Did he tell a lie? Yes, and how many of them he told to one truth I have not taken pains to examine. You take a wicked person, an opposer of the truth, one of our apostates, for instance, and he will tell you a little truth and mix it up with a great deal of error; but we should know enough to understand and receive the truth; that will do us good, and if we reject the error it will do us no harm.

This is our position, and we say to all Christians come and investigate our religion. Do we understand Methodism, Presbyterianism, Quakerism, Shakerism and the various other isms of the Christian world? Yes. I learned these, as far as their creeds go, many years ago. That which they could not tell and did not understand, I never did learn. My objection to their creeds and systems was that they talked about things they did not understand and could not tell a word about; consequently I was called an infidel. We say, give us the truth; but when strangers come to see me their first reflection is, “I would like to ask him a question if I dare.” What is it? It is all about wives. My conscience! What a generation of gentlemen and ladies we have! Their thoughts and reflections are continually about wives and husbands. Why the mind of a pure Saint and Christian is above such things. If it is necessary to take a wife, take one; if it is necessary to have a husband, have one. If it is necessary to have two wives, take them. If it is right, reasonable and proper and the Lord permits a man to take half a dozen wives, take them; but if the Lord says let them alone, let them alone. How long? Until we go down to the grave, if the Lord demand it. If he require an Elder or Elders to take their valise and travel and preach the Gospel until the day of their death, they should do it; and if they are not happy in so doing, it would prove that they do not possess the spirit of their religion.

This gentleman to whom I was speaking on Friday was tenacious with regard to the Sabbath; that was his whole theme. He commenced about our running cars here on the Sabbath Day. I told him in as few words as I could, that my feelings were not to do it, and if I had the management of railroads I would stop it. Why? Because the Lord has said that it is not good for us to work the seven days; it is good to work six and rest the seventh. Our system requires rest after six days’ labor, and consequently he has set the seventh apart for that purpose. But I told him I could not control that matter; the people want to run from Salt Lake to Ogden and back again to Salt Lake on Sundays, and consequently, as it is a matter of necessity, we run the cars on the Sabbath. Said he, “How can you reconcile this?” Said I, “It ought to be done, that is how I reconcile it.” Know whether you ought to do a thing or not, and if you ought to do it, do it; and if you ought not, let it alone. That is the way to live. You cannot read anything in the Bible about a railroad from Salt Lake City to Ogden, nor from the Atlantic to the Pacific; you cannot read anything about telegraph wires, nor whether they should work on a Sunday or lie still; nor anything about running a railroad, or a stage, or about the labor of the people who live now. By reading the Bible we can learn something about the way the ancients regulated their labors as far as the Lord told them what to do. It is one of the most simple things in the world for people to understand what course they should take; what a pity they do not all understand it! If men would live and humble themselves like children God could dwell within them and could dictate every heart. But to enjoy this we must live before the Lord, so that our minds would be like a sheet of white paper such as our reporters here are writing on, then the Lord could and would dictate all our movements. Live with a conscience void of offense towards God and man and the spirit of inspiration would indite matter on every such well regulated conscience. But our consciences are made by our parents and teachers; and just as we are taught by others are our consciences dictated. But we should all live so that the spirit of revelation could dictate and write on the heart and tell us what we should do, instead of the traditions of our parents and teachers. But to do this we must become like little children; and Jesus says if we do not we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. How simple it is! Live free from envy, malice, wrath, strife, bitter feelings, and evil speaking in our families and about our neighbors and friends, and all the inhabitants of the earth, wherever we meet them. Live so that our consciences are free, clean and clear. This is as simple as anything can be, and yet it is one of the hardest things to get people to understand, or rather to practice; for you may get them to understand it, but the great difficulty is to get them to practice it. If we, both priest and people, will practice this, the Spirit of the Lord can dictate and tell us our duty, and when that is presented before us we will go and do it.

But, instead of such principles as these occupying people’s minds now-a-days, it is, “How many wives have you, Mr. Young? Oh, I do want to ask Mr. Young how many wives he has.” Ladies who come into my office very frequently say, “I wonder if it would hurt his feelings if I were to ask him how many wives he has?” Let me say to all creation that I would as lief they should ask me that question as any other; but I would rather see them anxious to learn about the Gospel. Having wives is a secondary consideration; it is within the pale of duty, and consequently, it is all right. But to preach the Gospel, save the children of men, build up the kingdom of God, produce righteousness in the midst of the people; govern and control ourselves and our families and all we have influence over; make us of one heart and one mind; to clear the world from wickedness—this fighting and slaying, this mischievous spirit now so general, and to subdue and drive it from the face of the earth, and to usher in and establish the reign of universal peace, is our business, no matter how many wives a man has got, that makes no difference here or there. I want to say, and I wish you to publish it, that I would as soon be asked how many wives I have got as any other question, just as soon; but I would rather see something else in their minds, instead of all the time thinking “How many wives have you; or I wonder whom he slept with last night.” I can tell those who are curious on this point. I slept with all that slept, and we slept on one universal bed—the bosom of our mother earth, and we slept together. “Did you have anybody in bed with you?” “Yes.” “Who was it?” It was my wife, it was not your wife, nor your daughter nor sister, unless she was my wife, and that too legally. I can say that to all creation, and every honest man can say the same; but it is not all who are professed Christians who can say it, and I will say, and I am sorry to say it, not all professed “Mormons” can say this. Live so that your heart is pure and holy, and if the Lord Almighty gives you a wife take good care of her, and do not be like many of our brethren. I heard a contention this morning between an old man and his family, I am ashamed to say it; as I said to the brethren, “It is bad enough to see young fools, but worse to see old fools.” You only meet with a man occasionally who knows enough about human nature to govern his own family. Men, as a general thing, do not know the dispositions of their wives and children, nor how to govern and control them; and it is certainly a pretty close, intricate point. I have had some people ask me how I manage and control the people. I do it by telling them the truth and letting them do just as they have a mind to. I control my wives by telling them the truth and letting them do as they like. Will I quarrel with them? No, I will not. Some of them may have felt a little discouraged at this. I do not know, however, that they had a disposition to quarrel; if they have had, they are sick of it, for they have found out that they cannot raise the breeze. Devils, pigs, dogs and the brute creation quarrel. Do intelligent men quarrel? Yes, and men and women will quarrel, and sometimes they quarrel with their neighbors. I meet with some occasionally who need chastening, but as for quarrelling I do not think that I am guilty of it.

With these few remarks it is about time to close. We shall meet again, this afternoon. To satisfy my feelings I should have to say a good deal. I say to you who want to govern your wives, set them an example, continually, that is good. Let them say, “There is my husband, does he do anything that he should not do? No, he does not. He prays, he is faithful, humble, meek, full of kindness and of good words and works, I see nothing wrong in him.” If a man lives like this his wife will say, “I should be ashamed to get up a quarrel, I think I had better do as he says, I think he knows better than I do, I will yield my spirit to his.” If a man pursue this straightforward, manly, godlike course he will find woman in her place by his side following him. He is leading her, she is not leading him. When we find an Elder of Israel do this we find plenty of women who will go along with him. And this is the principle on which to govern a neighborhood or nation as well as a wife or children. When a king, ruler, president, governor or legislative assembly take this course, the people knew they are looking after the welfare of the governed instead of their own aggrandizement, and they will always be glad to have them in office, and they will not wish for a change. When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people mourn. This is the secret of it; if we govern ourselves we can govern others.

May the Lord bless us. Amen.

Discourse by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Tabernacle, Ogden City, June 3, 1871.

I am aware that Brother Franklin D. Richards’ request to the children to come to meeting this afternoon has produced a little excitement; but we are very happy to see the people together. My remarks will be to parents as well as to children. I will commence by saying that if each and every one of us who are parents will reflect upon the responsibilities devolving upon us we shall come to the conclusion that we should never permit ourselves to do anything that we are not willing to see our children do. We should set them an example that we wish them to imitate. Do we realize this? How often we see parents demand obedience, good behavior, kind words, pleasant looks, a sweet voice and a bright eye from a child or children when they themselves are full of bitterness and scolding! How inconsistent and unreasonable this is! If we wish our children to look pleasant we should look pleasant at them; and if we wish them to speak kind words to each other, let us speak kind words to them. We need not go into detail, but we should carry out this principle from year to year in our whole lives, and do as we wish our children to do. I say this with regard to our morals and our faith in our religion.

Now let me call the attention of parents to another subject worthy of their notice—that is, the use of proper language. Take us as a people and we are not overstocked with language; there are very few highly educated men in the Church to which we belong. We have a few learned men and a few good scholars among the women, but they are scarce. Now, parents, and I wish you to remember this, should never permit themselves to speak improperly before a child, or to use language that would not be commendable in an orator. If you have not such language at your command, then use the best you have. It is true that to use that which we are in possession of to advantage is a peculiar gift. We see some who can use language, apparently, to their entire satisfaction, and yet they have no great store of language at their command; but still they have the happy faculty of conveying their ideas with greater propriety than others who are literary in their tastes and have been highly educated. There is considerable in making choice of words. For instance, if we were to address a man who had been disobedient and needed chastisement we would use very different language from that which would be used if addressing a child or a lady. If you wish to impress on the minds of individuals or an audience anything that you desire them to remember, you will have to use language accordingly. I have heard it observed that language should be used according to the merits or demerits of the case under consideration; this will do under some circumstances. I wish to impress upon myself, as well as upon my brethren and sisters, the propriety of never using language to a child that we should dislike to hear them use in refined society. If we have a choice set of words at our command we should always use them when speaking to our children, even from the time they commence to talk. If we do this, the effect will be very pleasing in after years, for when our children enter into polite and refined society, instead of being mortified and having to call them to one side to correct their unrefined language, the elegance and propriety of their mode of expression will be a source of gratification and pleasure. If a child has to be corrected for the use of improper or inelegant language, it might reply, “Mother, or father, I am using words that you taught me.”

Carry out this principle, not only in language, but in all the affairs of life; and let us always set an example before our children that is worthy of their imitation and highest admiration. If we do this, we shall have occasion to rejoice and be exceeding glad, for we shall have influence over them and they will not forsake us.

There is a passage in this good book (the Bible) said to have been written by a very wise man, which says—

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

To make a community thoroughly understand these words, a great deal of explanation would be necessary. To illustrate, I ask myself, am I capable of bringing up a child in the way that he should go? The answer is right here—I am not. Why not? Because I have not that light and intelligence in my possession and that command over myself to give to a child a suitable impression under every circumstance and in every place, when I address him or require anything of him. I would not speak discouragingly of myself or of my brethren and sisters. We know a great deal, but when we compare our knowledge with the fountain of knowledge it is very small; when our light is compared with the fountain of light it is very small, and consequently I can say that I am not prepared to bring up a child in the way he should go; and yet I probably come as near to it as any person that lives. How is it with my brethren and sisters? They are capable of bringing up their children a great deal better than they do, that is certain. If we do as well as we know how—use all the faith and intelligence in our possession, and seek to gain more, we will be able to bring up our children in such a way that very few of them will ever depart from the right path. I want you to remember this. If we will do just as well as we know how, never missing an opportunity of giving a word, a look or a principle that will do good to the rising generation, never permitting ourselves to be overtaken in fault, but preserving ourselves in the integrity and patience of our souls, there are very few of the rising generation with us that will depart from the words of life. As for those who are old amongst us, their traditions and prepossessed notions, imbibed in childhood, cling to them like a garment, or like something glued to them; and they govern them to a great extent, and it is almost an impossibility for old people to get rid of their traditions; but it will be very different with our children if we train them according to the will of God that has been revealed to us as a people. We have the Old and New Testaments; the Book of Mormon, giving an account of the aborigines of our country, the visit of the Savior to and the organization of his Church on this continent, the same as to his brethren on the land of Palestine. Then we have the Book of Doctrine and Covenants; in addition to these three books, we have the history, discourses and sayings of the Prophet Joseph, and the history, sayings and discourses of the Elders of Israel, and also the experience we have gained in this Church. Combine these, and I think we cannot come to the conclusion that we are ignorant and do not know anything; although I say that, in comparison with the fountain of all knowledge, our knowledge is small and trifling. But if we will do as well as we know how, we will be able to teach our children sufficient doctrine, truth and principle, that they will actually grow up into Christ, our living head.

Now let us say a few words with regard to human nature and its proneness to wander into evil. You go, for instance, to the river and commence to throw sticks and shavings into the water, and they will go downstream; and a great effort or a very powerful wind will be required to make a small boat, vessel, bark, or even a board that the children play with, go upstream. The same is true of small streams. Cast anything into them, and it goes downstream. We are taught in these books that, through the Fall, we have partaken so much of the nature of the enemy—he has so much influence in the flesh of every person, that we have to enter into a warfare, and we have to summon all our force and to use every effort to propel our bark upstream, or to put down iniquity in our own hearts and inclinations. I will pause right here, and refer to what brother George Q. Cannon was saying this morning to the children. Said he, “My boys, do not chew tobacco because you see others do it; do not smoke a cigar because you see others do it; my little girls, do not drink tea because you see mamma do it.” Now let me give you a comparison. Ask these little boys, if they saw two parties, one on the right hand praying to the Father in the name of Jesus, and the other on the left with a cigar in his mouth, puffing away as vigorously as possible, which they would be most inclined to imitate, and you will find they will instantly choose that which is evil. They are not inclined to pray; there seems to be a kind of a dread or terror about it, and they say, “We do not know how to ask the Father for blessings, and we do not think we could pray, but give us a cigar and we can puff as well as anybody.” This is only a comparison, but it furnishes a correct illustration of the facility with which evil habits are acquired, and how quick children as well as parents are to go astray, how quick their feet are to run into by and forbidden paths. But if parents will continually set before their children examples worthy of their imitation and the approval of our Father in heaven, they will turn the current, and the tide of feelings of their children, and they, eventually, will desire righteousness more than evil. This disposition will not be acquired in one day, week or year; but let parents spend their lives in teaching good, in good words and good looks and in the continual exercise of their faith in God, and their children will finally feel that they would rather be Christians than sinners.

Have we any proof of this? Yes. We have brethren here who have traveled a good deal, and who have been in the Church a good many years. If they could only think of them they could count over people by the hundred and the thousand who have left this Church; but you now see many of their children coming to Zion; and get into conversation with them and you will hear them say, “I have come to see what you, Latter-day Saints, are doing. My father was formerly a member of your Church; but he left and died in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, or somewhere else. My parents taught me to believe the Gospel, and, although they were cut off from the Church, it has never left me. When I read the Bible I find that they taught me the truth. If I go to meeting among the sectarians, I gain neither light nor knowledge; but what my parents taught me has had an influence upon me through my life from my childhood up, and now I have come to see what you, Latter-day Saints, are doing.” And the children and grandchildren of those who apostatized years and years ago, will come up to Zion by hundreds and thousands, impelled by what their parents taught them in childhood.

This is another comparison. We are not quite all going to apostatize; a great many have died in the faith, and a great many have apostatized, but their posterity will come to Zion and believe the truth. Our children will have the love of the truth, if we but live our religion. Parents should take that course that their children can say, “I never knew my father to deceive or take advantage of a neighbor; I never knew my father take to himself that which did not belong to him, never, never! No, but he said, ‘Son, or daughter, be honest, true, virtuous, kind, industrious, prudent and full of good works.’” Such teachings from parents to their children will abide with them forever, unless they sin against the Holy Ghost, and some few, perhaps, will do this.

If you should have visits here from those professing to be Christians, and they intimate a desire to preach to you, by all means invite them to do so. Accord to every reputable person who may visit you, and who may wish to occupy the stands of your meetinghouses to preach to you, the privilege of doing so, no matter whether he be a Catholic, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, Freewill Baptist, Methodist, or whatever he may be; and if he wishes to speak to your children let him do so. Of course you have the power to correct whatever false teachings or impressions, if any, your children may hear or receive. I say to parents, place your children, as far as you have an opportunity to do so, in a position or situation to learn everything in the world that is worth learning. You will probably have what is called a Christian Church here; they will not admit that we are Christians, but they cannot think us further from the plan of salvation as revealed from heaven than we know them to be, so we are even on that ground, as far as it goes. But, as I was saying, you may have professing Christians come here to take up their residences in your midst; and I want to say to parents and children, that, so far as the Christian nations are concerned, I will take America, for instance, and on the score of morals—honesty, integrity, truthfulness and virtue, you will find people by hundreds of thousands just as good as any Latter-day Saints, as far as they know. They are the ones we are after. The Lord told us to go and preach the Gospel without purse and scrip. What for? To hunt up the honest ones who are now mixed up with all the nations of the earth and gather them together; and we have done so, as far as we have had the opportunity and privilege. And after we are gathered we are none too honest, any more than the inhabitants of the world generally are, and they hardly know the meaning of the term. Still, according to the light they possess, I mean the Christian world, thousands and millions of them are honest, virtuous and true, and I fellowship them as far as they do right. Is this strange? No, it is not. I wish that all the Latter-day Saints were as good, according to the knowledge they possess, as thousands and millions of the sectarian world are; and I will not skip even the heathen world, for many of them are as good and honest, according to the light they possess, as men and women know how to be.

Now, then, if our brethren of the Presbyterians, Methodists or any others visit here and want to preach to you, certainly let them preach, and have your children hear them. They will tell you to keep the Sabbath and to love your father and mother; they will tell you to be true, honest, industrious, to be faithful to your studies, to read the Bible and all good books, to study the sciences, &c., which is all good, and as far as such teaching goes just as good as it can be. If they want to come and teach your children in the Sunday school, I say let them do so, most certainly. We have scores of thousands of their books distributed among the Sunday schools throughout our Territory. Some Latter-day Saints think they are not exactly what they ought to be; but we are using them in our schools Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, from one year’s end to another.

I say, parents, do not be afraid of having your children learn everything that is worth learning. I can pick hundreds and thousands of children in this Church whom I could teach with greater ease, and so could a man from college, than their parents could be taught. I can get at their senses better; they are quick and apprehensive and can learn sooner. And if any of our Christian brethren want to go into our Sabbath schools to teach our children, let them do so. They will not teach them anything immoral in the presence of those who are in charge of the schools; they wait until they get behind the door in the dark before they commit immoral acts, and very few of them will, even then. But in their Sunday schools they teach as good morals as you and I can teach.

I want to say that we are for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; we are pursuing the path of truth, and by and by we expect to possess a great deal more than we do now; but to say that we shall ever possess all truth, I pause, I do not know when. We receive light and truth from the fountain of light and truth, but I am not at liberty to say, and do not know that we shall ever see the time when we shall possess all truth. But we will receive truth from any source, wherever we can obtain it.

Next week the great camp meeting that has been so long contemplated is to commence in the city of Salt Lake, where, I have heard it whispered, there are so many of the “Mormons” to be converted. I am going to permit every one of my children to go and hear what they have to say. When we come to the sciences of the day the knowledge of the sectarian world is very extensive; the same is true of their morality; but when we come to read out of the Book of Life the words of the Almighty to the people, and compare them with the knowledge of the sectarian world, I am reminded of the words of Geo. Francis Train concerning a certain gentleman. Said he, “I want you to sit down and tell me all you know in five minutes.” They can tell all they know about God, godliness, heaven, earth, and the exaltation of man to the Godhead in five minutes, for they do not know anything. Our children can see this, and I want them to see it. If there is any man among them that does know anything about the plan of the Almighty for the redemption and exaltation of man, I hope and pray that I may have the privilege of seeing him. I recollect when I was young going to hear Lorenzo Dow preach. He was esteemed a very great man by the religious folks. I, although young in years and lacking experience, had thought a great many times that I would like to hear some man who could tell me something, when he opened the Bible, about the Son of God, the will of God, what the ancients did and received, saw and heard and knew pertaining to God and heaven. So I went to hear Lorenzo Dow. He stood up some of the time, and he sat down some of the time; he was in this position and in that position, and talked two or three hours, and when he got through I asked myself, “What have you learned from Lorenzo Dow?” and my answer was, “Nothing, nothing but morals.” He could tell the people they should not work on the Sabbath day; they should not lie, swear, steal, commit adultery, &c., but when he came to teaching the things of God he was as dark as midnight. And so I lived until, finally, I made a profession of religion. I thought to myself I would try to break off my sins and lead a better life and be as moral as I possibly could; for I was pretty sure that I should not stay here always. Where I was going to I did not know, but I would like to be as good as I know how while here, rather than run the risk of being full of evil. I had heard a good deal about religion, and what a good nice place heaven was, and how good the Lord was, and I thought I would try to live a pretty good life. But when I reached the years of, I will say, courage, I think that is the best term, I would ask questions. I would say, “Elder, or Minister, I read so and so in the Bible, how do you understand it?” Then I would go and hear them preach on the divinity of the Son, and the character of the Father and the Holy Ghost and their divinity, and, I will say, the divinity of the soul of man; what we are here for, and various kindred topics. But after asking questions and going to hear them preach year after year, What did I learn? Nothing. I would as lief go into a swamp at midnight to learn how to paint a picture and then define its colors when there is neither moon nor stars visible and profound darkness prevails, as to go to the religious world to learn about God, heaven, hell or the faith of a Christian. But they can explain our duty as rational, moral beings, and that is good, excellent as far as it goes.

This has been my experience in the Christian world, and I want our children to go and hear all there is to hear, for the whole sum of it will be wound up as I once heard one of the finest speakers America has ever produced say, when speaking on the soul of man. After laboring long on the subject, he straightened himself up—he was a fine looking man—and said he, “My brethren and sisters, I must come to the conclusion that the soul of man is an immaterial substance.” Said I, “Bah!” There was no more sense in his discourse than in the bleating of a sheep or the grunting of a pig. I palliated the facts partially, however, so far as he was concerned, by attributing my lack of comprehension to my own ignorance. This reminds me that I once heard Mr. Lansing preach a most elaborate discourse. It was in the morning, and when the meeting was dismissed and the people had come out, Deacon Brown says to Deacon Taylor, “What a sermon we have had!” Deacon Taylor says, “Yes, yes!” Deacon Brown says, “That is one of the most profound discourses I ever heard Mr. Lansing deliver;” and so they continued talking until one of them said at last, “I did not understand a word of it.” The other Deacon replied, “Neither did I.” Their verdict was a just one, for the discourse consisted of fine, beautiful words and nothing else, I saw and heard nothing to give me the least clue to anything pertaining to God, heaven, or the designs of the Creator with regard to the earth and its inhabitants. But as I did not understand a word of it, I supposed that was on account of my ignorance, until I heard the Deacons say that they did not, and then I concluded that I knew as much as they did. For this reason I say, go and learn all they know. Their catechisms are good; but if you come to the things of God I will be bound that we have children who, if they dare open their mouths and converse, would place them in water they could not fathom. Yet I say, go and see and hear them and learn what they know, then you can discriminate and discern, and will be able to understand why the Lord called upon Joseph Smith to come out and declare his will, and why he bestowed upon Joseph the Priesthood and its keys and powers. You will then learn, my little boys and girls, that the world of mankind scarcely know anything about the Bible. Ask them concerning the character of the Savior and they will expatiate and expound hour after hour, but they will tell absolutely nothing. I presume that there are sisters here who have asked ministers what a certain Scripture meant, and in reply they have talked, talked, talked, and wound up by saying, “Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh. Sister, I cannot tell you.” Have you ever heard sisters and children ask questions of this kind? Yes, and so have I many times, but they have failed to obtain one particle of knowledge from their religious teachers. Why? Because they did not possess it. They did not know that Jesus was the express image of his Father, although they had read it in the Bible; they did not know that man was made in the image of his God, although they have read it hundreds of times in the book they profess to reverence and believe in so much. They cannot realize it. When and how will they realize it? When they submit themselves to the Lord, and ask the Father in the name of Jesus to give them revelation by the Holy Ghost. No man can call Jesus the Christ except it be revealed from heaven to him.

I will say to my young friends, my little brothers and sisters, go and learn everything you can. I say to parents, do not be afraid one particle! These children will learn something that we as parents know and understand already, and it is very grievous for us to realize that it is the truth. Joseph, our Prophet, was hunted and driven, arrested and persecuted, and although no law was ever made in these United States that would bear against him, for he never broke a law, yet to my certain knowledge he was defendant in forty-six lawsuits, and every time Mr. Priest was at the head of and led the band or mob who hunted and persecuted him. And when Joseph and Hyrum were slain in Carthage jail the mob, painted like Indians, was led by a preacher. And now they follow us up and want us to learn of them, when, so far as the characters of God and Jesus are concerned and the errand of Jesus into the world, our youth know better than the whole sectarian world. In coming to Utah to teach the “Mormons” the way of life, the Christians are but carrying coals to Newcastle. What is the use of going to “Mormon” settlements to teach the people temperance and sobriety, or to teach them the Bible? No more use than in going to Newcastle to sell coal. There is no other people in the world that believe in and practice the Bible as strictly as the Latter-day Saints. None but the Latter-day Saints properly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; no other people acknowledge him and keep his commandments; and yet they follow us up, their object, professedly, being to convert us to Christianity, but in reality it is to induce us to apostatize until they get the upper hand, that the Priesthood may again be destroyed from the earth. But never mind, let them go ahead, we shall see whether Christ or Baal will be king of the earth, and whether Baal will reign several thousand years longer. We shall find it out by and by.

I am saying this to parents, to those who have been in the midst of Christendom and have seen its workings; to women who have sat up night after night, for hundreds of nights, to watch their houses and keep the mob, led by priests, from slaughtering their husbands and families and destroying their property. Perhaps I ought to keep silent rather than say these things, but that would not be justice. Facts are facts and we cannot help it. I hope they will prove a little different in time to come. But with the exception of the infidel portion of it, the sectarian world has hewn out to itself broken cisterns that will hold no water; the priests have got their creeds, systems, and organizations, they live on the people, and they are afraid that, if truth be proclaimed, their craft will fall. Go to the infidel portion of the world and we are all right; for if they refuse to receive our doctrines they will talk and reason like men of intelligence. But with many of those professing to be Christian teachers it is very different, and in my secret estimate of the characters and attainments of many of them I have come to the conclusion that their forte is ignorance and impudence.

I will take another turn in my remarks, and will say if we were known by the world as we are, truly and honestly, I will not except the Christians nor their priests; if we were known by them as we know them, there is not a priest but would pray for the Latter-day Saints. The infidel world would also pray for us, and so would the political and moral world. But they do not know what the Lord is doing through us; they are ignorant, and in their ignorance they lift themselves up against God and his Anointed, for they have no eyes to see, ears to hear, nor hearts to understand. But some are becoming acquainted with us, and this has its influence. What is the object of the Lord Almighty in calling this people as he has done? This question may be answered in a very few words—it is nothing short of restoring to the midst of the children of men every truth, every good, all knowledge and everything lovely and beautiful for time and eternity, saving all that will or can be saved and exalting his children to thrones, and to crown them with crowns of glory, immortality and eternal lives. Do you see what is going to be the result of the course the Lord is pursuing with this people and with the world? You see some who formerly obeyed the Gospel leaving us occasionally. Where are they going? Is there anything else that will satisfy them? Not on this earth; they either remain faithful to the Gospel or go to infidelity. This is the fact. When men go from this Church they become infidels. They can say they believe in this, that or the other; they may turn to Spiritualism, bogusism, Emmaism or anything else; no matter what, but they must be infidels or else acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ.

The doctrine that we preach is the doctrine of the Bible, it is the doctrine the Lord has revealed for the salvation of the children of God, and when men, who have once obeyed it, deny it, they deny it with their eyes wide open, and knowing that they deny the truth and set at naught the counsels of the Almighty.

I have spoken quite awhile to you, my brethren and sisters. I have been teaching parents some things with regard to their children; now I wish to say to the children, obey your parents, be good, never suffer yourselves to do that which will mortify you through life, and that will cause you to look back with regret. While you are pure and spotless preserve yourselves in the integrity of your souls. Although you are young you know good from evil, and live so that you can look back on your lives and thank the Lord that he has preserved you, or has enabled you to preserve yourselves, so that you have no misconduct to regret or mourn over. Take this course and you will secure to yourselves an honorable name on earth among the good and the pure; you will maintain your integrity before heaven, and prove yourselves worthy of a high state of glory when you get through with this world.

God bless you. Amen.