Discourse by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered at the Forty-Sixth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Wednesday Afternoon, October 6, 1875.

It is exceedingly interesting to me, as I have no doubt it is to all Latter-day Saints, to hear the Elders who have been on missions bear a faithful testimony, on their return, to the truth of the work in which they have been engaged. It is a tolerably easy matter to tell, in listening to them speaking, whether they have been faithful or not in magnifying their Priesthood and calling, for a man who does not magnify his Priesthood, and who is not faithful in the discharge of the duties entrusted to him, generally manifests it by the spirit which he possesses and with which he speaks. And so, also, when men have been faithful and have striven to magnify their calling, a spirit and influence attend them that bear testimony of their faithfulness. No man can go out, ordained by those who have the authority, in faith and in humility to preach the principles of the everlasting Gospel, however peculiar and difficult the circumstances may be that surround him, however great the trials and the persecutions that he may have to contend with, without receiving an unction from the Holy One, that will bear testimony to him that the work in which he is engaged is of God, and that he has been called of God to declare the principles of life and salvation unto the people among whom his lot may be cast. There is this peculiarity and influence about this work, there is the demonstration of the Holy Ghost, which descends with convincing and overwhelming power upon all those who place themselves in a position to receive it; and there is no labor under the sun, I care not what it may be, or how pleasant the circumstances that surround him, at all comparable with the labor of an Elder in this Church, who endeavors, in humility and meekness, to magnify his calling; there is no joy which a human soul is capable of comprehending, that approaches the delight and the satisfaction which laboring in the ministry of the Son of God confers upon him who does so in faithfulness. He may be destitute, he may be without purse and scrip, as our Elders travel, he may be in the midst of enemies, he may be haled to prison, and treated with contumely, and have all manner of evil heaped upon him; but if he is faithful to God, if he is faithful to his Priesthood, and magnifies it to the extent of his ability, there is a power, an influence, and a joy resting upon and accompanying him, and filling him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, that are incomprehensible to those who have not experienced them; and for such a man to doubt that God is with him, and that the work he is engaged in is the work of God, would be as difficult as to doubt that the sun’s rays ever beam upon him, or that there is no warmth or light connected with them; in fact, such a man could as easily doubt his own existence, and the testimony of every sense that he possesses, as to doubt the testimony of God which rests down upon him.

And these blessings are not confined to those who go forth as missionaries, but they extend themselves to all who enter into covenant with God, take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, and resolve in their hearts to repent of their sins, and to tread humbly and meekly in the path which the Savior has marked out for all to walk in. They receive also, according to the measure of their responsibilities, and the position which they occupy, the same gifts and blessings, and the same joy fills their hearts that does the hearts of the faithful Elders.

When I listen to the Elders, as we have today, speaking their experience, and relating that which they have met with, and the joy they have had, it has seemed to me that, if any of the Elders, or if all the Elders, could comprehend this and enter into the spirit of it, they would say that they would devote themselves with all they possess, with every feeling of their heart, with every power of their mind, with all the strength and the ability which God has given them, to the rolling forth of his work upon the face of the earth. But the difficulty with us as individuals is, that we are like the man of whom the Apostle James speaks: we look in the glass, we see ourselves, our features are distinct to us, everything is plain to us, we see the mirrored resemblance of ourselves in the glass that we look upon, but we turn away, and we speedily forget what manner of men we are. And so it is with many who are in this Church. They have experienced joy, they have had testimonies from God, they have had the power and the gifts of God resting upon them; but after a little while, coming in contact with the world, and the spirit of the world, they forget these things, the remembrance of them fades away from their minds and other things appear more desirable to them. This is the difficulty that the servants of God have to contend with in their ministering among men. It would appear, looking at matters naturally, that if men and women had tasted the word of God, had received revelation from God, had knowledge poured into their souls concerning this being the work of God, they would always be faithful to the truth; but it is not so, and this is evidence of the great power which the adversary exercises over the hearts of the children of men. Men may behold the heavens opened and see Jesus, they may see visions, and have revelations given to them, and yet if they do not live as they should do, and cherish the Spirit of God in their hearts, all this knowledge, and these revelations and wonderful manifestations fail to keep them in the Church, to preserve them from the power of the adversary, and to deliver them from the snares that he spreads for the feet of all the children of God. And in our own experience we can comprehend very easily how the Church of God, in ancient days, fell away from the truth, wandered into darkness, and lost the knowledge of God and the ordinances which he had established in his Church for the salvation of his people. How long would it be, were it not for the teachings, warnings and reproofs of those who are set to preside over them, before many of the Latter-day Saints, and probably a majority of them would stray into by and forbidden paths, and forget the knowledge that they once had and the blessings they once enjoyed? And yet I am thankful that people cannot stay in this Church and practice unrighteousness. I am thankful that God allows those who do not keep his commandments to fall away, so that his Church may be cleansed, and, in this respect, this Church is different from any other that is upon the earth. A man may practice iniquity and do wrong in other churches, and he may cover it up for years, and nobody, or probably but a few—himself, his God, and a few others—be aware of this wrong, and he may pass along and nobody ever imagine that there is anything wrong with him. But it is not so in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—no man can stand in this Church, or retain the Spirit of God and continue in a course of hypocrisy for any length of time. God will tear away the covering of lies and expose the wrong; he will leave the transgressor to himself, and the strength that he formerly had, which enabled him to stand and maintain his associations with the people of God, will be taken away from him, and he will be left to go down to destruction unless he repents. It is true that the Lord has said that the tares shall grow with the wheat until harvest, but it is not said that tares will not be plucked up from time to time, for if it were not so they would overpower and choke out the wheat. The sifting or weeding process has been going on from the commencement of this Church until the present time; hence it is that the leaders of this Church are stirred up in their feelings from time to time to call upon the people to repent. They understand clearly that unless there is a godly life and conversation corresponding with our profession, this people would soon fall into darkness and error, and stray from the path of righteousness.

Our enemies are not mistaken in some of their ideas respecting us, that is, respecting the power that can be brought to bear to destroy us. They seem to be well aware of the fact that, if we only conform to their customs, fashions, ideas and practices, we would soon fall away and cease, as a people, to preserve our identity. They understand this, and hence the efforts which have been made of late. It has seemed as though the adversary has been exerting every power and bringing every influence within his reach to destroy us; and the most lamentable feature—the one that has given me most concern connected with it—has been the apparent blindness of our people respecting these designs; it has seemed as though we could not see and understand their nature, and we have to a certain extent yielded ourselves willing captives and dupes to the plots that have been undertaken in our midst to destroy us. The fact that God predicted, through the mouth of his servant Daniel, and through others, that this kingdom should stand forever, has seemingly lulled a great many to sleep and caused them to think that we are perfectly safe, and that no danger can overtake us; and the fact also that we have remained in these mountains, now, for twenty-eight years without mobs, and that so many of the people who have grown up and have come here and never knew anything about them, who have joined the Church since the days of mobocracy, these causes combined have had the effect to cause a great many to be very supine, and to imagine, apparently, that we could not be disturbed, or that our safety could not be endangered by anything that might be done against us. Hence, when the servant of God has called upon us, and given us counsel upon many points, we have not seemed to understand the benefit of the counsel.

We are here in these mountains, Latter-day Saints. We have made this country, notwithstanding all that may be said to the contrary, all that it is today. Why, the very officials of this Territory today may thank God that he raised up Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, because if he had not done so there would have been no governors, judges or other federal officials of Utah Territory; there would, in fact, have been no Territory of Utah if it had not been for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Men may say what they please, but, every thinking man in this country must admit that our settlement of this country has forwarded settlement in the adjacent Territories and States for more than a quarter of a century. We have demonstrated one great fact—that men can live here, that fruit, corn and wheat, and all the cereals which belong to this latitude can be raised here by a judicious application of water, combined with industry and perseverance. We have demonstrated this; it is no longer a problem as to what this country can produce, hence you now hear of agriculture in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Nevada; but it is a very great query whether this would have been the case for another generation, at least, had it not been for the Latter-day Saints. What could have induced men to come here if they had not been prompted by the feeling that started us out? We had no place to go to excepting this. We wanted the meanest and most undesirable part of the continent, so that our enemies would not rob us of it, as soon as we had improved it; and when we came here we hoped we had reached a place where we could live, at least for a time, undisturbed, until we could increase and raise a generation who would be firm in the faith, and be so numerous that they could carry on the work whose foundations their fathers had laid. We came here in that spirit and with that view. Not to exclude other men from the land that we had settled; but to create homes, and a place to which men and women of every nation could come, and where they could worship God unmolested, as we desired to worship him. We cared not what their creed might be, or whether they were Jews, Pagans, Muslims, or Christians. We asked no man who came here to believe as we believed, and we had no disposition to deny them the rights that we enjoyed because they did not believe as we believed. It was in that spirit that the foundation stones of this superstruc– ture of government in Utah Territory were laid. It was that here, not only Latter-day Saints, but, as I have said, men of every creed and clime might come and worship God unmolested by their neighbors.

But there were others who did not feel as we felt, and they were determined to curtail us of our privileges, and now for years there has been a studied and unrelenting effort to destroy the work that we have done, and to strip us of all the advantages we have gained by coming here; to wrest from us by any means that could be used, however despicable and illegal, the power that God has given us, and to which we are entitled under the laws and constitution of our country. There has been no concealment of these designs, no attempt made to gloss them over; they have been avowed, plainly and publicly, to all the land and to all the Latter-day Saints throughout these mountains, that if they could get the power to strip us of our rights they would do it without any hesitation or compunctions of conscience.

Now, my brethren and sisters, let me ask you, this being the case, what is our plain and bounden duty? It is to preserve ourselves, not only for our own sakes, not only for the sake of our children, but for the sake of humanity everywhere, and for the sake of civil and religious liberty, upon this land which God has given to us. Many will pass away after a little, and here are children, and here are mankind, many of whom, in witnessing the bold stand we have taken, are anxious to see us preserve ourselves and to see civil and religious liberty maintained by us on this land. And we owe it to them, as well as to posterity, that, by every means in our power; we do preserve ourselves and our liberties intact. If we do not, we are recreant to our high trust, and to the high calling which we have received from our Almighty Father. In doing this, must we intrude upon others? Is there any necessity for this? No; our policy is not aggressive; the true policy of the Latter-day Saints is a preservative and defensive policy; to preserve and defend ourselves when we are attacked; not to be aggressive, not to intrude upon others’ rights, but to preserve our own rights. Every man and woman belonging to this community should therefore keep constantly in mind that this is the policy for which we should labor, and not consult individual interests; not say—“I can make one dollar or two dollars by stepping aside from the policy that has been marked out.” Many so-called Latter-day Saints have done this. We have people among us who, if we may judge by their actions, would sell every liberty that God has given unto us for a few dollars, and yet they call themselves Latter-day Saints. When counsel has been given by President Brigham Young—than whom a wiser counselor does not live upon the face of the earth—instead of accepting that counsel and looking at it in its true light, in its elevated light, there have been persons who have looked at it from their picayunish standpoint. They have asked—“How is that counsel going to affect my individual interests?” And many have said by their actions: “Now is my chance to make money; while the bulk of the people are obeying counsel, it will be to my advantage to disobey it. I can make money by so doing.” And they have actually taken advantage of the obedience of the people to make money by their disobedience, and yet have called themselves Latter-day Saints! Is not this the case? Do you not know it to be the case? And that spirit has been spreading and diffusing itself among this people, the example of one encouraging another, until too many have indulged in and given way to it, to the injury of the cause of God. And hence the leaders of this Church have been so deeply impressed, of late, to go forth and call upon this people to repent and turn from their folly and listen to God’s voice through his inspired servant, lest He should send calamities upon them; for it is plain to be seen, as brother Squires said, except we are one we are not Christ’s, we are not God’s, and that union is the only principle upon which we can be preserved. We have not strength, we have not numbers, we have not wealth, but we have union when we choose to avail ourselves of it, and with union there is strength, especially when God has promised his blessings.

Now, can you not see, you Latter-day Saints, how unwise it is for us to disobey counsel, when that counsel is given for the benefit of the whole people? This man says—“I can gain some advantage by disobeying that counsel;” this woman says—“I can gain some advantage by going contrary to that counsel,” not caring anything as to what the results may be, so that their little ends can be served to some trifling extent, and being blind to the fact that we must preserve ourselves by looking after our own interests, and taking care of the great work which God has entrusted to us. Why, it took all the eloquence of President Young for years to cause this people to see that it was not to their interest to sustain their enemies, foster their enemies, feed their enemies, take all their wealth and give it to their enemies, and those enemies plotting all the time against their liberties and their lives, and avowing it pub– licly and undisguisedly. Do you not remember, before cooperation was started, how long and loud the President of this Church and his counselors, and other men, had to plead with the people to get them to see this plain matter of self-preserving policy? They could not see it, that is, a great many could not see; and when cooperation was suggested they could not see that, and there are a great many who cannot see it now, and who are opposed to it in their hearts, and they are opposed to everything that will bring this people closer together, and make them more one, and they fight it, and they do not know the spirit that prompts them. It is the same today respecting the United Order; many seem to be blind, they cannot understand what it is that blinds them; but it is miserable selfishness; they become so eager after money that their judgment is beclouded. If we were united, we could control things in this country to an extent you have no conception of, and we could become rich, if riches were the desire of our hearts, there is nothing to prevent us; if we will be guided by the counsel of God’s servants, we can have all the riches that heart can desire. But our miserable, shortsighted selfishness, that miserable, contracted, narrow policy that is not of God, blinds our eyes and darkens our understandings, and prevents us from seeing the true policy of building up the Zion of God on the earth, and preserving the liberty which God has given unto us.

God requires one thing of the people called Latter-day Saints, and if they will receive and obey that, everything else will follow, and that is—to obey the counsel of God’s servants. If you will do that, everything else will follow in the train. And why should we not do so? Have we not a leader whom God has blessed as he has no other man of whom we have any knowledge at present on the earth? Look at what has been done! See how God has prospered him and those who have received his counsel! Whenever he has told us to do anything, as a people, and we have done it, God has blessed us in its performance; and whenever the people, or a portion of them, have disobeyed his counsel, they have not been prospered. They have invariably lost the spirit and gone into darkness. Do you not know this? Has not the experience of the past thirty-one years confirmed this to us? How was it with us when we crossed the plains and when we came here? Did any of you know whither you were coming? I know the people did not know, but they followed his lead, believing that God led and inspired him, and that God would lead him to a place where we could locate. And look at what we see throughout these valleys today! Where is there anything like it on the face of the earth? A people gathered from every nation, speaking almost every tongue, brought up in the midst of every creed, and with every kind of habit, and yet homogeneous and dwelling together in union and love, without litigation and strife! Where can you see anything on the face of the earth that compares with it? Is it any wonder that we have faith in God and in his servant? I tell you that if there is any condemnation resting upon these Latter-day Saints, it is because of their unbelief and hardness of heart in not listening to his counsel.

Now let us be taught; let us profit by the experience of the past, and not allow ourselves to be deluded by the adversary, and by any, even if they should call themselves our friends. But no man who weakens or tries to weaken that counsel which has led us all the time, is a friend to this people.

May God bless you, my brethren and sisters, fill you with his Holy Spirit, rend the veil of darkness that beclouds our minds, darkens our eyes, and prevents our seeing the truth, and the true policy of the kingdom, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Joseph F. Smith, delivered at the Forty-Sixth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church or Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1875.

It is always a source of pleasure to me to meet with my brethren and sisters in the Gospel covenant. I rejoice exceedingly in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that I have the privilege of being numbered with the Saints of latter days. I am thankful for the blessings that we enjoy as a people in these valleys. I feel grateful for the many evidences we have experienced of God’s mercy and protection. I am thankful that I have been able to see his hand in our deliverance from the powers and machinations of our enemies, from the earliest period of our existence as a people; and I am thankful that I am able to see the hand of the Lord over us at present as conspicuously and as clearly as at any former period of our history.

We read in the revelations that have come to us through the Prophets, both ancient and modern, concerning the purposes of the Lord in the latter days, and the restoration of the Gospel to the earth by a holy angel, that it is to be preached to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people under the whole heavens, that every son and daughter of Adam shall have the privilege of hearing it, embracing it, partaking of its blessings, and of being saved by its power. We read that the Lord is going to do this work, and that he is going to cut it short in righteousness; that it is his design to gather out the honest in heart—those who are willing to hearken to his counsels and obey his laws. It is his design to gather all such out from the nations of the earth, that he may make of them a people worthy of his name and his blessings, and prepare them to meet him when he shall come to make up his jewels; when he shall come to take vengeance upon the wicked and ungodly, who know not God, and who keep not his commandments upon the earth.

The hand of the Lord has been visible in the gathering together of this people for the last twenty-eight years; yes, for the last forty-five years, and no more so in that than in everything connected with the labors of his servants, their counsels unto, and their guidance of, the people by the inspiration of the Almighty that was in them from the very beginning. At no time in the history of this Church has the hand of the Lord been withdrawn from this people, his power shortened, or his eye slept, but his eye has been upon us, his hand has been over us, and his providences have been in our favor. Circumstances have been overruled for good, the hand of the enemy has been turned away paralyzed, the efforts of the wicked to destroy us have resulted in our good and in their own discomfiture. The greater the efforts on the part of our enemies to destroy us, the greater the growth of the Church and kingdom of God, and the closer has our union been, the better have we been able to see the hand of the Lord over us, and the inspiration of the Almighty in the counsels of his servants, and the more have we been inclined to respect and abide by the counsels given. The very fact that the spirit of bitterness in the hearts of the wicked toward us at the present time is as virulent as it ever was, and is every way similar to that manifested against the former-day Saints, against the Savior when he was upon the earth, and against his disciples, or the people of God in any former age of the world, is an unmistakable evidence that the Lord God Almighty is with us today as much as he ever was since the organization of the Church, or as much as he ever was with any people he ever acknowledged as his since the world began. I do not believe there ever was a people who were guided by revelation, or acknowledged of the Lord as his people, that were not hated and persecuted by the wicked and the corrupt, and perhaps no people were ever more persecuted than this people would be, if it were in the power of the enemy today to persecute us, as it was in the power of Nero and the Romans to persecute the Saints in their day. There never was a time when it was more fixed and determined in the heart of the wicked to fight against, and destroy the kingdom from the earth, than now, and their failure will be due only to the impossibility of the task they have undertaken. And this is an evidence to everyone that possesses the least spark of the light of the Holy Spirit—and should be to all mankind—that the kingdom of God is established, that his Priesthood is here, that the Saints, or many of them, are magnifying their calling and honoring the Priesthood, and also the Lord, both with their lives and with their substance, which are his.

For my part I do not fear the influence of our enemies from without, as I fear that of those from within. An open and avowed enemy, whom we may see and meet in an open field, is far less to be feared than a lurking, deceitful, treacherous enemy hidden within us, such as are many of the weaknesses of our fallen human nature, which are too often allowed to go unchecked, beclouding our minds, leading away our affections from God and his truth, until they sap the very foundations of our faith, and debase us beyond the possibility or hope of redemption either in this world or that to come. These are the enemies that we all have to battle with, they are the greatest that we have to contend with in the world, and the most difficult to conquer. They are the fruits of ignorance, generally arising out of unrebuked sin and evil in our own hearts. The labor that is upon us, is to subdue our passions, conquer our inward foes, and see that our hearts are right in the sight of the Lord, that there is nothing calculated to grieve his Spirit and lead us away from the path of duty.

Those only who possess the light of the Spirit of God and the faith of the Gospel, which can only be possessed through faithfulness and obedi– ence to the requirements of heaven, can discern and know the voice of the true Shepherd when they hear it. We need not expect to be able to discern the right from the wrong, the truth from error, and light from darkness, unless our eye is single, and we have declared ourselves for God and his work. If we are divided in our thoughts, affections, and interests, like the rest of the world, we need not expect to comprehend the will of the Lord when made known to us, no matter how powerfully or directly it may come. It will be all the same to us unless we are in a position to receive the light and the truth when it is offered unto us.

What shall we do if we have neglected our prayers? Let us begin to pray. If we have neglected any other duty, let us seek unto the Lord for his Spirit, that we may know wherein we have erred and lost our opportunities, or let them pass by us unimproved. Let us seek unto the Lord in humility, determined to forsake everything that would be an obstruction to our receiving the intelligence and the light that we need, and an answer to our prayers, that we may approach him confident that his ears will be open to our petitions, that his heart will be turned unto us in mercy, that our sins may be forgiven, our minds enlightened by the influence and power of God, that we may comprehend our duty and have a disposition to perform it, not to postpone it, not to set it aside, nor to say in our hearts, “We must serve the world or the devil a little longer; we are not yet prepared to serve the Lord fully, to give up our evil habits, to lay aside this and that folly, and walk straightforward in the path of duty; we must sow a few more wild oats before we can fully make up our minds and determine upon serving the Lord and doing his will upon earth as it should be done, and as we know how to do it, if we but yield obedience to the light that has come into the world.” But when we see what is necessary to be done, it becomes our duty, and we should go to with all our might and do it, no matter what our desires may be to the contrary. Whatever comes from the Priesthood by inspiration we should be willing to receive as the counsel of the Almighty, which we must of necessity obey and execute in order that we may be accepted of him.

This is a lesson that we, as God’s people, should cheerfully learn. Do you think, my brethren and sisters, that we can climb up some other way, or enter in at some other door? Do you think that we can take the things of God and bring them to our standard, or square the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by our rule? Do you think that we would ever succeed in an effort to dictate to the Almighty the terms of our salvation? If we think so we are mistaken, deceived; we cannot do it. The purposes of the Almighty are unchanged and unchangeable, his laws endure, and he is the same yesterday, today and forever. His purposes will ripen and be consummated, and his designs be completed. Therefore, if we do not conform to his will, obey his laws and yield to his requirements in this world, we will be consigned to “the prison house,” where we will remain until we pay the debt to the uttermost farthing. This is a Scriptural, a reasonable, and a true doctrine; for it is a doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Saints understand it, but there may be some here who do not, and for their benefit, as well as to refresh the memories of those who may not have reflected for a little season upon this principle, I will re– fer to it as briefly expressed in the third and fourth chapters of the first Epistle of Peter. There you will see that Jesus himself preached the Gospel to the spirits in prison, “which some time were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” This may seem strange to some, that Jesus should go to preach the Gospel unto the wicked, rebellious antediluvians; whose bodies had been destroyed in the flood because they rejected the testimony of Noah, who had been sent to rebuke their iniquities and warn them of destruction decreed against them if they did not repent, nevertheless it is true. From this Scripture we not only learn the condition of those who are cut off in their sins because of their wickedness in rebelling against the laws of God and rejecting his servants, but such of them as have not sinned against the Holy Ghost, however wicked they may have been in this world—save committing that unpardonable sin—will have the privilege of hearing the Gospel in the spirit world; “for,” as the Apostle says, “for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead.” “Yes,” says one, “dead in sin, but not dead as to the flesh.” But the Apostle does not say so, but to the contrary, for the dead here referred to had perished in the flesh and the Apostle continues—“That they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit;” that is, out of the body until the resurrection from the dead. But first they must remain in hell—the “prison house,” until they have paid the penalty of their sins in the flesh, even to the “uttermost farthing.” “But,” says one, “is this possible?” The people in Europe, where we have been preaching, were struck with wonder and astonishment when we mentioned this doctrine, and say they, “We had supposed that, ‘as the tree fell so it should lie,’ and that ‘there was no salvation in the grave.’” Neither is there any salvation in the grave, and “as the tree falls, so it lies,” but this is pertaining to the flesh. Does the spirit lie with the body? Is the spirit confined in the grave? No. As the body falls, so it will lie until the resurrection; there is no salvation in the grave, but in Christ, who is the “light of life,” and the spirit soars beyond the grave; it does not slumber in the dust, but is wafted to the place prepared for it in the spirit world, to receive its reward or punishment, having passed the first judgment of God, there to await his mercy, and the resurrection from the dead and the final judgment of the great last day.

Thus we see those wicked, unrepentant antediluvians who even had the privilege of hearing the Gospel in the flesh, as preached by Noah, and who rejected the message of that servant of God, were actually visited in the “prison house” by the Savior himself, and heard the Gospel from his own mouth after he was “put to death in the flesh.” Their prison was opened, and liberty was proclaimed unto them in their captivity, in fulfillment of the prediction of the Prophet Isaiah, as you might read in his 61st chapter, that they may come forth, when they shall have fulfilled the decree of judgment upon them in the prison, or hell, to do the first works necessary unto salvation, which they refused to do in the beginning.

Here will come in the principles of baptism for the dead, and of proxy and heirship, as revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, that they may receive a salvation and an exaltation, I will not say a fullness of blessing and glory, but a reward according to their merits and the righteousness and mercy of God, even as it will be with you and with me. But there is this difference between us and the antediluvians—they rejected the Gospel, consequently they received not the truth nor the testimony of Jesus Christ; therefore they did not sin against a fullness of light, while we have received the fullness of the Gospel; are admitted to the testimony of Jesus Christ, and a knowledge of the living and true God, whose will it is also our privilege to know, that we may do it. Now if we sin, we sin against light and knowledge, and peradventure we may become guilty of the blood of Jesus Christ, for which sin there is no forgiveness, neither in this world nor in the world to come. Jesus himself declares (Matt. 12, 31), that “all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” This is not a new doctrine that has just been revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, or President Brigham Young, but it is the doctrine of Jesus, a part and portion of that Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation or unto damnation. For whosoever will believe, repent, and be baptized for the remission of sins shall be saved, and he that believes not and is not baptized shall he damned. And he that believes, is baptized and receives the light and testimony of Jesus Christ, and walks well for a season, receiving the fullness of the blessings of the Gospel in this world, and afterwards turns wholly unto sin, violating his covenants, he will be among those whom the Gospel can never reach in the spirit world; all such go beyond its saving power, they will taste the second death, and be banished from the presence of God eternally.

I feel well in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that it is true, and I never like to have an opportunity pass me without bearing my testimony to it. I, therefore, bear my testimony to you, that God has restored the Gospel, that Joseph Smith was and is a true Prophet, and that President Young is his rightful successor.

I have been surprised before now at hearing remarks from the disaffected and apostates against the Priesthood, as if there was something terrible concealed beneath that term. What constitutes the Priesthood? A legal and direct commission from God to man. And who are clothed with its authority and power? President Young? Yes. But is he the only man who holds the Priesthood? No. Nor are his counselors and the Twelve, the only ones who hold it, but the High Priests, the Seventies, the Elders, Priests, Teachers, and Deacons, all hold a portion of the Holy Priesthood. There is scarcely a member of the Church who is not numbered in the ranks of those clothed upon by this power; certainly it is so with every man who has received blessings in the house of the Lord, inasmuch as he has continued faithful, and of such is the Church composed, for the unfaithful cut themselves off in a measure both from the Church and from the power and privileges of the Priesthood, and are not to be relied upon. Therefore, when the Priesthood—or those holding it—are ridiculed, reviled, or persecuted, the blow is aimed, and the evil is designed, against the whole Church and not individuals, although as our enemies single out individuals as targets on whom to vent their wrath and spleen. A blow openly aimed at President Young, is secretly destined against the whole people constituting the Church over which he presides; any attempt to proscribe or destroy him or his brethren as individuals, because of their influence or position among the people, is so far indirectly an attempt to proscribe and destroy the whole community of which they are but members, and every member of the community should, and so far as guided by a proper sense of justice and right, most assuredly does, consider himself or herself personally assailed and aggrieved by any such attempts. How contemptible in the eyes of this whole people, therefore, must they be who rail against the Priesthood, and at the same time make themselves so conspicuously loud in their professions of friendship to the masses. They leave the covering of their designs too thin to conceal their hypocrisy and their determined bitterness and enmity against the people and the work of God.

A deacon in the Church should exercise the authority of that calling in the Priesthood, and honor that position as sincerely and faithfully as a high Priest or an Apostle should his calling, feeling that he bears a portion of the responsibility of the kingdom of God in the world, in common with all his brethren. Every man should feel in his heart the necessity of doing his part in the great latter-day work. All should seek to be instrumental in rolling it forth. More especially is it the duty of everyone who possesses any por– tion of the authority of the Holy Priesthood to magnify and honor that calling, and nowhere can we begin to do so to better advantage than right here, within ourselves, and when we have cleansed the inside of the platter, cleansed our own hearts, by correcting our own lives, fixed our minds upon doing our whole duty towards God, and man, we will be prepared to wield an influence for good in the family circle, in society, and in all the walks of life.

We should seek to do, and to be, good. It is true that Jesus says there is none good but one, that is God; we must accept this in the fullest sense of the word, but there are other degrees of goodness, so that we may be good, righteous, and even perfect in our spheres, as God is good, righteous, or perfect in his exalted and glorious sphere. These excellent qualities of mind and soul should govern our lives in the midst of our families and neighbors, among our brethren of the household of faith, and in all our intercourse with mankind, that we may win souls from error, ignorance, folly and crime, to God and his Christ, and help them to stand until they become strong in the faith, and thus become saviors of men upon Mount Zion, worthy of the name of our God.

May the Lord bless you and all Israel, and especially his aged servant who stands at our head, and his associates in counsel, the loved face of one of whom, on looking round, I find gone from our midst, but his lifelong example still lives with us, and will live forever. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Wilford Woodruff, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, Sept. 12, 1875.

I will call the attention of the congregation to a few verses in the 25th chapter of St. Matthew. [The speaker read the first thirteen verses; also the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth paragraphs of the fourteenth section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants.]

This revelation, a portion of which I have been reading, treats in a measure upon the subject of the parable that Jesus spoke, namely, the ten virgins; both refer to his second coming, and to his work in the latter days. In no age or dispensation can a man be called to a greater calling than to administer in the ordinances of the house of God, and nothing but the power of God and the inspiration of the Almighty can sustain and uphold any man, no matter what age he may live in, who is called of God to declare the words of life and salvation, and to preach repentance to an unbelieving generation. This may perhaps sound strangely in the ears of many people, but the inhabitants of the earth, both Jew and Gentile, should remember that the Lord God Almighty himself, his Son Jesus Christ, and his Gospel and work, have been very unpopular in every age of the world among the hosts of men. No more unpopular doctrine was ever presented to the human family, than the doctrine of life and salvation. I do not care in what age of the world a Prophet, Apostle or inspired man has been raised up to declare the commands of God, he has had to contend with the prejudices of the inhabitants of the earth. It is so in our day, and it was so in the days of Jesus Christ. When he came to the Jews, his own Father’s house, the house of Israel, as the great Shiloh of Judah, and the Savior of the world, a more unpopular man than he never dwelt in Judea or Jerusalem, from the day of his birth to the day of his death, when he gave up the ghost on the cross, and went home to glory as a martyr for the word of God and the testimony which he bore. And this is why I say that when any man, in any age of the world, is called of God to declare the words of life, he has to contend with the traditions of ages that rest upon the minds of the in– habitants of the earth.

The parable of the ten virgins is intended to represent the second coming of the Son of man, the coming of the Bridegroom to meet the bride, the Church, the Lamb’s wife, in the last days; and I expect that the Savior was about right when he said, in reference to the members of the Church, that five of them were wise and five were foolish; for when the Lord of heaven comes in power and great glory to reward every man according to the deeds done in the body, if he finds one-half of those professing to be members of his Church prepared for salvation, it will be as many as can be expected, judging by the course that many are pursuing.

I wish, if I can get enough of the Spirit of the Lord to answer my own mind, to say a few words on the present occasion to my brethren and sisters, the Latter-day Saints, those who have taken upon them the name of Christ. We live in one of the most important dispensations that God ever gave to man, namely, the great and last dispensation of the fullness of times, the dispensation of all dispensations, and the one in which the whole flood of prophecy in the holy Bible will be fulfilled, for most all of the prophecies contained in that sacred volume, from Adam to John the Revelator, point to the great work of God in the last days, the days in which the God of heaven would set up a kingdom that should be an everlasting kingdom, and to whose dominion there should be no end, and the kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heavens should be given into the hands of the Saints of the Most High God, and they are to possess it forever and ever. I wish to have the Latter-day Saints understand their appointment, position, and re– sponsibility before the God of heaven, and their responsibilities to both Jew and Gentile, living and dead, on this and the other side of the veil.

The Lord never has built up his kingdom in any age of the world except by calling upon his servants and laboring through the tabernacles of men on the earth; but this he has done in a great many ages and dispensations. And whenever the Lord has had an Apostle, Prophet, or inspired man on the earth, he has had power to administer in the ordinances of the house of God, and he has labored for the advancement of the kingdom of God upon the earth, whether he has had few or many followers. As it was in the days of Noah and Lot, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. We live in the day when God has set his hand to establish that great kingdom that Daniel saw. We live in the day when the angel of God has delivered the everlasting Gospel in fulfillment of the revelations of St. John, when he says—“I saw another angel flying through the midst of heaven having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them who dwell on the earth, to every nation, kindred, tongue and people under the whole heavens, saying with a loud voice—’Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.’”

There never was a generation of the inhabitants of the earth in any age of the world who had greater events awaiting them than the present. As I before remarked, the fulfillment of this whole volume of revelation points to our day. The building up of the kingdom of God, the building up of the Zion of God, in the mountains of Israel, the erection of a standard for the Gentiles to flee unto, the warning of the nations of the earth to prepare them for the great judgments of our God, the building up of the Church, the sanctifying of the people, the building of Temples to the Most High God, that his servants may enter therein and become saviors on Mount Zion, redeeming both the living and the dead, all these things are to be performed in our day. And an age fraught with greater interest to the children of men than the one in which we live never dawned since the creation of the world.

Where is the man, priest, or people, in the whole sectarian world, today, who believes in the literal fulfillment of the revelations of God contained in the Bible? If there is one I should like to see and converse with him. The whole Christian world profess to believe the Bible, and perhaps they do when it is shut. But open the Bible and read the declarations contained therein, concerning the last dispensation of the fullness of times, and where is the man who believes them? You cannot find one, and it requires faith even among the Latter-day Saints to believe the revelations of God, and to prepare themselves for those things which await the world.

The fig trees are leafing, the summer is nigh, the signs of heaven and earth all indicate the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ; but who are really looking and preparing for the coming of the great Bridegroom? I do not know that any people on the earth, except the Latter-day Saints, are looking for this great event. There may be exceptions, there may be men who believe in the second coming of Christ. The people called Millerites, believe in the second coming of the Savior, and they have set a great many days when it should take place. But he did not come; and he never will come until the revelations of God are fulfilled and a people are prepared for his coming. He will never come until the Jews are gathered home and have rebuilt their Temple and city, and the Gentiles have gone up there to battle against them. He will never come until his Saints have built up Zion, and have fulfilled the revelations which have been spoken concerning it. He will never come until the Gentiles throughout the whole Christian world have been warned by the inspired elders of Israel. They are called to thrust in the sickle and reap, for the harvest is ripe and the time has come, which is referred to in this revelation, when the Lord commands the Elders to go forth and warn the world for the last time, and call upon the inhabitants of the earth to repent. And what I wish to say to the Elders and to the Latter-day Saints is—Have we faith in God and in his revelations? Have we faith in our own religion? Have we faith in Jesus Christ? Have we faith in the words of the Prophets? Have we faith in Joseph Smith, who, by the aid of the Urim and Thummim, translated the Book of Mormon, giving a record of the ancient inhabitants of this country, and through whom the Lord gave the revelations contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants? If we have faith in these things, then we certainly should prepare ourselves for the fulfillment of them. I consider that as a people and as Elders of Israel we occupy one of the most important positions ever occupied on the face of the earth by those who have been called to work for the Lord. We have received our appointment for this work, and we should prepare ourselves to perform the duties devolving upon us in connection with it. Truth is one of the attributes of the Lord, and he never makes a declaration but what is certain and true. And, as one of the Apostles says, “There is no prophecy of any private interpretation, but holy men of old spoke as they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost;” therefore what they said is true, and their prophecies will have their fulfillment. No man can point to any of the revelations of God in the old prophets concerning events up to our day, but what have had their fulfillment. Everything that Jesus Christ spake concerning Judea and Jerusalem has had its fulfillment to the very letter. The Temple at Jerusalem was overthrown until not one stone was left upon another, and the Jews have been scattered and trodden under the feet of the Gentiles now for eighteen hundred years, and so they will remain until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, and that is pretty near. And, as the Lord has told us in these revelations, we are called upon to warn the world.

We have been laboring now for forty-five years in preaching the Gospel of Christ throughout the Gentile nations. We say Gentiles, because the Gospel goes to the Gentiles first, that the first may be last and the last first. Anciently the Jews were first in having the Gospel sent unto them, but they rejected it, and they were broken off through unbelief, and hence the Gospel turned to the Gentiles; and, as Paul says—“Ye Gentiles, take heed and fear, lest ye fall through the same example of unbelief, for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed also lest he spare not ye.” The Gentiles are fallen through the same example of unbelief as did the Jews. They have put to death every Prophet, Apostle, and inspired man since the days of Jesus Christ, and the Church went into the wilderness, and the face of a Prophet, Apostle, or inspired man, called of God to administer the ordinances of the Gospel, had not been seen for some eighteen hundred years, until the Lord raised up a Prophet in the day and age in which we live. Therefore the Gospel brought forth in the last days has to go to the Gentiles first.

Sometimes our neighbors and friends think hard of us because we call them Gentiles; but, bless your souls, we are all Gentiles. The Latter-day Saints are all Gentiles in a national capacity. The Gospel came to us among the Gentiles. We are not Jews, and the Gentile nations have got to hear the Gospel first. The whole Christian world have got to hear the Gospel, and when they reject it, the law will be bound and the testimony sealed, and it will turn to the house of Israel. Up to the present day we have been called to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and we have had to do it. For the last time we have been warning the world, and we have been engaged in that work for forty-five years.

When Joseph Smith was called of God, it required faith, inspiration, and the power of the Almighty to rest upon him to enable him to organize the Church and Kingdom of God, and to preach the Gospel against the traditions of the Christian world, for they had spiritualized the Bible until there was not a remnant left in a literal point of view. Hence the inhabitants of the earth were not looking for the Church and Kingdom of God to be established in their midst. Darkness has prevailed upon the earth, and does today, in all the nations, and this causes silence to reign, and all eternity is pained because of the sin, wickedness, and abominations which prevail throughout the whole Christian or Gentile world, and throughout the whole Jewish world, for darkness prevails upon the face of all the earth, and the Lord is calling upon all the inhabitants thereof to repent and receive the Gospel, and when they have done so to gather out of Babylon to the place he has appointed for the dwelling place of his Saints. The Latter-day Saints heard this Gospel among the Gentiles wherever they dwelt, in almost every nation under heaven, and by this Gospel we have been gathered out unto Zion. We have been gathered here for a certain purpose, and that purpose is to fulfill the revelations of God.

When we left Missouri and Nauvoo, leaving behind the graves of our fathers and children, we were driven by our enemies into this desert, in the expectation that we should perish, and for nothing but because we believed revelation and prophecy, and in living prophets and servants of God. We thought it was hard to be driven from our homes and lands, which we had bought of our government, and paid the money for; but I will say to the Latter-day Saints that if we had not come here there certainly would have been a flood of prophecy fallen unfulfilled, prophecy in regard to the mountains of Israel, and the great company gathering up thereto, with regard to the lifting up of a standard therein, and the building of cities and the Temple of God in their midst. All these things would have fallen unfulfilled if we had not come to these mountains and fulfilled them. And so with many other prophecies. We have been called together to perform the work of the Lord, and now the Lord looks to us to fulfill our covenants and keep his commandments. If we do this he has made great promises unto us. The Lord has given the holy Priesthood unto the Elders of Israel, and he requires at our hands to fulfill all these revelations and commandments; and in regard to the parable which I have read, I, as an individual, feel that it is necessary for me, and I may say that it is necessary for the whole people, to have oil in our lamps if we expect to see and comprehend the things of the kingdom of God.

The Lord has chosen a royal Priesthood and a holy people from among the weak things of the world, in fulfillment of his revelations; and we have been commanded to go forth and bear record of these things, and we have done it. We should have been condemned and the curse of God would have rested upon us if we had not, because the full set time has come to build up and favor Zion, to build up the kingdom of God, to warn the world and prepare them for the judgments of the Almighty. The Millennium is dawning upon the world, we are at the end of the sixth thousand years, and the great day of rest, the Millennium of which the Lord has spoken, will soon dawn and the Savior will come in the clouds of heaven to reign over his people on the earth one thousand years. The Lord has a great work ahead and he is preparing a people to do it before his coming. Now the question arises here, brethren and sisters, are we prepared in our hearts? Do we realize these things? As a people do we realize our responsibilities before the Lord? The Lord has raised up a kingdom of priests here in the last days to establish his Church and kingdom, and to prepare the way for the second coming of the Son of Man, and the God of heaven has put into the hands of his servants the keys of the kingdom, and he has said—“Whatever I have decreed in these my servants shall be fulfilled, for to them is given power to bind and to seal both on the earth and in heaven, against the day of the wrath of Almighty God, which is to be poured out upon the world.”

I think, many times, that we, as Elders of Israel and as Latter-day Saints, come far short of realizing our position before the Lord. The work required at our hands is great and mighty; it is the work of Almighty God. We are held responsible for presenting the Gospel of Christ to all the nations of the earth, to warn the Gentiles, to prepare for the return of the lost ten tribes of Israel, and for carrying the Gospel to the whole tribes of Israel. We are held responsible for all this, and for building Temples to the Most High, wherein we can enter and attend to ordinances for the salvation of our dead. There are fifty thousand million spirits shut up in the spirit world who never saw the face of a Prophet, Apostle or inspired man in their lives. No man having the authority of God ever declared the words of life and salvation unto them, and without authority their ministrations are useless, for this is what the Priesthood is for. The God of heaven has ordained this from eternity to eternity. These persons in the spirit world died in the flesh without the law, without the Gospel, and they are shut up in prison. Joseph Smith is preaching to them, and so are thousands of the Elders of Israel who have died and gone to the other side of the veil. George A. Smith, who dwelt with us until within the last few days, will take part, with joy and rejoicing, with his brethren in the great work the other side of the veil. When I saw ten or twelve thousand people met in this Tabernacle to pay their last respects to the body of that man, I thought to myself—“How much larger a congregation surrounds his spirit, in the spirit world.” Yes, they number millions there, to where we have units here, and the servants of God will preach to them the same as Jesus preached to the spirits in prison. While his body lay three days and nights in the tomb he went and preached to the spirits in prison, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, that they might receive part in the resurrection, according to the testimony which they received. As I said before, the God of heaven requires this at your hands. They will not baptize anybody in the spirit world; there is no baptism there; there is no marrying or giving in marriage there; all these ordinances have to be performed on the earth. Paul says, in referring to this subject—“Why are ye baptized for the dead? If the dead rise not why then are ye baptized for the dead?” The Lord holds us responsible for going to and building Temples, that we may attend therein to the ordinances necessary for the salvation of the dead.

In every dispensation the Lord has had those who were foreordained to do a certain work. We all dwelt in the presence of God before we came here, and such men as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the ancient Prophets, Jesus and the Apostles received their appointments before the world was made. They were ordained before the foundation of the world to come and tabernacle here in the flesh and to work for the cause of God, and this because of their faith and faithfulness. You can see the great variety of spirits that have dwelt in the presence of God, from those who are in the presence of God, down to the devils. A good many of the hosts of heaven were cast out because of their wickedness. Lucifer, son of the morning, and those who fol– lowed after him were cast down to earth, and they dwell here to this day—a hundred to every man, woman and child that breathes the breath of life. They dwell here without bodies, only what tabernacles they can get into, to rule and preside over.

We are required to build Temples in which to attend to the ordinances of the house of the Lord, that the prison doors may be opened, and the prisoners go free. The world say—“We do not believe in such stuff.” We know that perfectly well; it was so in the days of Noah and Lot, but the unbelief of the people did not stop the flood and the fire, neither will the unbelief of this generation stay the hand of God one moment. The angels of God have been waiting in the Temple in heaven for forty-five years to go forth to reap down the earth. The wheat and the tares must grow together until harvest; the people must be warned, the Saints gathered out, Zion built up, Temples reared, the living warned, the dead redeemed, that the skirts of the Elders of Israel may be clean before all men.

It is by the power of God that the Elders have been sustained in days past and gone. And I want to say to my brethren—and what I say to them I take to myself—we should wake up, we should open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and we should open our hearts to understand our appointment and position before the Lord; for if, as Latter-day Saints, we are going to stop praying, lose the light of the Holy Ghost, and turn to the beggarly elements of the world, the Lord will have to say to us—“Get out of my way, my purposes cannot be thwarted;” and he will raise up somebody else to perform this work. The Lord has never told any lies or made any false promises. “Who am I,” saith the Lord, “that I promise and do not fulfill?” “Who am I,” saith the Lord, “that I command and am not obeyed?” The amount of it is that the promises of the Lord are yea and amen, and though the heavens and the earth pass away, his word never will fail of its fulfillment.

In one paragraph of the revelation which I read to you this afternoon, it says—

“And again, the Lord shall utter his voice out of heaven, saying: Hearken, O ye nations of the earth, and hear the words of that God who made you. O, ye nations of the earth, how often would I have gathered you together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not! How oft have I called upon you by the mouth of my servants, and by the ministering of angels, and by mine own voice, and by the voice of thunderings, and by the voice of lightnings, and by the voice of tempests, and by the voice of earthquakes, and great hailstorms, and by the voice of famines and pestilences of every kind, and by the great sound of a trump, and by the voice of judgment, and by the voice of mercy all the day long, and by the voice of glory and honor, and the riches of eternal life, and would have saved you with an everlasting salvation, but ye would not! Behold, the day has come, when the cup of the wrath of mine indignation is full.”

How often has the Lord sent Prophets, as in the days of Noah, Lot, Abraham, Enoch, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young? How often have the Elders of Israel lifted up their voices to the inhabitants of the earth and been rejected? Will not these things rise in judgment against them? Yea, verily they will. The Lord has offered the fullness of the everlasting Gospel to the inhabitants of the earth today, and they refuse to receive it. Brother Pratt, here, myself and thousands of us have traveled ten thousand miles on foot, without purse or scrip, carrying our knapsack or valise, and we have waded swamps, swam rivers, and begged our bread from door to door to preach the Gospel to this generation. And how many have we got to believe it? Two of a city and one of a family, as the Prophet has said, and we have gathered them to Zion. Nevertheless the warning voice has gone forth to the world. But what do we see today? What do the Gods, the heavens and all eternity see? They see a generation of men and women making war against God and his Christ, making war against Prophets and Apostles, and laboring night and day to overpower and annihilate every principle of salvation and eternal life which God has restored to the world. And I will here say, in the ears of this congregation, that were this not the dispensation of the fullness of times, and were it not for the decrees which the Lord has made in relation to it, one of which is that he will set up a kingdom which shall stand forever, there is not an Apostle or Latter-day Saint on the face of the earth but would have to seal his testimony with his blood, as has almost every other Apostle that ever breathed the breath of life. I say that were it not for these things, we should all have to follow our leaders, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, who laid down their lives for the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ. But hear it ye Gentile nations and all ye nations of the earth, the Lord Almighty has set to his hand to build up his kingdom on the earth, and he will not be thwarted. The Lord is going to make a short work in the earth, and he will defend his anointed, his Prophets, his Zion and his people. This is the decree of Almighty God. The eyes of all heaven are over this people, they are over the earth, over the Gentiles, and over the Jews, and the Lord holds in his hands the destinies of all men. And we are commanded of God to rise up and warn the nations of the earth; and we call upon the Latter-day Saints, upon the Elders of Israel, upon the mothers and daughters in Zion to lay aside their fooleries and nonsense, and to no longer let their hearts be set upon the fashions of the world, but turn to and read the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the revelations of God given in these days, and get the Holy Spirit and walk in the light of the Lord, that your eyes may be opened, that you may see and comprehend the position you occupy on the earth, for you are held under great responsibility for the manner in which you do your duty and magnify your callings before the Lord, and he is not trifling with us, nor with this generation.

If the eyes of the Gentiles were opened one moment to see the things of eternity, and the judgments which await this generation, they would not wonder that the servants of God are moved upon to cry aloud to the nations of the earth. I tell you that the judgments of God are at the door of both Zion and great Babylon. Great Babylon has come in remembrance before God, and His sword is bathed in heaven and it will fall on Idumea and the world. Who can stand before the hand of Almighty God? No man, no nation, nor set of nations on the face of the earth.

I would to God that the eyes of the world were opened! I would to God that the eyes of the Gentile nations were opened, that they could see and understand what belongs to their peace! How much has the Lord pleaded with the nations of the earth to give them celestial glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life? He has pleaded with them for the last six thousand years, and has raised up his servants from time to time and called upon the inhabitants of the world to prepare themselves for the great day of his second advent and coming, which is at hand. He is calling upon them loudly today; and, as I have said to some of my brethren lately, the Lord now wants to know whether the Latter-day Saints are willing to work with him or not. It is a day of decision. I do not expect that more than half of us will have oil in our lamps and be prepared to enter into the marriage supper with the Bridegroom. That will be about as much as we can expect, unless we repent of our sins and turn from our follies, fooleries, and the fashions of Babylon—things which our hearts have been set upon instead of upon building up the kingdom of God. It seems to me that there will be but a remnant even of the Latter-day Saints who will be prepared to inherit eternal life and for the coming of the Bridegroom.

I feel, in my bones and in my Spirit, that there is a change at the door, both with Zion and Babylon. Great events await us and this generation. As I said before, judgments are at the door. The angels of God are waiting for the great command to go forth and reap down the earth. All earth and hell are stirred up against Zion. The spirit of lying is abroad in all the world, and the people will not receive the truth. In my meditations, whether in regard to the past or present, it has always seemed one of the greatest mysteries why so few have been willing to believe the revelations of God. In the days of Jesus, among all the Jewish rabbis, with their Urim and Thum– mim, ephod, sacrifices, giving the law, and all the blessings of Judah which they held in their hands, it has been a marvel to me that so few had an interest in their Shiloh, their Savior, who came to die to redeem the world. The whole spirit of Jerusalem and Judea was—“Crucify him, crucify him, let his blood be upon us and our children.” It was and has been, and they have felt it. And the Gentiles have cause to take heed lest they, too, fall through unbelief.

I would tell Jew and Gentile, and all the earth if I had power, that God never had but one Gospel to deliver to the sons of men, and that Gospel is the same today, yesterday, and forever, it never changes. The Lord never had a Church in any age of the world that he acknowledged, but what it had a head to it, and it was organized with Prophets, Apostles, Pastors, Teachers, gifts, helps, governments, inspiration and gifts of the Holy Ghost; and God’s Church today is the same as in every other age.

This Gospel is offered to the world, and that men generally have such a desire to root it out of the earth, is the strongest proof imaginable that they are under the dominion and control of the father of lies. If any man has a truth that we have not got, we say, “Let us have it.” I am willing to exchange all the errors and false notions I have for one truth, and should consider that I had made a good bargain. We are not afraid of light and truth. Our religion embraces every truth in heaven, earth or hell; it embraces all truth, the whole Gospel and plan of salvation, and the fulfillment of the whole volume of revelation that God has ever given. We have not power, men have not language, to show forth the eternal truths of God in all their fullness and beauty; all we can do is to warn the children of men, and the Lord has chosen the Elders of Israel for that very purpose. That has been one fault that men have found with the work of the Lord. A man asked me awhile ago—“Why did the Lord choose Joseph Smith to build up his kingdom? Why did he not choose Dr. Porter, Henry Ward Beecher, or some such men?” Said I—“Such men would sell the kingdom of God and everything in it for money and popularity, and as the Lord lives he never could rule and handle them, none of them would work with him, they are too much like the Pharisees, Sadducees, High Priests and Rabbis of Judea and Jerusalem.” Did the Lord ever choose such men to perform his work? Go through the whole history of the world, and you will find that whenever God wanted a servant, an Apostle or a Prophet, he chose the very humblest man that could be found. When a king was wanted for Israel, he could not find one out of all the tall sons of Jesse; and when the Prophet asked if Jesse had not another son, he was told no, only the boy that looked after the sheep. Nobody thought anything about him, he was of no consequence. “Let me see him,” said the man of God; and when he was brought, the Prophet poured oil on his head and anointed him King of Israel. So it has been all the way through. Take Moses the leader of Israel. His mother cast him in the bulrushes on the banks of the river Nile, to the crocodiles. But how carefully the Lord watched over him! Finally the daughter of pharaoh got him out, while bathing, and gave him to his mother to be trained and nursed. You could see the hand of the Lord in this. When the Lord called Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt, said he—“How can I do this? I am a man of a hard language and slow of speech.” He thought he could not get along, for he had not a good command of language. But the Lord told him that he would find a spokesman for him. So all the way through the Lord has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the wise, and the things that are nought, to bring to nought the things that are. Jesus Christ himself was born in a stable and cradled in a manger; and who were his Apostles? Illiterate fishermen, men of the lowest calling almost in Judea, Salt Lake City, or anywhere else; but fishermen can be just as honorable men as any others, and they are generally regarded as very humble men, and that is the kind of men God has always chosen.

The Lord called Joseph Smith because he was foreordained before the world was to build up this Church and Kingdom, and he came through the loins of ancient Joseph. He was an illiterate youth, but the Lord used him, and he lived to fulfill the measure of his appointment; he lived as long as the Lord required him to live, and until he received every key held by every Prophet and Apostle that ever lived in the flesh from the days of Adam down to his day, which belonged to this dispensation.

Joseph Smith received his first ordination under the hand of John the Baptist, who was beheaded, and who, while in the flesh, held the Aaronic Priesthood. Peter, James, and John, who were Prophets, and were crucified and put to death, at least Peter and James were, they came and ordained Joseph Smith to the Apostleship; and every ordination that he obtained, he obtained from the spirit world from men who had tabernacled here in the flesh. These are the eternal truths of the God of heaven, and eternity will reveal them to the inhabitants of the earth. It is by this power that this Church has been planted, not of man nor by the will of man, but by the revelations of Jesus Christ. We call upon the Latter-day Saints, we look to them, and the Lord looks to them, the heavens look to them, to take hold and build up this kingdom.

Some of the outside world are finding a good deal of fault with the Indians. Who are the Indians? Read the Book of Mormon, and you will learn that they are the literal descendants of Israel; they have been cursed through the transgressions of their fathers, and a skin of darkness has come upon them. This history tells us that they were once a white and delightsome people, and had great power on this land, but that they were degraded and cast down because of their sins. When we came here, we found them living upon crickets, grasshoppers, roots, and anything they could possibly eat, poor, miserable, degraded beings, though they have immortal souls, and are of the house of Israel. What is the Lord doing for them? He is stretching forth his hand over them, in remembrance of the promises made to their fathers. President Young and his people are accused of stirring up the Indians against the general government, and against the white man. This is not true. We have preached to the Indians a good many years, as we have had opportunities, but what effect did it have? Not much. We preached to Walker, Arapene, and many other chiefs who have dwelt here, but have now passed away, but our preaching had but little effect. Now the Lord is stretching out his hand over the Lamanites, and their eyes are being opened, and they are receiving the Gospel of Jesus Christ at the hands of the Elders of Israel. Whose work is this? Not the work of man, but it is the work of God, and if the nations of the earth try to stay it, the warfare is between them and God, and not between them and us. So with every other principle which God has revealed to us. This work is the work of the God of Israel, and not the work of man; not the work of Brigham Young, the Twelve Apostles, or anybody else. The hand of the Lord is feeling after that people, and if we, as Latter-day Saints, do not arise and magnify our callings and fulfill our missions, the Lord will take that people and build up his kingdom, and we will be cast out. It is time that we awoke and realized this truth, and that, as Elders of Israel, we realized our position before the Lord. Now there is a very general desire manifested by this people to get rich, and to labor for self rather than for the kingdom of God. But what will it profit you or me to give up praying and to go to and get rich? What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Not much. What will a man give in exchange for his soul, when he gets on the other side of the veil? I marvel very much at the little interest manifested by the inhabitants of the earth generally in their future state. There is not a person here today but what is going to live on the other side of the veil as long as his Creator—to the endless ages of eternity, and the eternal destiny of every individual depends upon the manner in which the few short years of the life in the flesh are spent. I ask, in the name of the Lord, what is popularity to you or me? What is gold or silver, or this world’s goods to any of us, any further than to enable us to obtain what we need to eat, drink, and wear, and to build up the kingdom of God. And for us to stop praying, and to become crazy after the riches of the world, is the very height of foolishness and folly. To see the way that some people act, you might suppose that they are going to live here eternally, and that their eternal destiny depends upon the number of dollars they have. I sometimes ask the Latter-day Saints, how much we had when we came here? How much did we bring, and where did it come from? I do not think anyone of us brought a wife or a brick house; I do not think that any of us were born on horseback or in a carriage, or that we brought railroad scrip and cattle and houses with us, but we were born naked as Job, and I think that we shall leave here as naked as he did. Then with regard to this world’s goods, what do they amount to with us, that they should induce us to lose salvation for them? I say, rather than that, let me be poor all the days of my life; if riches are going to damn me, and take from me the glory I have in prospect through keeping the commandments of God, I pray God that I may never possess them.

God holds the riches of this world in his hands; the gold and silver, the cattle and the earth are his, and he gives to whom he will give. When Christ was upon the mount, Lucifer, the devil, showed him all the glory of the world and offered to give it to him if he would fall down and worship him. But do you know that that poor devil did not own a single foot of land in the whole world, and that he had not even a body, or tabernacle? The earth is the footstool of the Lord, and if we ever have any of it for our own the Lord will give it to us; and we ought to be just as faithful to our religion if we had ten thousand million dollars, as if we had not any at all. Eternal life is what we are or ought to be after, and that, whatever our circum– stances and condition in life may be, should be our first object.

I say to the brethren and sisters—you have your appointment; the Lord has raised up these Elders of Israel, and I can prove from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants that you received the Priesthood from eternity, and your lives have been hid with Christ in God, and you knew it not. You are literally and lawfully heirs of the Priesthood through the lineage of your fathers, and that Priesthood will continue throughout eternity, therefore you have received your appointment, and the Lord looks to you to build up his Zion and kingdom upon the earth.

Let us try to be faithful and to live our religion; let us try to believe in the revelations of God. I think it will be better for our daughters, for our wives, for our sons and for ourselves to lay aside the New York Ledger and yellow-covered literature generally, and take hold and read the revelations of God, and comprehend them. When I read the revelations, whether in the Bible, Book of Mormon, or Book of Doctrine and Covenants, I look upon them as true, and I look for their fulfillment. Up to the present day, one jot or tittle of them has never gone unfulfilled, and, as the Lord has said—“What I have spoken I have spoken, and I excuse not myself, and though the heavens and the earth pass away, not one jot or tittle of my word shall go unfulfilled, whether by my own voice or by the voice of my servants it is the same. Behold and lo I am God, and truth will be and abide for ever and ever, Amen.” Now let us try and live our religion and keep the commandments of God. As Latter-day Saints let us see where we are, and if we have no oil in our lamps let us stop trying to get rich, and let us pray to the Lord until we get his Spirit and oil in our lamps, and light unto the glory of God, and take hold and labor to build up his Kingdom and Zion.

Before I close I want to speak on one temporal point. I have been talking about getting riches. I do not find fault with riches. The gold and silver are the Lord’s. We want houses building and we must cultivate the earth. This is all right. I do not find fault with a man getting rich, I find fault with our selling the kingdom of God, our birthright, selling the Gospel and depriving ourselves of eternal life, for the sake of gratifying the lusts of the flesh, the pride of life and the fashions of the world; and setting our hearts upon these things. It is right to build houses, to plant vineyards and orchards, to cultivate the earth and to make the desert blossom as the rose, to adorn our dwelling places and to build Temples. This is all right. I have no objection to the ladies—our wives daughters and mothers—in Zion adorning themselves as much as they please, if they only make what they wear. Set out your mulberry trees and make your own silk; get straw and make your own bonnets; make your artificial flowers to adorn yourselves with, and let all be the workmanship of your own hands, and do not import these things at the expense of the means we have in the Territory. I have not any fault to find with your adorning yourselves, if you only make that which you require yourselves.

I want to say one word to our farmers before I close. I want to ask you if you ever heard brother Kimball tell about laying up wheat? “Yes,” say some “we have heard him, but the famine has not come yet.” No, but it will come. The Lord is not going to disappoint either Babylon or Zion, with regard to famine, pestilence, earthquakes or storms, he is not going to disappoint anybody with regard to any of these things, they are at the doors, and I want to give a word of exhortation to our farmers, and I say to them, lay up your wheat, for according to the spirit that has been in my bosom the last three or four months, and in the breasts of a good many others, the day will come when, if you do not take this counsel, you will want your wheat for bread. I feel to exhort the brethren; and to say to them—lay up bread, do not sell it for a song; let your wives and daughters go for awhile without ribbons and ornaments, let your wheat stay in your bins; let us try to get along with old coats and old hats, and keep the wheat, and in a little while you will see the reason why this counsel has been given. Lay up your wheat; and other provisions against a day of need, for the day will come when they will be wanted, and no mistake about it. We shall want bread, and the Gentiles will want bread, and if we are wise we shall have something to feed them and ourselves when famine comes. We have fed thousands of them in days past, who would have laid their bones on these plains if it had not been for the counsel of President Young to us to cultivate the earth and have wheat on hand to feed them. And the day will come again when corn will be wanted in Zion, and it will be sought for. I hope the Latter-day Saints will take heed to these things and be wise.

I pray that God will bless you, that he will give you his spirit, that you may see and understand your position before him. And I pray that he will open the eyes, ears and hearts of the Gentiles, that they may receive the Gospel of Christ, and be numbered with the house of Israel in the last dispensation of the fullness of times, that they may stand in holy places through the nations, for they will come to both Jew and Gentile, Zion and Babylon. There is no getting away from them, for the Lord has said so, and what he has said will come to pass. Amen

Discourse by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Old Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Aug. 31, 1875.

Brethren and sisters, we have met here to talk over the principles of our faith, and if we say that we are going to be Saints, and that we are going to live our religion, we do not expect to give ourselves the lie, to eat our own words and to falsify our characters and our testimonies before God; but we expect to live our religion as well as we know how. We want you who wish to be Saints, to know, that we will do everything in our power to help you to live so, that you will be entitled to, and enjoy, the revelations of the Lord Jesus; that every man and every woman may know and understand their duty before God, pertaining to themselves and what is required of them, just as much as your humble servant who is talking to you.

It is a great privilege to know the mind and will of God, and this privilege we enjoy, and I wish that all good people of every nation, sect and party would so live that they might understand the will of the Lord for themselves; but in bestowing this upon us the Lord requires us to live accordingly, and he has placed us and all people under this obligation.

It is my duty to know the mind of the Lord concerning myself and also concerning this people; and I think I know it just as well as I know the road home. I do not know the path from that door to my own home any better than I know how to dictate this people, if they will only hearken to me. This is a great blessing and a great privilege, and if I were to reject it and take a course to deprive myself of the spirit of revelation, according to what the Lord has given to me, and to magnify the Priesthood that I received through his servant Joseph, I would be taken forthwith from this world, I would not remain here at all to darken the minds of, or to lead astray, any of the members of the kingdom of God. According to the revelations that I and others of my brethren and sisters have received, through the Prophet Joseph and others who have lived upon the earth, if I observe my duty, I shall have the privilege of living and enjoying the society of my brethren and sisters, and of instructing them; but let me neglect this and I shall be removed out of my place forthwith.

Now it is no more my duty to live so as to know the mind and will of the Lord than it is the duty of my brethren, the rest of the Twelve. I say the rest of the Twelve, because I am the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on the earth, and the only one that the Lord has ever acknowledged. It is true that Thomas B. Marsh was once President, but the Lord never acknowledged any man by revelation as President of that Quorum but myself. At the death of Joseph I stepped out from that position in the advance, according to the organization of the Church, for the sake of preserving the flock of God, but not according to my wishes, nor the desire of my heart, but it was my duty. When I heard of the Prophet’s death I said—“What will become of the people? What will the Saints do now that the Prophet has gone?” It was my whole desire to preserve the sheep of the flock of God, and it is so today. Brother Kimball also stepped into the first Presidency, and we called others and ordained them to take our place for the time being, that the Church might be fully organized, and we expect to ordain more when we feel like it; but because a man is ordained an Apostle it does not prove that he belongs to the Quorum of the Apostles. I just mention this that you may understand it.

Now, in regard to the Twelve Apostles, it is their imperative duty to live so that they will know the mind and will of the Lord concerning them in the discharge of their duties as a quorum, and also as individuals; and they are under just the same obligations to live so as to enjoy the spirit of revelation that I am. And so it is with the Seventies, the High Priests, the Elders and the Bishops. It is the imperative duty of a Bishop—called to preside over a ward—to live so that he will know the mind and will of God concerning his ward just as much as I do concerning this people. But when Bishops say they are willing to do as brother Brigham says, and that is the end of their researches to know the mind and will of the Lord, they will always be making mistakes, always doing something that they will regret; they will neglect their duty here and there, and when they make a move it will not be right unless brother Brigham is there to tell them the words they should say and the acts they should perform; and hence the necessity of them living day by day so that they will know the mind and will of the Lord for themselves.

And so you may follow on through every quorum there is in the Church, not only Seventies, High Priests, Elders and Bishops, but also the Priests, Teachers and Deacons, who administer to the people in going from house to house. It is their duty to live so that they know and understand the mind and will of the Lord concerning the people to whom they administer, as much as it is mine to know the mind and will of the Lord concerning the entire people. And it is the duty of every father and mother to live so that they may have the mind and will of the Lord concerning their duties to their families. If they are not called to exercise the priesthood which they hold, more than to administer to their children, it is their duty to live so as to know how to teach, lead and advise their children; and if they are disposed they may have the privilege, for it is God’s mind and will that they should know just what to do for them when they are sick. Instead of calling for a doctor you should administer to them by the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, and give them mild food, and herbs, and medicines that you understand; and if you want the mind and will of God at such a time, get it, it is just as much your privilege as of any other member of the Church and kingdom of God. It is your privilege and duty to live so that you know when the word of the Lord is spoken to you and when the mind of the Lord is revealed to you. I say it is your duty to live so as to know and understand all these things. Suppose I were to teach you a false doctrine, how are you to know it if you do not possess the Spirit of God? As it is written, “The things of God knoweth no man but by the Spirit of God.”

Now I want to say a few words to the sisters, though I will say that I do not feel the least like chastising either my brethren or my sisters this morning. I feel kind, and I do not want to say words to them that they would think harsh or unkind. But I will say, to both brethren and sisters, that whenever any of us spend means needlessly, say to the amount of one cent, dime, or dollar, we consume it upon the lusts of our flesh. Here is a man, for instance, who has an appetite for tobacco, and, during a year, he spends ten or twenty dollars in cigars and tobacco, which do him no good, but injure him; do you think that such a man will be brought to an account hereafter for that waste? Such means does not go to build temples, or to help to sustain Elders who have gone abroad to proclaim the gospel; it is not applied to assist in feeding or clothing their wives or children, to find them a little fuel in the winter, when it is cold, or to get them a cow, so that they can have milk and a little butter to make them more comfortable; but it is spent in the purchase of tobacco and is utterly wasted; and they who get rid of their means so foolishly will most surely be brought to account therefore. The same may be said of money spent in the purchase of beer. It is a mild drink, and is very pleasant and agreeable to a great many; but when a man pays his fifty cents, his dollar or his ten dollars for beer it goes into the hands of the grocery keepers and they send it off, and it does no good to the community. The beer itself does no good, it injures the system of those who habitually indulge in the use of it, and, whether they think of and realize it, or not, they will be brought to account for the means they have thus wasted.

Here in the midst of the Latter-day Saints, where we can know and understand the mind and will of the Lord concerning us, many of us have not taken the pains to ask what the Lord wants us to do or what not to do; and if we are extravagant in the use of tea or coffee, which do us no good, but which injure our systems, we shall certainly be brought to account for it. Parties may say—“We did this thoughtlessly and ignorantly; we did not think there was any harm in drinking tea, coffee, beer or a little liquor, or in smoking or chewing tobacco; and having worked for our wages, we considered that we had a right to spend a portion of them in these luxuries, if we were disposed to do so.” But Justice will say, “If you had enquired you might have learned that the use of these things was not only no good to you, but was absolutely injurious, and that the means used in purchasing them was utterly wasted, and hence you who have been guilty of this folly must be brought to an account for it.”

We might follow this subject through all the varied ramifications of our practice in life, but it is not necessary on this occasion. Suffice it to say that we want to understand and do better than we have done, and to be governed by the dictates of good, solid, sound sense in the use of the wealth, privileges and talents that are given to us in our present life. Let me ask, what is real wealth? Do you know? I say that time is all the wealth we have; and to illustrate, let us suppose that all the inhabitants of the earth were, today, in the same position that our first parents were in when they were placed in the Garden. Here is the naked earth, without any improvements whatever; and the people, being without experience, have not the ability to raise anything to eat, to build dwellings to reside in, or to gather up or utilize the stock that is running at large. Would a people in that condition have any wealth? No; but you put them in possession of ability to work with their hands and to raise their food and clothing from the earth, also materials to build their houses, lay out their streets, make their gardens, farms, etc., and they will soon accumulate by their labor, and hence, you can easily see that all the wealth there is on the earth consists of the bone, sinew and time of the people. That is the capital stock of every individual and of every nation, and all the capital stock they have. If they have money—seeming wealth—it may go from them, they do not know how quickly. Cities may burn up; thieves may steal their gold and silver, and their greenbacks may be burned up with their banks, and then their wealth is gone, or rather that which is the representative of wealth; but they still have the ability and the bone and sinew necessary to go to work to rebuild their cities and to make new farms, to mine out gold and silver from the mountains to make vessels for convenience, for table use, or for ornaments—earrings, nose jewels, bands for their wrists, ankles, etc. But it must all be done by labor.

The enquiry rises—Who gives the ability to labor? Who gives us the physical power to cut down trees, to saw them into lumber, and to shape the lumber for use, so that we can make improvements in building, fencing, and everything that labor can be used for? Is this ability our own individual property, independent of God and every other being? Not at all, we are dependent upon him for strength, health, life and every power and faculty we possess. Hence we may say that Time is really all the capital stock that is possessed by any people or nation, by Saint of sinner, good or bad. Time and the ability to labor are the capital stock of the whole world of mankind, and we are all indebted to God for the ability to use time to advantage, and he will require of us a strict account of the disposition we make of this ability; and he will not only require an account of our acts, but our words and thoughts will also be brought into judgment.

Now, returning to the subject of wasting means, suppose that in the providences of God, I have been able to gather means around me, and I fancy and am able to pay for a breakfast that would cost a hundred dollars, and I say to my wife—“Prepare me such and such a breakfast,” and I actually eat a breakfast that has cost a hundred dollars, the question arises—Am I justified, have I to give an account of this? I am not justified, and I certainly shall have to give an account. A fifteen or twenty cent breakfast would satisfy the demands of my nature, and would be just as good for my system as the hundred dollar breakfast, so that by indulging in such a luxury I waste ninety-nine dollars and eighty cents, it has gone to the winds, gone to the enemy. Now what is my duty? I say that after eating my fifteen or twenty cent breakfast, if I have a hundred dollars that I can afford to spend therein, my duty is to give the residue towards sustaining the poor, building Temples, schoolhouses, sustaining the teachers, maintaining the orphan child, so that it may have an education, sending an Elder to preach the Gospel, and sustaining his family while he is away, or something or other that will advance the kingdom of God upon the earth.

Or again, suppose I say to a tailor—“I have some grey cloth, and I want you to make me a coat just according to my own notions.” “Very well, what will you have?” “I want you to make the coat of this grey cloth, and I want you to take this piece of blue cloth and cut it into narrow strips about a third of an inch wide, and strip my coat all around, and ring it around, and put a puff here and another there, and I want homemade epaulets on, and I want you to put fifteen or twenty dollars worth of work on this coat,” most of which, after all, is of not the least use in the world. Am I justified in doing this, and shall I or shall I not, have to give an account of thus spending my means and using the time of the tailor for naught? I think I shall, and I may say, as far as I am concerned, I know I shall have to give an account. But the people do not think of this.

Now, then, leaving the useless things which the brethren use—tea, coffee, tobacco, beer, whiskey, etc., I will allude to some that the sisters use and wear, such as tea, coffee, snuff, tobacco, opium, and then the ruffles, bows, puffs, trimmings, and this, that, and the other that they wear on their dresses that are useless. What shall we do in regard to these things? My senses tell me that the children of Zion should forsake every needless fashion and custom which they now practice. My wives dress very plainly, but I sometimes ask them the utility of some of the stripes and puffs which I see on their dresses. I remember asking a lady this question once, and enquired if they kept the bed bugs and flies away. Well, if they do that they are very useful; but if they do not, what use are they? None whatever. Now, some ladies will buy a cheap dress, say a cheap calico, and they will spend from five to fifteen dollars worth of time in making it up, which is wasting so much of the substance which God has given them on the lust of the eye, and which should be devoted to a better purpose. I have had an observation made to me which I believe I will relate; I never have done it, but I believe I will now. It has been said to me—“Yes, brother Brigham, we have seen ladies go to parties in plain, homemade cloth dresses, but every man was after the girls who had on a hundred dollars worth of foll-the-roll, and they would dance with every woman and girl except the one in a plain dress, and they would let her stay by the wall the whole evening.” It may be in some cases, but should not be. It adds no beauty to a lady, in my opinion, to adorn her with fine feathers. When I look at a woman, I look at her face, which is composed of her forehead, cheeks, nose, mouth and chin, and I like to see it clean, her hair combed neat and nice, and her eyes bright and sparkling; and if they are so, what do I care what she has on her head, or how or of what material her dress is made? Not the least in the world. If a woman is clean in person, and has on a nice clean dress, she looks a great deal better when washing her dishes, making her butter or cheese, or sweeping her house, than those who, as I told them in Provo, walked the streets with their spanker jib flying. It adds no beauty to a lady or gentleman to have a great many frills on their dresses or coats; beauty must be sought in the expression of the countenance, combined with neatness and cleanliness and graceful manners. All the beauty which nature bestows is exhibited, let the dress be ever so plain, if the wearer of it be only neat and comely. Do not fine feathers look well? Yes, they are very pretty, but they look just as well on these dolls, these fixed up machines which they have in the stores, as anywhere else; they certainly add nothing to the beauty of a lady or gentleman, so far as I ever saw.

Now, then, labor is our capital, and the source and creator of all the wealth that we possess; and I feel it a duty to say to the sisters as well as the brethren, that we must stop the course that has been so generally pursued among the Latter-day Saints, of spending time and means for nothing. I will mention one article to illustrate, and that is the sewing machine. A sewing machine that costs twenty-two dollars to manufacture, we pay one hundred and twenty-five dollars for; for one that costs fourteen dollars to manufacture, we pay eighty-five dollars; and for one that costs sixteen dollars, we pay one hundred. And then, when a man gets his wife a sewing machine, she will spend from five to fifteen dollars worth of time in making a dress. This is wasting time; and we want the brethren and sisters to understand that when they waste time, they are wasting the capital stock which God has given them to improve upon here upon the earth. Says one—“I have nothing to do.” You very easily can have if you wish for it.

Now for the men. I have been into houses which have not had the least convenience for the women, not so much as a bench to set their water pails on, and they have to set them on the floor, and yet their husbands will sit there year after year, and never make so much improvement as a bench to set the pail on. Yet they have the ability, but they will not exercise it. They ought to make every hour of the day useful, and if they have nothing else to do, they should spend their time in making improvements in and around their homes. They might fix the garden fence, hoe the garden, set out trees and cultivate and attend to them, fix the yard and make it look neater, fix up the house and make it more convenient for the wives and the children. A certain portion of the time should also be spent in storing their minds with useful knowledge, reading the Bible, Book of Mormon, and other Church works, and histories, scientific works and other useful books. I have seen people live year after year in a log house, with never so much as a nail to hang a broom on, and the broom is first in one corner and then in another, on the floor or out of doors. Never had a place to put the dishcloth in, or to hang it on, and it would be—“Susan, where is the dishcloth?” or—“Sally,” or “Peggy, where is the broom?” “I don’t know, there is no place for the broom;” and a man living there year after year, who never seemed to wake up the senses in him enough to drive a peg into the crack of a log to have a place to hang a broom or a dishcloth on, or to make a bench for a water or a milk pail. I have seen such men, year after year, without a chair in their houses; and if you ask them why they do not go to work and make some chairs they will say—“We don’t know how.” Then why not go to work and learn? Do as I did when I went to learn the carpenter and joiner’s trade. The first job my boss gave me was to make a bedstead out of an old log that had been on the beach of the Lake for years, waterlogged and water soaked. Said he—“There are tools, you cut that log into right lengths for a bedstead. Hew out the side rails, the end rails and the posts; get a board for a head board, and go to work and make a bedstead.” And I went to work and cut up the log, split it up to the best of my ability, and made a bedstead that, I suppose, they used for many years. I would go to work and learn to make a washboard, and make a bench to put the wash tub on, and to make a chair. This is spending time usefully; but when we spend our time for naught we waste that which God has given us as our capital stock with which to make ourselves useful in life, and to give to our fellow beings that which belongs to them.

Now, we want the sisters, as well as the brethren, to use their capital stock to the very best advantage. And we wish them to make their own fashions in regard to dress; but if they will not do that, then copy the fashions of Babylon only so far as they are useful; then stop, go no further, and sustain and uphold trade with the outside world only so far as it is really necessary. If the sisters remain with us they will do as they are told; and if they do this we say—You are at perfect liberty to go and renew your covenants by baptism; but if you will not live according to the instructions that are given, we object to you renewing your covenants; we do not wish you to say one thing and do another. We shall require the sisters to take hold and do something for themselves. Where does our knitting come from? Everybody goes to the store to buy knitted goods; but this is not right, we ought to knit our own stockings. If the sisters want some little hoods or jackets for their children they go to the store for them, they are very cheap there. Yet we raise the best of wool here, and we are spinning it just as nice as in any factory in the world. We have knitting machines and all the material necessary, and we have also the ability to knit or weave all the hoods, jackets, drawers, undershirts, etc., that we need; and if the sisters will do their duty, they will do their own knitting and prepare this Fall to raise silk another year. I have been at thousands of dollars expense in encouraging the people here to raise silk, but they do not do it, and in this respect, as in many others, they have neglected their duty, for it is their duty to take hold of this industry. The sisters will say to their husbands—“I want so and so, and I want you to give me the money to buy it.” Instead of this, I say, let the sisters go to work and raise some silk, and this will find them and their children profitable employment. If you have not got any mulberry trees, plant out some immediately, they are here by the hundreds and thousands in nurseries, and as soon as possible raise silk, and that when raised and thoroughly cured, will bring the money. Then you can raise the money, without having to call on your husbands. Now if a man buys a sewing machine for his wife, she wants a hired girl to run it; at least, I will say that some women take this course, and they spend their time uselessly and waste the capital stock which God has given them. This is the course that some pursue instead of doing good. We want a turning point to arrive for women of this class, and for all to be guided in their conduct by the dictates of good, sound sense; and as the sisters like to be noticed by the brethren, I will say that they who keep themselves neat and clean, and whose countenances are bright and clear, are the ones that will be noticed by the good.

Now, sisters, if you will consider these things you will readily see that time is all the capital stock there is on the earth; and you should consider your time golden, it is actually wealth, and, if properly used, it brings that which will add to your comfort, convenience, and satisfaction. Let us consider this, and no longer sit with hands folded, wasting time, for it is the duty of every man and of every woman to do all that is possible to promote the kingdom of God on the earth.

Without going further into the details regarding the duties of this people we can say, in a very few words, that our Father in heaven, Jesus, our elder brother and the Savior of the world, and the whole heavens, are calling upon this people to prepare to save the nations of the earth, also the millions who have slept without the Gospel, and here we are neglecting our duty, wasting our time, running here and there as though there was nothing to do only to serve ourselves. We have glory, immortality and eternal lives to gain, and it is our duty to take a course to gain them, that we may enter into the highest state of intelligence and enjoy the society of the pure and those who dwell with God.

You have now heard some things that we want of the sisters. I will now say a word to the brethren. If any brother is found drinking with the drunkard we certainly shall look after him; and my counsel and advice are for every man and every woman to pause well before they go and renew their covenants, and know whether they are going to be Saints or not. A person may say—“If I have strength I am going to be a Saint.” The drunkard may say—“I mean to reform;” the swearer may say—“I mean to reform;” the liar says—“I mean to reform;” and the thief may say—“I mean to reform.” There is no man or woman on the earth in the habit of stealing, but what can cease the practice right square if they are disposed. And so with the liar, he can stop lying, and lie no more, and tell the truth. It only wants the will to do it, and that will brought into exercise to enable the liar to be truthful, the thief to be honest, and the swearer to stop his evil speaking. So with the ladies. If they only have the will, and will exercise it, they can cease spending their time in useless fashions, and they can turn their attention to storing their minds with all useful knowledge, then adorn themselves with all that is necessary to make themselves neat, nice, comely and commendable to the eyes of God and angels, and of the good everywhere. Then they will be right. I pray the Lord to bless you, preserve you and guide your entire lives that we may be saved in the Kingdom of our God. Amen.

Discourse by Elder John Taylor, delivered in the Old Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Aug. 31, 1875.

In relation to the rules that we have heard read over, there is nothing in them but what, as Latter-day Saints, we have always professed to believe in. Some of us have been around teaching these principles among the people; and I have sometime spoken of them as baby rules, that is, as rules which people like the Latter-day Saints, who are in possession of correct principles, ought always to be governed by; Latter-day Saints, who have been faithful from the commencement of their career in the Church, have been governed by these very principles that we are now talking about.

We profess to be governed by the laws of God, and to be associated with the Church and kingdom of God upon the earth; we profess to be related, more or less, to other parties who have held the same Priesthood, powers, light, and intelligence that we possess; those who understand themselves profess to be associated, more or less, with the Church of the Firstborn, with Jesus, whom Paul calls the Mediator of the New Covenant, and with God, the Father of all; and our religion and the revelations that have been given to us are for the express purpose of leading us to a union among ourselves, with those who have gone before, and with Jesus, and God the Father, who are all of them interested, as we ought to be, in seeking to carry out the designs and purposes of the Almighty upon the earth. Those parties who have lived before, lived not for themselves, but for God. When Jesus was upon the earth he said—“I came not to do my will, but the will of the Father who sent me,” and every man who is associated with the Church and kingdom of God expects and understands, if he understands things correctly, that he is part of the great household of faith, belonging to a celestial kingdom that he anticipates inheriting, and that he ought to be governed by celestial laws, by which other intelligences who have lived before have been governed. Those men of whom Paul speaks, all of whom died in faith and in hope of a better inheritance, did certain things by which they proved to the world that they desired a city whose builder and maker was God, wherefore Paul tells us that God was not ashamed to be called their God, for he had prepared a city for them. We read of the Zion that was built up by Enoch, and that this Zion and the people that were united with Enoch, who were subject to the same laws which God is seeking to introduce among us, were caught up into the heavens. We have been expecting all along to build up a similar Zion upon these mountains, and we have talked a great deal about going back to Jackson County. We cannot build up a Zion unless we are in possession of the spirit of Zion, and of the light and intelligence that flow from God, and under the direction of the Priesthood, the living oracles of God, to lead us in the paths of life. We do not know them without, and we need all these helps to lead us along, that by and by we may come to such a unity in our temporal and in our spiritual affairs, and in everything that pertains to our interest and happiness in this world and in the world to come, that we may be prepared to enter a Zion here upon the earth, help to build Temples of the Lord and to administer in them, and so operate and cooperate with the Gods in the eternal worlds, and with the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and men of God, who were inspired by the spirit of revelation in generations that are passed and gone; we want to be one with them, one with God, and one with each other, for Jesus said—“Except you are one you are not mine.” Then the question arises, if we are not Jesus’, whose are we?

It is evident, in relation to the position that we have been in, that all kinds of confusion, folly, vanity, evil, pride, haughtiness, covetousness, drunkenness, and every kind of sin have existed among us, as a people. I am not surprised that the President should feel inclined to shake off many of these things. Why? Because, if they are permitted in the Church and kingdom of God, and the servant of God and his coadjutors do not lift up their voices against them, God would hold them responsible.

Does President Young want to bear the sins of the people? No. Do the Twelve and others want to bear the sins of the people? No. It is for the President to point out the way of life, and for all of us to walk in it. This is the order of God, and every man and woman should fulfill the various duties that devolve upon them.

Now then, in regard to our temporal affairs, these are the things which seem to perplex us more or less. We have been brought up in Babylon, and have inherited Babylonish ideas and systems of business; we have introduced, too, among us, all kinds of chicanery, deception and fraud. It is time that these things were stopped, and that matters assumed another shape; it is time that we commenced to place ourselves under the guidance and direction of the Almighty. You cannot talk in many places about temporal matters, but everybody is on the alert at once, and the idea is—Do you want my property? No. Do you want my possessions? No, no; there is no such feeling, but we do want men and women to give God their hearts, we do want people, while they profess to fear God, not to be canting hypocrites and to depart from every principle of right. We remember the time very well, or most of us, when we first entered into this Church, if a man was found lying he would be brought before the Church and dealt with; if a man was found stealing he would be brought up before the Church and dealt with; if a man defrauded his neighbor, and it could be proved, he was brought up and dealt with; and so if a man got drunk; and for all these delinquencies if parties did not repent of them they were immediately cut off from the Church as unworthy of fellowship. And now, after so many years travail, are we to continue and fellowship all these evils? No, no, we cannot do it, and God will not do it; and if we carry them along with us, we shall not enter into the celestial kingdom of God.

Now then, with regard to this union of property, what is it? Why, it is something to draw the people nearer together, to prepare them for future developments. What is the Order? Well, we, here, have thought proper, at the suggestion of President Young, to act as stewards over our own property. In some places where there is not so much property as here, it might be better to pursue another course; but as to that, no matter if our hearts are together, and we do what we do in all sincerity before God. What we are after is to give our hearts to God, to renew our covenants, and then be one in our temporal affairs; and this is to be under the direction of the living Priesthood, and not under any particular dead letter. Here is a certain form that everybody ought to submit to; every man and every woman in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ought to be governed by these rules, and we know it in our hearts. I mean when they refer particularly to our morals. When we come to other points, that is a matter of judgment and principle that we want to be governed by as the law of God. We have an organization here in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it is one of the most perfect that ever existed on the earth. And how is it organized? Why, we have the Presidency, with President Young at the head, as the mouthpiece of God to this people. That is the way that we Latter-day Saints profess to believe in him, whether we do so or not; and if we do not believe it then we are acting the hypocrite. Then come the Twelve, then the High Priests, Bishops, Seventies, High Councils, Bishops’ Councils, Elders, Priests, Teachers and Deacons, all organized by the Almighty.

Now, then, do I believe that the Lord Almighty directs President Young? I do, with all my heart. Do you believe it? That is the question. Do you believe that he and his first council have the right to dictate and manage all affairs pertaining to the temporal and spiritual interests of the Church and kingdom of God upon the earth? I believe it, do you? These are questions that we want to put to ourselves fairly and frankly and honestly, without any equivocation or reservation, for this is really a part of the order of God.

Now then come the Twelve and all the other authorities. We believe that they are ordained of God, that they are part of his economy and government, all these various quorums as they exist on the earth, and that, by and by, when we get through in this world, we shall all assume our proper position and proper Priesthood, with Joseph Smith at the head of this dispensation, and that we shall be associated there with that Priesthood that we have been connected with here. Now, then, we do not want to be playing fast and loose, part God, part the world, part the devil, part the Lord’s way and part our way, and every man following the devices and desires of his own heart. We have come under the government of God, and God expects our strict, full, implicit and unequivocal obedience in all particulars. God says, “Give me thy heart.” We have covenanted long ago to do this, and this is simply a renewal of this covenant, and of many covenants that we have entered into in relation to these matters. Is it a sacrifice? Are we doubtful and fearful about this, that, and the other? What have we to sacrifice? What hold have we upon this earth? What hold have we upon any property on this earth? It may be said to us as it was to a man who said—“I have much goods laid up for many years, soul take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;” it may be said to us as it was said to him—“Thou fool, this night thy soul is required of thee,” and then whose will these be? What have we that we did not get from God? I have heard President Young say that there is not one solitary thing that he has—wife, dollar, horse, carriage, or property of any kind that he did not receive from God. Have any of us got anything that we did not receive from him? Not a penny. Can we keep anything any longer than the Lord has a mind to permit us? Not one moment longer. In his hands are the issues of life and death, and the only hope we have is to be one with God, with the Priesthood upon the earth, that is connected with the Priesthood in the heavens, that we may unite in a phalanx with them, with God, with the Patriarchs and Prophets, with all good men that have ever lived, that we may form a cemented united body with them in the accomplishment of the purposes of God, for the bringing of salvation to the world in which we live, for the redemption of the living and the dead, for the spreading forth of truth, the establishing of correct principles, the building up of the kingdom of God, the building of Temples; and then when we get through here, that we may unite with them in the celestial kingdom of our Father.

These are some of the ideas that we believe in, in relation to these matters, and the thing that is now proposed is very simple and straightforward. The President has said that there are many men in this city and elsewhere who want to know whom they shall place over their affairs; they cannot tell. Well, what then? Why those who cannot do that, let them unite together in a united order similar to that which is spoken of, as the Book of Doctrine and Covenants expresses it—though it varies a little from that form here—and lay it at the Apostles’ feet, and let the Bishop give them their inheritances. Here another thing is contemplated, here we are stewards over our own property; and you have heard read that the avails of that system, after supplying the families, are to be under the direction of the board of directors, to say what shall be done with them. Then again, if there is extravagance in families, in dress, eating or in living of any kind, no matter what it may be, we want that checked, we do not want the Saints to be extravagant; we do not want to do anything that God does not want us to do, and no good Saint, man or woman, wants to do what God does not want. All such feel like one of old—Oh, God, search me and try me, and prove me, and if there is any way of wickedness in me, exhibit it to me; let me see it that I may bid it adieu, and let me be a good Saint; let me live in the enjoyment of thy favor and let the light of the Holy Ghost and of revelation rest upon me; let me be in favor with God and my brethren and all good men, and then when I get through, receive the reward of the just.

May God help us to appreciate these privileges, and not think that we are making sacrifices, for we are merely seeking the guidance of the Almighty to direct us in our temporal affairs, that we may inherit thrones, principalities, powers and dominions in the eternal worlds, which we never shall inherit unless we are one.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, Aug. 30, 1875.

I will read the latter part of the 32nd chapter of Isaiah, commencing at the 13th verse. [The speaker read from the 13th to the 20th verse inclusive.]

It is very evident from these predictions of the Prophet Isaiah, that he, by that spirit which opens the future, was able to see the calamities that would come upon the house of Israel, and not only upon the people, but also upon the Promised Land, the land of Canaan, now called Palestine. A curse was predicted upon that land, that instead of bringing forth those things that were necessary to sustain a people, it should bring forth briars and thorns. We are also told that this desolation should remain for a long period, until the Spirit should be poured out from on high, until, in the purposes of the Most High, he should pour out his Spirit, and that would produce a great change upon that land, but until that time it was to be desolate. All the houses of joy in the Jewish city were to be desolate, and, as it is recorded in other passages in Isaiah, they were to be the desolations of many generations. Not the desolation of seventy years, as happened to Israel in their Babylonish captivity, which only comprised about one generation, but the desolations were to be for many generations, during which that land was to lie uncultivated. The latter rains were to be withheld, and the land was to become dry and parched up, bringing forth thorns and briars, and this was to continue until the Lord poured out his Spirit from on high.

It seems, then, that the Lord had a particular set time in his own mind, when he would again pour out his Spirit from on high upon his people, and more especially upon the house of Israel; and when that time arrives, there will not only be a great moral reformation among the people, but we are told that the revolution will extend to the land also, for the Prophet says here, that when the Spirit is poured out from on high, the wilderness shall be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest. What are we to understand by the prediction that the wilderness shall be a fruitful field when the Spirit is poured out from on high? We are to understand the same as is recorded in the thirty-fifth chapter of this prophecy, a small portion of which I will read. Speaking of the gathering of the Israelites in the latter times, he says—“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God.”

Now, to comprehend that this is to be a latter-day work, and not a work that was to take place soon after the prediction was uttered, we will read the following verses—“Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong and fear not; behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you.”

That has never been fulfilled; but preparatory to the time when God will come with vengeance to sweep away wickedness from the face of the earth, the house of Israel will be gathered back to their own lands, and the people of God will be permitted to dwell in the wilderness, and that wilderness will become a fruitful field. It is even said that the desert should rejoice because of those who are gathered, and should blossom as the rose.

Now that is something that has been fulfilled during the last quarter of a century, here in this wilderness, barren, desert country. The great latter-day work has commenced, the kingdom of God has been reorganized on the earth; in other words, the Christian Church in all its purity and with all its ordinances, has been reorganized upon the face of the earth, and the time has at length come when the Spirit of God has been poured out from on high. Until that period arrived, there was no hope for Israel, no hope for the land of Palestine, no hope for the redemption of the tribes scattered in the four quarters of the earth; but when the wilderness should become as a fruitful field, when the spirit should again be poured out from on high, through the everlasting Gospel of the Son of God, then the people should be gathered together by the commandment of the Lord. As is here stated, his Spirit should be the instrument in gathering them together. “My mouth, it hath commanded this great gathering.” Then we may look out for a change upon the face of the land where this gathering takes place; we may look for the deserts to become like the garden of Eden, to blossom as the rose that blossoms in rich and fertile gardens, to blossom abundantly, and the desert to rejoice with joy and singing. We are to look also, soon after this period of time, for the great Redeemer to come. “Say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not, behold your God will come with vengeance; he will come and save you,” having reference to his second coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and with great glory, attended by all the angelic hosts; coming in flaming fire to consume the wicked from the face of the earth as stubble, to burn them up, both root and branch, while the Saints that are left will go forth upon the face of the earth and grow up as calves of the stall, and tread upon the ashes of the wicked.

The Prophet says that, when Jesus comes with vengeance and destroys the wicked, redeems the desert, and causes the wilderness to become a fruitful field, then the lame man shall leap as a hart, the tongue of the dumb shall speak, the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert, and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.

A great many people enquire of the Latter-day Saints—“Why is it that you do not heal up all of your sick and those who are afflicted among you?” This question is often asked. Says the enquirer—“If you are the true Christian Church; if God has indeed sent his angel from heaven, as you Latter-day Saints testify that he has; if he has indeed organized his kingdom on the earth for the last time, preparatory to the day of his coming; how is it, if you have those gifts that they had in the ancient Christian Church, that all your lame and blind and dumb, and those who are afflicted are not healed up?” I answer, for the same reasons that the ancient Christians were not all healed. If they had always been healed in ancient times in the Church, they would have been living now. The time came for them to die, and they did die, notwithstanding all the faith of the ancient Christians, and notwithstanding they had power to say to the lame—“Be thou healed,” and the lame would leap as a hart; notwithstanding they had power, in the name of Jesus, to command blindness to depart from the children of men, and to command all manner of plagues and pestilences and they were subject to their command in the name of Jesus, yet, after all, the ancient Christians died. Why did they not heal them, keep them along, and not let them die? Because that was not according to the order which God had es– tablished. When a man or woman is appointed unto death you, nor I, nor Peter, nor James, nor Paul, nor John, nor any other man of God can heal them in the name of Jesus. Why? Because God has otherwise determined. But that did not do away the gift of healing in ancient times; that gift was abundantly made manifest, notwithstanding there were many who were sick who were not healed.

So in the latter-day kingdom, when the spirit is poured out again from on high, when God begins to manifest these ancient gifts again among his people, and the blind among them are made to see, and the deaf to hear, and the tongue of the dumb is made to speak, and the lame is made to walk—when all these things begin to take place among the people of God, still there will be many, very many, that will not be healed, otherwise the prophecy will not be fulfilled.

At the very time the Savior makes his appearance and comes with vengeance, there will be the sick, the lame, the blind, the dumb, the maimed, and those afflicted with all manner of diseases. The Prophet says that when he comes and finds them in this condition, “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be unstopped, the tongue of the dumb speak, and the lame man shall leap like a hart,” &c. So there will be something left for Jesus to do, when he comes in flaming fire, to heal all the sick who have not faith to be healed prior to that time. But when Jesus comes, he brings all the Saints with him; he raises the righteous dead from their graves, not as he raised Lazarus into mortality, but he raises them up, male and female, with immortal bodies, to reign here on the earth during the period that he himself shall reign, during the great Sabbath of creation, the millennial reign of one thousand years.

Now, we would naturally suppose that during that period of a thousand years everybody would have the power of faith to be healed. But no, though the Son of God is there, though the righteous dead with their immortal bodies are there, yet old men will die even then, for it is according to the design and purpose of the great Jehovah. Though there will be no one to fall asleep in infancy; though none of the youth will die in that day; though there will be no middle-aged persons upon whom death will lay his powerful grasp, yet the aged, or, as Isaiah says in his last chapter but one—“The days of my people shall be as the days of a tree, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. A child shall not die until he is a hundred years old.” We would naturally suppose that, the Lord being here, all the resurrected Saints being here, he would not let them die when they become old; but he lets them pass away according to the decree that was made when man fell and was cast out from the presence of the Lord. They must die, the penalty must come upon them.

But with regard to the wilderness that is here spoken of—“Water shall break forth in the desert, springs of living water, streams also in the desert, and the parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land springs of water”—have you seen anything of the nature of this prediction fulfilled? Latter-day Saints, how was it with this wilderness twenty-eight years ago this summer when the pioneers entered this land, and when several thousands followed them in the autumn of that same year? What did you, who were appointed to explore the country, find? Many places parched up, looking as though there had been no water or rain from heaven for many years. You began to form your settlements on the streams that ran down from the melting snows in the mountains; and in a very short period of time you began to send forth your settlements, north and south and west. Occasionally you would find a little spring that would break out from under the threshold of the mountain, sufficient to water perhaps an acre of ground, and only one family could go there and settle. What do you find now? The same streams that would only water one acre of ground then—you know I am speaking to people who know for themselves, for they have seen it—the water in those very localities is now sufficient to water from one hundred to five hundred acres. What do you think of that? Have you realized that the hand of the Lord is with you?—that he has indeed fulfilled that which he spoke by the mouth of his ancient Prophet, when he said—“For in the wilderness waters shall break forth and streams in the desert, etc.?” He meant just what he said, and you have come hither and proved his words to be true.

I recollect traveling through this country, some three or four hundred miles, in the early days, soon after we had begun to branch out from this city to the north and the south, I found sometimes on a little stream of water from two to three families, and one or two of them would be talking about breaking up and going elsewhere, because there was not sufficient water to enable them to raise what was necessary to sustain themselves. Now we visit the same settlements and what do we find?—flourishing villages containing from thirty to fifty families. What is the matter? The Lord has fulfilled that which he spoke, causing streams in the desert.

I recollect that the pioneers, in the month of July, 1847, went over onto the north point of the west mountain to see the Great Salt Lake, to see what it looked like, what was the nature of the water, &c. We went to a place that has been called for many years “Black Rock,” a rock that is out in the lake a few rods from the shore. We concluded that we would go out to this rock to see what the depth of the water was beyond it. We did so, on dry ground, the waters of the lake being then several feet below the place where we walked to the Black Rock. What do we see now, and what have we seen for several years past? The path on which the pioneers traveled on foot to Black Rock is now covered with water ten feet deep. Showing that Salt Lake has risen some twelve or fifteen feet during the last quarter of a century. What is the meaning of this? Can you tell? Says one—“I should have thought the lake would have become lower.” That would be a very natural supposition; for our people have gone to work and made scores and scores of canals to carry on to their farms the water from the mountains that formerly ran into the lake, and hence the lake has had very little water running into it compared with what it would have had if the streams from the mountains had not been so diverted. But God has said that he would make the wilderness a fruitful field, and streams in the desert, and he has fulfilled his promise.

Pioneers, if any of you are here today, let me ask you a question—When you came down from the mouth of Emigration Canyon, where Camp Douglas is now situated, into this region of country, in July, 1847, what did the ground appear like? Did you dig down and make any experiments? “O yes, in many places.” How far did you dig down? “Some of us dug many feet to see if there was any appearance of moisture.” Did you find anything? What was the appearance of the soil? It looked as though there had been no rain for many generations. What do we find now? We find this same parched-up soil, for some five square miles, where Salt Lake City is located, converted into fruitful gardens, planted with apple, pear, peach, plum, and other kinds of fruit trees adapted to the climate, and in the spring season of the year, in the months of May and June, this locality is like one vast garden full of blossoms, so much so that strangers are astonished beyond measure to see such a large extent of country so much like a garden.

Now let us see what Isaiah says about it, for he looked upon it as well as you, if he did live twenty-five hundred years ago. “The Lord shall comfort Zion, he will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” Indeed! Did you see it, Isaiah, as well as the people that live in our day? Did you see a people go into the desert and offer up thanksgiving and the voice of melody? Did you see that desert and wilderness redeemed from its sterile condition and become like the garden of Eden? “O yes,” says Isaiah, “I saw it all, and I left it on record for the benefit of the generation that should live some two or three thousand years after my day.” But Isaiah, are we to understand that the people are to be gathered together in that desert, and that the gathered people are to be instrumental in the hands of God, in redeeming that desert? Yes, Isaiah has told us all this. We will go back to what we read in his thirty-second chapter—“Until the spirit be poured out upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field.” What fruitful field? Why, the wilderness that will be converted into a fruitful field. “The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever; and my people shall dwell in peaceable habitations, and in sure dwellings and in quiet resting places.”

Was that the way we dwelt in Missouri or Illinois? Did we live in quietness and with assurance continually in those States? Oh, no, we were tossed about; as Isaiah says—“tossed to and fro and not comforted.” That was the case with Zion while down in the States, and that was in accordance with a modern revelation, in which, speaking of Zion, the Lord says—“You shall be persecuted from city to city and from synagogue to synagogue, and but few shall stand to receive their inheritance. But when the time should come for Zion to go up into the wilderness things would be changed; then my people shall dwell in peaceable habitations, in sure dwelling places, and in quietness and assurance.”

Will they have any capital city when they get up into the mountain desert? O, yes. Isaiah says here—“When it shall hail, coming down on the forest, the city shall be low in a low place.” How often have I thought of this since we laid out this great city, twenty-eight years ago! How often have this people reflected in their meditations upon the fulfillment of this prophecy! They have seen, on this eastern range of mountains and on the range of mountains to the west of this valley, snow and storms pelting down with great fury, as though winter in all its rigor and ferocity had overtaken the mountain territory, and at the same time, here, “low in a low place,” was a city, organized at the very base of these mountains, enjoying all the blessings of a spring temperature, the blessings of a temperature not sufficient to cut off our vegetation. What a contrast! “When it shall hail, coming down on the forest, the city shall be low in a low place.” That could not be Jerusalem, no such contrast in the land of Palestine round about Jerusalem! It had reference to the latter-day Zion, the Zion of the mountains.

Says one—“Is there anything in Isaiah that speaks of Zion being located in a high or elevated region in the mountains?” Oh yes, let us read and see what he says about it in his fortieth chapter: “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.” Then he goes on to speak of the second coming of the Son of Man, and he says—“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” The same as you have made, or assisted in making, the great highway through this desert region, and constructed highways here in the desert called the iron railroad. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Says one—“That meant his first coming, John the Baptist, etc.” Let us see. “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be laid low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places be made plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

Did that mean his first coming? Was the glory of God then revealed? Did all flesh see it together? No; it has reference to the second advent, the coming of the Lord in his glory and in his power, when every eye shall see him. Then the mountains shall be laid low, then the valleys shall be raised up, then the rough places will be made smooth, then the glory of God will be made manifest to all flesh living, and every eye—the wicked and the righteous—will behold him, and they also who pierced him.

But before that day what will take place? We will read the 9th verse in the same chapter. “O Zion”—something about Zion now, before the Lord comes—“O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountains.” Did you come up into these high mountains, you people of the latter-day Zion? What did you come here for? Because Isaiah predicted that this was the place you should come to, you should get up into the high mountain. He foretold it, and you have fulfilled it. “O Zion, that bringest good tidings.” What good tidings? What tidings have you been declaring the last forty-five years to the nations and kingdoms of the earth? What have you testified to, you missionaries? Your missionaries have gone from nation to nation and from kingdom to kingdom, proclaiming to the people that God has sent his angel from heaven with the everlasting Gospel to be preached unto all people upon the face of the whole earth. This is what you have been proclaiming. Is not the everlasting Gospel glad tidings to the children of men? I think it is, and especially when it is brought by an angel to prepare the way for the great and glorious day of the coming of the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is good tidings that people who receive this everlast– ing Gospel, are commanded to get up into the high mountain. You have fulfilled it, you have been at it now for twenty-eight years, coming up from the eastern slope, from the great Atlantic seaboard, and gradually rising and ascending until you have located yourselves in a place upwards of four thousand feet above the level of the sea. And here in the Zion of the mountains you have founded a great Territory, with some two hundred towns and villages, with your capital city “low in a low place,” where the temperature of spring prevails, while all the rigors of an arctic winter are beating upon the tops of the mountains in our immediate vicinity.

But lest any should suppose that this getting up into the mountains was a former-day work, let me read the next verse—“Behold the Lord God will come with a strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him. Behold his reward is with him and his work before him.” Not coming to be smitten and spat upon, and despised, and to hang upon a cross, as was the case in ancient days; but the Lord God is to come with a strong hand, and his arm is to rule in that day as a king, as a lawgiver, as a mighty potentate to reign over all the kingdoms of the world, which will then become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ, I mean that portion of them that are not swept off with devouring fire.

But I said that this people, called the Zion of the mountains, that were to cause the wilderness to blossom as the rose, were to be a people gathered from the four quarters of the earth. Can it be proved? Yes. I will refer you to the 107th Psalm, where it is said—“Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is God, and his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south”—a gathered people. Let us see what this people were to do. “They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found no city to dwell in.” I wish you had all been with the pioneers in the year 1847. When we started out, in the dead of the winter of 1846, upon the prairies of Iowa, after leaving the great Mississippi, and getting out about fifty miles from that river, we did not as much as find a foot track, and no signs of a human habitation. We wandered over that uninhabited territory some four hundred miles, until we reached the Pottawattamie and Omaha tribes of Indians, then located on the Missouri River. Then, early the next spring, we started forth (one hundred and forty-three pioneers), with our faces still westward, and went up on the north side of the Platte River several hundred miles. Did we find a road most of that distance? No road at all. We found tens of thousands of buffalo and their paths; we found a great many hostile tribes of Indians, who sought very diligently to take away our horses and mules, and to cripple us in this manner. But we continued our journey, and at length came through these mountains, after having crossed at the South Pass, and come forth to a little fort called Fort Bridger. We then started into an unknown country, still bending our course southwesterly, for there was a rumor, and not only a rumor, but it had been testified, that there was a great inland sea, called the Salt Lake, in the midst of the great American desert. We had heard this rumor, and had read some of Fremont’s travels in the midst of hostile Indian tribes. We came forth into this desert, wandering in the wilderness in a solitary way. Who were they that thus wandered? People that had been gathered but from the east and the west, from the north and the south, redeemed from the hand of those who sought to destroy them. “They wandered in the wilderness, in a solitary way, and they found no city to dwell in.” How different this was from the ancient Israelites when they entered the land of Palestine! They found numerous cities, built by the former inhabitants of the land. Jerusalem was a city that had been known for a long period before the Israelites went into that land, built up by its former heathen inhabitants. They found large vineyards, with grapes and fruit in great abundance, and cities, towns, and villages spread throughout the land, which the Lord God gave them for their possession. How different was that from the latter-day work, when the redeemed of the Lord should gather from the four quarters of the earth, and wander in a wilderness in a solitary way; they were to find no city to dwell in.

Did we suffer anything? Yes. Did the old Prophet speak of these sufferings? Yes. “Hungry and thirsty, their souls fainted in them; then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses, and he led them forth by the right way.” Yes, when our food gave out; when the crickets came in here by armies; when tons and tons of them poured in on the little crops first planted, ready to devour everything before them, and we were living on quarter rations, what did we do? We cried unto the Lord in our distress, in our hunger and thirst, believing that he would have compassion on us, and open some way for our relief, and he did so—he sent forth large flocks of gulls that lit down upon these crickets and devoured them up, and thus the crops of the people were saved.

“Well,” says one, “does this have reference to the same desert and wilderness that you have been reading about?” Let us see. “Let them exalt him, also, in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. He turns rivers into the wilderness, and water springs into dry grounds, and a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.” Now notice the next prediction—“He turns the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into water springs, and there he makes the hungry to dwell.” What for? “That they may prepare a city for habitation.” Though we did not find any cities already built here, we had to prepare one, and we have done so, and a very fine one indeed it is, and the wonder and astonishment of strangers who come here and see what has been done in the midst of a desert. The Lord predicted it, and you are the ones who have fulfilled it. “That they may prepare a city for habitation.”

What else? Were they to be lazy and indolent? No. That they may “sow fields and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase. He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly, and suffereth not their cattle to decrease.” Strangers, if you want to know how fast we are multiplying, just go through our settlements, and look at the numerous children in our Sabbath schools; you never heard of such an increase and multiplication, and the Lord foretold that it would be so.

There is another very curious thing concerning this people who should come into the desert wilderness. Isaiah says—“He setteth the poor on high from affliction.” Now, a great many of this people were very poor on arriving here; they had been robbed five times of all they had, and driven out. After having been thus plundered, we came here very poor; but the Lord “setteth the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock.” What a wonderful prophecy this is! A poor man to have not only a family like a flock, but even families. If you do not believe it strangers, go through our Territory, and see the large families, and in some cases you will find in the same vicinity six or eight different families, with their houses and farms, all belonging to one man, and he perhaps a poor man when he came here. “He setteth the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock. The righteous shall see it and rejoice.” What! The righteous see this and have joy in it? So says the prophecy. “But,” says one, “I should have thought everyone would have been disgusted with it.” To think that a man should have a family or families like a flock, while the righteous see it and rejoice! What else? “And all iniquity shall stop her mouth.” That has not yet been fulfilled. “Whosoever is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord.” That is, those who observe these things are called a wise people, those who have gathered from the east, and the west, and the north, and the south, that wander in the wilderness in a solitary place, finding no city to dwell in, hungry and thirsty, poor, stripped, robbed, plundered, forced into the desert, driven by their enemies, that very people should multiply exceedingly, the families of the poor man should become like a flock, and the people should rejoice in the midst of all their afflictions, while all the wicked should eventually stop their mouths. That will be their destiny sooner or later.

We will now return to our text, the 32nd of Isaiah—“Blessed are ye that sow by the side of all waters, and send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.” Why did Isaiah say that a blessing should be given to a certain people that should happen to sow by the side of streams of water? Why did he not bless the others who lived on the hills and mountains, as they do all over our States and many other countries of the globe? Because he saw, in looking at this people, that they, in their location, were to go into a desert, and the redeemed of the Lord would be under the necessity of getting along the sides of streams; they could not go out several miles from a stream or spring and trust to the rains of heaven; no, the rains do not come here, or did not when we first located, so as to bless those who would naturally desire to reside far from a stream of water, but we were all under the necessity of getting down close to the side of some stream of water. What for? That it would be handy to build little canals to get water out to throw over the land. “Blessed are they who sow by the side of all waters and send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.”

We have read these words of the ancient Prophet, in order that the Latter-day Saints may call to mind how completely the Lord is fulfilling every jot and every tittle, so far as time will permit, of that which he caused to be spoken, by the power of the Holy Ghost, through his ancient Prophets. Strangers think it very curious that this people should have such large families. If such were not the case, we would not be the people predicted about that were to be so blessed; but we are that people, and it is in vain for us to undertake to turn the hand of the Lord to the right or to the left. He has his own eternal course to pursue, and all his purposes he will fulfil, and there is no power beneath the heavens that can stay his almighty hand. He will fulfill that which he has spoken, in order that there may be no room for infidelity in the four quarters of the earth. There are a great many infidels nowadays, and I do not wonder at it. Looking at modern Christendom, without any Prophets, inspiration, gifts, or the ancient powers of the Gospel, it is enough to make three quarters or nine-tenths of the people infidel in regard to religion. But the Lord is going to leave the people without any excuse, for every jot and tittle of that which he spoke by the mouths of his ancient Prophets he will bring to pass in its time and in its season. Zion is destined to fill the mountains in the last days; Zion will become, as Isaiah says, in his 60th chapter, a great people. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. The Lord shall bring it forth in its time, says Isaiah, and in the same chapter he speaks of the future glory of that people, and declares that while darkness should cover the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people, Zion should arise and shine. These are the words of the Prophet—“Zion shall arise and shine, for the glory of the Lord has risen upon her. The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

Inquires one—“Is Zion going to become popular, so that Gentiles and kings and great men will come to her light?” Yes, certainly; and not only Gentiles, kings and great men, but many of all the nations of the earth have got to come to Zion, and, according to this very chapter, that nation and kingdom that will not serve Zion shall perish, and be utterly wasted away. Has there ever been such a people as this since the day Isaiah lived? There never has; but such a people and such a time are coming, and Zion will be that people. “The Gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Thy gates shall be open continually, that men may bring the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought.”

It will be a time of great plenty of the precious metals. In those days God will give the keys of the treasures of the earth and he will open them up to the people, Isaiah says, in this connection—“For brass I will bring gold, for iron I will bring silver, for wood brass, and for stones iron.” Gold and silver will be so plentiful that they will be used for the pavement of streets. But the covetous may say—“That will be a fine chance for us to steal; if you get pavements made with gold and silver we shall be along after them.” I think you will not. Why? Because God will be there, and I do not think you will have any chance to steal; for it is said in the fourth chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy, that in that day every dwelling place in Mount Zion and all her assemblies shall have a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Do you think you would like to go into a city where every dwelling place is lighted up with a pillar of fire by night, and undertake to dig up the pavements? I think you would not have the heart to do it, you would fear that light would go forth from the presence of the Lord, and consume you, as it did many rebellious and wicked ones among the Israelites. Gold will be very good for pavements, if they are only constructed properly; and Mount Zion will be a very beautiful city, one of the most beautiful that has ever been on the face of the whole earth. It is spoken of by the Psalmist David, in the 50th psalm and also in another psalm—“Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.”

You Christians quote the Psalmist David, and sing about this in your chapels and meetinghouses, and you sing about the desert becoming like the Garden of Eden, and joy and gladness being found therein; you have it all fixed up so that it makes melody in the ears of your respective congregations. You sing about the fulfillment of these prophecies, but let a man of God be sent forth by the inspiration and power of the Almighty to warn you concerning the great day of the Lord that is coming; and concerning the fulfillment of these prophecies, and you will gnash your teeth upon him. He reads to you the same things that you sing, and brings forth the same testimony and the same Scriptures that are, every Sabbath day, repeated in your hearing, and yet you stone him and close the doors of your synagogues and chapels against him, and cry “False Prophets,” “delusions,” “false teachers,” and every evil epithet you can possibly invent to prejudice the minds of the people against him. Why? Because he comes to you with the truth; because he comes to you as a messenger from heaven; because he comes to you, testifying that the Lord God has spoken by his own voice, that he has sent his angel with the everlasting Gospel to be proclaimed to the nations as a preparatory work for the great day of bringing in the fullness of the Gentiles and the salvation and gathering of all the house of Israel. You cannot bear the truth, you will not hear it, and you cast out the servants of God, and stir up prejudice against them. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, July 25, 1875.

I will read a few verses in the latter part of the fourth and in the forepart of the fifth chapters of Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians. [The speaker read from the 13th verse of the 4th chapter, to the 6th verse of the 5th, both inclusive.]

I have read these few passages of Scripture relating to the great day of the coming of our Lord, according as it is predicted by the mouth of the ancient Apostle, and also concerning a very important event which will then happen, namely, the resurrection of the righteous dead—those who are in Christ; and also another event closely connected with the resurrection—namely, the ascension of the Saints then living upon the earth, to meet the Lord at his coming. These events are looked for by most of the Christian world, indeed we may say that all the Christian world, who do not spiritualize the Scriptures, are looking for events similar to those here described. They believe, according to the New Testament, that there is a time fixed in the mind of the Almighty, when the heavens shall be parted as a scroll is parted when it is rolled up, and that the heavens, invisible to us now, will be unveiled before the eyes of all people; that the armies of heaven, the spirits of just men made perfect, through obedience to the law of God, will be revealed; that the angels who stand in authority in the presence of God and do his bidding, will also be numbered with that great company which will be revealed from the heavens. We also believe, and so do the inhabitants of the Christian world at large, that there will be an audible sound of a trump—the trump of the archangel—in the heavens at the time this grand scenery is opened to mankind; that at the sound of that trumpet the dead in Christ will come forth from their silent dusty tombs; that at the sound of that trump the Saints then living will be instantaneously caught up to meet the Lord in the air. This doctrine is believed in by Christians generally who do not spiritualize altogether the sense and meaning of the Scriptures.

It may be well for us, in the examination of that great event, the second coming of Christ, to refer to some of the predictions of inspired writers in regard to the time of our Savior’s revelation from the heavens. I do not mean to say the day nor the hour of his coming, for that is unknown, no man that lives on the face of the earth knows anything about the day or the hour; neither will there be any man on the earth prior to the coming of the Lord who will know the day and the hour, for it is hidden from mortal man. However, the age in which that great event will take place is very clearly revealed in both the Old and the New Testament. That age is to be characterized by certain events, predicted by the inspired writers, which are unmistakable in their nature, and which can be easily understood by all, both learned and unlearned. These events are to be so conspicuous that I presume there will not be a nation, people, kindred or tongue upon the face of the whole earth but what will know that, according to the Scriptures, some great event is about to take place, for every people in that day will be more or less enlightened in the Scriptures, for before that great day shall come, missionaries will be sent to the uttermost parts of the earth, to testify to all people con– cerning the Gospel of the Son of God, and they will cry in the ears of all living, saying unto them—“Prepare ye, prepare ye, for the great and coming day of the Bridegroom.” They will have a preparatory message to deliver to all nations.

When the Lord, in the meridian of time, came and took upon himself a mortal body, he saw proper to send as his forerunner one of the greatest Prophets that ever was born into our world—John the Baptist, and he went, announcing, by the inspiration of the Spirit and by the power of his holy calling, that there was one to come after him who was mightier than he, whose shoe latchet he was not worthy to unloose; and that when he should come he would thoroughly purge his floor, and that he would baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost. Said John—“I merely come to prepare the way. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord and make his paths straight. I come preaching unto you repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins, but he who comes after me, holding higher authority and a greater Priesthood, shall baptize you with a baptism that is greater than that of water—the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost.”

Now, if the Lord, when he came the first time, in his humility and meekness, born in a manger, of parents of low estate, saw that it was necessary to prepare the way before him by raising up one of the greatest Prophets that ever came into the world, why should it be thought unreasonable that he should also raise up a latter-day Prophet to prepare the way before one of the mightiest and grandest events that ever has taken place, or that ever will take place on our earth in its temporal condition? If the heavens are to be revealed; if the face of the Son of God is to be unveiled; if the glory of his countenance is to outshine the sun in his strength; if he is to come in flaming fire, while the very heavens themselves shall shake by his power, and the earth reel to and fro like a drunken man, the mountain themselves, feeling his power, are sunk and the valleys are raised up; if all these grand events are to attend the second advent of the Son of God, is it unreasonable that he should raise up a great Prophet in the latter days to make preparations for so great an event? Or will he let the world pass on in blindness and darkness without any signs of the times, without any warning voice, without any inspired man sent of God to wake them up from their condition, and to prepare the way for his coming? To me it looks consistent and reasonable that such a preparatory work should be sent forth among the children of men, and it looked consistent to the ancient inspired writers, hence they have left an abundance of testimony on record in this good book (the Bible) concerning this preparatory work.

One of the means which God will use to prepare the way before his second coming, is to send angels from heaven with a proclamation, not to benefit a few individuals, not for one nation alone, but to all the inhabitants of our globe, and that too before he comes. Do you want to know where this prediction is recorded? Let me refer you to the fourteenth chapter of the revelations given to St. John on Patmos. Did St. John behold, in vision, the coming of the Son of God? He did. How does he describe it in that fourteenth chapter? He said, as you will find by reading the chapter through, that he saw one sitting on a white cloud, having a sharp sickle in his hand. He had reference to the time when Jesus should come in the clouds of heaven; however, before John saw the personage sitting on the cloud, he saw a preparatory work commence, as it is declared in the sixth verse, in which the Prophet says—“I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, unto every nation and kindred and tongue and people,” declaring that the hour of God’s judgment was come.

Now if that angel does not come and bring the Gospel, then the Son of Man will not come; no trumpet will sound and call forth the nations of the righteous from their sleeping tombs; there will be no destroying the wicked as stubble from the face of the earth; no shaking of the heavens and causing the earth to tremble and to remove to and fro. None of these events will transpire if no angel comes, for one is just as certain as the other; and to show that one is to precede the other, there must be a time for this everlasting Gospel to be preached to every nation, kindred, tongue and people after the angel appears with it. That will take some length of time, however rapidly it may go forth, for the mere preaching of the Gospel would be of no benefit, unless there were persons authorized to administer its ordinances. The angel might preach, but who could obey it? No one. It is true that we might repent if we heard the angel proclaim it by his own voice, as he flew from nation to nation and from kingdom to kingdom; and we might also believe in Jesus Christ, but how could we be baptized for the remission of our sins? Would the angel come down from heaven and take every believing penitent person and baptize him himself? How long would it take an angel to go over all the nations and baptize all the penitent believers? It would take ages and ages for him to do it personally. But it is very evident to every one who reflects upon these passages, that when that angel comes with the everlasting Gospel, there will be authority given to man on the earth to administer the ordinances of that Gospel, to build up the Christian Church again on the earth as it was built in ancient times, a Christian Church organized according to the pattern that God has given in the New Testament; a Christian Church having Apostles inspired from heaven; a Christian Church with Prophets called of God to prophesy future events; a Christian Church possessing the gifts and graces of the ancient Gospel in all their beauty, power and fulness, as they were possessed in ancient times. These works and these ordinances must be administered by man, and not by the angel who brings the Gospel. Will that be a preparatory work?

What other preparations are necessary to be made besides the preaching of this Gospel to all nations? Supposing that among the nations of the earth there were to be raised up a true Christian Church, is there anything particular for that Christian Church to do after having received the ordinances of the Gospel in order to more fully prepare them for the coming of the Son of God? I answer, yes. The Christian Churches built up in the four quarters of the earth after the angel comes, will be required to gather from all these nations unto one place. That is something which no Christian denomination believes in, or if they do believe in it they do not practice it, for the members of Churches called Christian remain in the respective nations where they receive the truth; it is true that individuals may emi– grate, but as Churches they do not. But the Scriptures, speaking of the great day of the coming of the Lord, say there is to be a gathering from all the nations of the earth unto one place of those who have taken upon them the name of the Lord Jesus. That great gathering is referred to in the chapter I have quoted from, also in another chapter in which, referring to the downfall of spiritual Babylon, it is declared that there shall be a gathering of the people, and that too by inspiration, by the command of the Almighty; it will not be left to the wisdom of man, but it will be directed by—“Hear ye the word of the Lord,” as declared to John on the Isle of Patmos. He says—“I heard a great voice from heaven saying—‘Come out of her, my people!’” What people? “My people.” Who are God’s people? Those who obey the everlasting Gospel which the angel brings by authority. “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities;” and now, you who are Saints, you who have obeyed the Gospel restored by the angel, come out of her, for the Lord is going to punish great Babylon. How is he going to punish her? By casting her down, and causing her overthrow. After speaking of the bringing of the Gospel by an angel, the very next verse says—“There followed another angel.” What, two angels come. Yes, and mark the message of the second one. “There followed another angel, saying, ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’”

The description of this fall of Babylon is given in various places in John’s revelations. Awful and most terrible judgments will fall upon Mystery Babylon the Great. She is to be punished with plagues of various kinds; a grievous sore will fall upon her people, so much so that they will blaspheme God, but they will not repent of their sins. They are to be punished with having the fountains and rivers turned into blood, and the waters of the great ocean are to become as the blood of a dead man, and every living thing that is therein will die; and one of the last plagues and judgments that will be poured out upon her will be devouring fire, and she will sink as a millstone, and her name will be blotted from under heaven and all that are connected with her.

Before these terrible judgments are sent forth upon the nations of the earth, God will save all who receive the everlasting Gospel by gathering them to one place, where they can serve him and keep his commandments. He will not merely give them some idea, by reading the Scriptures, that he desires them to gather, but John says there will be a great voice from heaven proclaiming—“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

Then there is to be a gathering of the people of God in the latter days? Yes. Do you marvel to see this people coming forth from all the various nations, leaving the homes of their ancestry, the graves of their ancient fathers, leaving their acquaintances and friends, and gathering up here into these mountain vales? Do you see it? Do you marvel at it? Remember, O ye inhabitants of the earth, who are looking upon these things, that you are beholding the fulfillment of prophecy, prophecy spoken by the Apostle Paul, in the first chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians. Paul saw the gathering; he saw that it would be a new dispensation, a dispensation to come after his day. Let me repeat Paul’s words—“That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth.” Thus you see that all things in Christ are to be gathered together in one. What does this include? Are the inhabitants of heaven to be made one with the inhabitants of the earth that are in Christ? Yes. The dispensation of the fullness of times is to bring about one of the grandest events that our earth has ever experienced—the union of all things in Christ, both in heaven and upon earth. Are the Saints in Christ? As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, consequently if you are in Christ, if you live in the dispensation of the fullness of times, you will be required to take part in this great and grand gathering together of those who are on the earth. But how about all things in Christ in heaven, are they to come too? That is what I have been explaining. When Christ comes the inhabitants of heaven will come with him. The spirits of the righteous of all dispensations, who have not already received a resurrection, will then come forth, and when the trump of the archangel shall sound, the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then those spirits which appear in the heavens will take possession of their renewed immortal bodies which will spring forth from the tomb, and they will be with those who are gathered here on the earth. Then the dispensation will be complete—all things in Christ, whether in heaven or on earth, will be gathered in one.

Enquires one—“Do you really think that we poor mortals, frail as we are with all our imperfections, that have come because of the fall, are going to associate with those high and exalted beings that dwell in the presence of God in the eternal worlds? Are we to be gathered with them?” Yes. Why not be with them? If our hearts are pure as their hearts are pure, if we have received and obeyed the truth, and have been sanctified by it, shall we not have boldness in that day? Or shall we hang down our heads, and shrink with shame, before the face of Him who sits upon his throne. If we have received the truth we shall look upon the face of our Redeemer with all the joy that we look upon the face of a kind and benevolent parent here on the earth. There will be no fear, no shrinking, but we shall feel that he is indeed our Redeemer and that we are his sons and his daughters, and that, having obeyed his doctrine, we are prepared to associate with him and to dwell in his presence. Oh, how happy the ancient Apostles were when they saw their risen Redeemer! There was no shrinking. They were out fishing on a certain time, and when they had learned that their Redeemer was on the shore, and calling to them, they could not wait for the ship to reach the shore, but they must plunge into the sea, to try and get there as soon as possible. Their Redeemer was there, and instead of shrinking they were eager to behold him once more. Then, do not, for a moment, suppose that the people of God who keep his commandments and live in the latter days, in the great and grand dispensation of gathering, will shrink when the heavens shall unveil the face of the Son of God. They will be prepared to take these resurrected beings by the hand, and they will go forth and salute Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for they are in the kingdom of God. Jesus said, although they were polygamists, that they are in the kingdom of God. We shall be very glad, in the day when the heavenly hosts are revealed to men, to take them by the hand and to sit down with them, as Jesus has said—“Many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” It will be some pleasure then to be in the company of polygamists, will it not?

Now, as I go along with item after item of the work preparatory to the coming of the Savior, I want to ask what the belief of this people is, and whether we are or are not fulfilling the word of the Lord which I have quoted? Joseph Smith brought forth the Book of Mormon—the Lord calls it the everlasting Gospel, because it is the same Gospel which Jesus himself preached to the ancient inhabitants of this continent, and to the people who dwelt anciently on the continent of Asia. It was brought forth in these latter days by his power, by an angel sent from heaven, and revealed to this generation. And have missionaries been sent forth? Yes. What for? To carry this Book of Mormon, containing the everlasting Gospel, to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. And these missionaries, as far as time would permit, have fulfilled the missions that were given unto them.

We first began to preach this Gospel in the little town where this Church was organized with six members only, on the 6th day of April, 1830. A few missionaries then began to teach in the neighborhood, next in the county, next in the adjoining county, next in the adjoining States, next in the adjoining Territories, next in British America, and finally across the great ocean among the European nations. Have these missionaries visited and preached to any other people besides those living on the continent of Europe, and those of the United States and the Canadas? Yes. They have preached this same Gospel contained in the Book of Mormon on the Islands of the sea, in Australia, New Zealand, the Society Islands, Sandwich Islands—where thousands have received this Gospel and been baptized. Missionaries have also carried this everlasting Gospel to the northern portions of Europe—Norway, Denmark and Sweden; also into the German States, to Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, some of the islands of the Mediterranean, to Hindostan, and in fact wherever there has been a sufficient degree of liberty to permit the proclamation of the Gospel, thither have missionaries, called of God to declare the message of life and salvation to the people, been and proclaimed it.

Wherever we have preached this Gospel, the word has so been published by command of the Almighty, saying—“Come out, my people, from the nations you now inhabit.” “Where shall we go?” “Go to the place which I have appointed by revelation, by the voice of my servants, by my own voice—to the mountains of the new world, where my kingdom shall be established as a stone cut out of the mountain without hands.” Daniel predicted that, in the last days, the kingdom of God should be established upon the earth, and that, in its commencement, it would be like a little stone cut out of the mountains without hands, but that it would gradually gain power and greatness among the people; and the reason that you have gathered to these mountains from the various nations in which you obeyed the Gospel is that you may assist in establishing and building up that kingdom spoken of by Daniel. Not a week has elapsed since some seven or eight hundred, from the northern regions of Europe, arrived in our city. A few days after their arrival we look around and we scarcely notice that there is any addition. Where are they? Friends have taken them by the hand and invited them to their homes. Any more coming? Yes, numerous hosts are coming. We have sent across the Atlantic ocean between one and two hundred ships, most of them loaded, to the fullest extent that the law would allow, with Latter-day Saints gathering together to one place in fulfillment of the predictions of the ancient Prophets.

Says one—“How long will this continue?” Until the people are thoroughly warned. At the present time there are some nations who will not permit any religion to be proclaimed within their borders except that which is established by law. When God shall cast down thrones, which he will soon do; when he shall overturn kingdoms and empires, which time is very near at hand, then other governments will be formed more favorable to religious liberty, and the missionaries of this Church will visit those nations. Already we find greater religious liberty advocated in the northern portions of Europe where formerly imprisonment was the penalty of declaring any other religious doctrine than that which was permitted by their laws. Austria, that great Roman Catholic power, containing thirty-one millions of Catholics, is increasing in religious liberty. Spain, which for centuries has persecuted everything but the established religion, where countless martyrs have been tortured and put to death by the so-called “Holy Inquisition,” is at present forming a constitution which proposes to grant a large share of religious liberty. And so we might enumerate what God is doing among these despotic powers, overturning and changing long-established usages and institutions, that His servants may go by His own command, to deliver the great and last message of the Gospel to the inhabitants of the earth, preparatory to the coming of his Son.

After the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, which period is set in the mind of God, another scene will open up before the world, in the grand panorama of the last days. What is that? The downfall of the Gentile nations. Says one—“Whom do you call Gentiles?” Every nation excepting the literal descendants of Israel. We, the Latter-day Saints, are Gentiles; in other words, we have come from among the Gentile nations, though many of us may have the blood of Israel within our veins. When God has called out the righteous, when the warning voice has been sufficiently proclaimed among these Gentile nations, and the Lord says “It is enough,” he will also say to his servants—“O, ye, my servants, come home, come out from the midst of these Gentile nations, where you have labored and borne testimony for so long a period; come out from among them, for they are not worthy; they do not receive the message that I have sent forth, they do not repent of their sins; come out from their midst, their times are fulfilled. Seal up the testimony among them and bind up the law.” What then? Then the word of the Lord will be—“O, ye, my servants, I have a new commission for you. Instead of going forth to convert the Gentile nations, go unto the remnants of the house of Israel that are scattered in the four quarters of the earth. Go and proclaim to them that the times of their dispersion are accomplished; that the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled; that the time has arrived for my people Israel, who have been scattered for generations in a dark and cloudy day, to gather unto their own homes again, and to build up old Jerusalem on its former heap. And then will commence the gathering of the Jews to old Jerusalem; then the ten tribes in the northern regions, wherever they may be, after having been concealed from the nations for twenty-five hundred years, will come forth and will return, as Jeremiah has said, from the north country. A great company will come, and they will sing in the height of Zion, and “flow together for the goodness of the Lord, for wine and for oil, and for the young of the flock; and their souls shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow any more at all.” What a happy time for them, when they come from their cold quarters in the north! The Jews dispersed among the Gentiles will not come and sing in the height of Zion, or but very few of them, they will go to Jerusalem. Some of them will believe in the true Messiah, and thousands of the more righteous, whose fathers did not consent to the shedding of the blood of the Son of God, will receive the Gospel before they gather from among the nations. Many of them, however, will not receive the Gospel, but seeing that others are going to Jerusalem they will go also; and when they get back to Palestine, to the place where their ancient Jerusalem stood, and see a certain portion of the believing Jews endeavoring to fulfill and carry out the prophecies, they also will take hold and assist in the same work. At the same time they will have their synagogues, in which they will preach against Jesus of Nazareth, “that impostor,” as they call him, who was crucified by their fathers.

After awhile, when tens of thousands of them have gathered and rebuilt their Temple, and reestablished Jerusalem upon its own heap, the Lord will send forth amongst them a tremendous scourge. What will be the nature of that scourge? The nations that live in the regions round about Jerusalem will gather up like a cloud, and cover all that land round about Jerusalem. They will come into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, east of Jerusalem, and they will lay siege to the city. What then? The Lord will raise up two great Prophets, they are called witnesses, in the Revelation of St. John. Will they have much power? Yes, during the days of their prophesying they will have power to smite those who undertake to destroy them, and until their testimonies are fulfilled they will be able to keep at bay all those nations besieging Jerusalem, so that they will not have power to take that city. How long will that be? Three and a half years, so says John the Revelator. If any man hurt them, they shall have power to bring upon that man, nation or army, the various plagues that are there written. They will have power to smite the earth with plague and famine, and to turn the rivers of water into blood. And when they have fulfilled their prophecy, then the nations that have been lying before Jerusalem so long, waiting for an opportunity to destroy the city, will succeed in killing these two Prophets, and their bodies, says John’s revelations, will lie in the streets of Jerusalem three days and a half after they are killed. What rejoicing there will be over the death of these men! Those who have been waiting so long and anxiously for this to take place, will no doubt send gifts one to another, and if the telegraph wires are not destroyed, they will telegraph to the uttermost parts of the earth that they have succeeded in killing the two men who had so long tormented them with plagues, turning the waters onto blood, etc. But by and by, right in the midst of their rejoicing, when they think the Jews will now certainly fall a prey to them, behold there is a great earthquake, and in the midst of it these two Prophets rise from the dead, and they hear a voice up in the heavens saying—“Come up hither;” and they immediately ascend in the sight of their enemies.

What next? Notwithstanding all this, those nations will be so infatuated, and so determined to persecute the people of God—as much so as Pharaoh and his army in ancient days—that they will say—“Come, now is the time to pitch into the Jews and destroy them.” And they will commence their work of destruction, and they will succeed so far as to take one half the city, and while they are in the very act of destroying Jerusalem, behold the heavens are rent, and the Son of God with all the heavenly hosts appears, and he descends and rests upon the summit of the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east. And so great will be the power of God that will then be made manifest, that the mountain will divide asunder, half going towards the south, and half towards the north, producing a great valley going east and west, from the walls of Jerusalem eastward.

What next? The Jews that are not taken captive by these nations, will flee to the valleys of the mountains, says the Prophet Zechariah; and when they get into that great valley, where these personages are who have descended, they expect to find the Deliverer which their Prophets have spoken of so long. But they do not for a moment suppose that it is Jesus, oh no, Jesus was an impostor. The personage they have been looking for some eighteen hundred years is the true Messiah, and now, say they—“He has come to deliver us.” But how great will be their astonishment when, while looking at their Deliverer, they see that his hands are marred considerably! Say they, one to another—“There are large scars in his hands; and there is another large scar in his side, and behold his feet, they are scarred also!” And, as the Prophet Zechariah has said, they will begin to enquire of him—“What are these wounds with which thou art wounded?” And he replies—“These are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”

What then? Then they begin to believe, then the Jews are convinced, I mean that portion of them who formerly despised Jesus of Nazareth, and being convinced they begin to mourn, and they mourn every family apart, and their wives apart. The family of the house of Levi apart and their wives apart; the family of the house of David and their wives apart, and all their families that remain will mourn, they and their wives apart, and there will be such mourning in Jerusalem as that city never experienced before. What is the matter? What are they mourning about? They have looked upon him whom their fathers pierced, they behold the wounds, they are now convinced that they and their fathers have been in error some eighteen hundred years, and they repent in dust and ashes.

The next step for them will be baptism for the remission of their sins. They look upon him whom their fathers pierced and they mourn for him as one who mourns for his only son, and, as Zechariah says, they are in bitterness for him. But repentance alone would not be sufficient, they must obey the ordinances of the Gospel; hence there will be a fountain opened at that time on purpose for baptism. Where will it be opened? On the east side of the Temple. A stream will break out from under the threshold of the Temple, says the Prophet, and it will run eastward, and will probably pass directly through the deep valley made by the parting of the Mount of Olives. It will run eastward, and as you go down from the Temple a few thousand cubits it increases so rapidly that it becomes a great river that cannot be forded.

This is the fountain that Zechariah says is open to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of David for sin and uncleanness. “How is it that” says one? “Water for sin and uncleanness?” Why yes, baptism for the remission of sins. Then the Jews will receive the Gospel and they will be cleansed from all their sins by being baptized in water for their remission. Then will be fulfilled the words of the Prophet Isaiah, when speaking of Jerusalem—“For henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.” But the name of the city from that day will be—“The Lord is there;” that is, the Lord will be personally there, there with his Apostles and with all his ancient Saints, for Zechariah says that when he comes and stands his feet on the Mount of Olives, all his Saints will come with him.

We have found out the place where Jesus will descend, and we have found out who comes with him. Now we enquire will he remain on the earth after he thus descends? Yes, he will remain on this earth as literally and personally as he went around in ancient times, and taught the people from house to house and synagogue to synagogue. And in that day there shall be one Lord, and his name one. There will not be any heathen gods, for there will be no heathens; no idolatrous worship, but one Lord, and his name one.

And this water which breaks out from the threshold of the Temple, will not only run eastward but westward also, and there will be a great change in the land there, certain portions rising up, others lowered, rough places made smooth and mountains cast down; and half the waters of this spring which will burst forth, will go towards the former sea and half to the other sea; in other words half towards the Dead Sea and half toward the Mediterranean.

From that day forward there shall be written upon the bells of the horses and upon the vessels of the house of the Lord—“Holiness to the Lord;” and thenceforth all the people who are spared from the nations round about, will have to go up to Jerusalem year by year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts.

These are some of the grand events spoken of in this Bible; these are events that the Latter-day Saints believe in, and that so far as it lies in their power, they are trying to fulfill. If we are not Jews we are not required to go to old Jerusalem, but we are required to build up a Zion; that is spoken of as well as the building of Jerusalem. Zion is to be built up in the mountains in the last days, not at Jerusalem. Read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, where he speaks of the glory of the Lord being revealed, and all flesh to see him when he comes the second time and how the mountains and hills should be lowered and the valleys be exalted; and in the same chapter the Prophet also says that, before that great and terrible day of the Lord, Zion is required to get up into the high mountains. Isaiah predicts this. Says he, in his fortieth chapter—“Oh Zion, thou that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountains.”

Thus you see that the people who organize Zion through the everlasting Gospel which the angel brings, have good tidings to declare to all the inhabitants of the earth. But these people are required, according to this prophecy, to get up into the high mountains. You Latter-day Saints are four thousand three hundred feet above the level of the ocean, scattered over four hundred miles of Territory, north and south, and you are extending your settlements continually, and are building up some two hundred towns, cities and villages in the mountains of the great American desert, fulfilling the prophecies of the holy Prophets.

By and by you will leave this country. Says one—“What, are the Mormons going to leave Utah?” Oh yes, most of us; we are going to leave, but we shall disappoint some of you. You want to know which way we are going? We are going by and by eastward. I do not say that we shall go directly from this city eastward, but we shall, after a while, be in Jackson County, in the western borders of Missouri. Why are we going there? Because it is the great central gathering place for the Saints of latter days, for all that will be gathered from South America, Central America, Mexico, the Canadas, and from all the nations of the Gentiles—their headquarters will be in Jackson County, in the State of Missouri. We shall roll down from the mountains, and though we may be considered but a little stone cut out of the mountains without human ingenuity, without mankind under– taking to carry on this work of their own accord, the time will come when God will cause the stone of the mountains to roll, and then it will roll down and build up the central city of Zion, and that, too, long before this gathering from the distant nations shall cease. I do not know how much before the ten tribes will come from the north; but after Zion is built in Jackson County, and after the Temple is built upon that spot of ground where the cornerstone was laid in 1831; after the glory of God in the form of a cloud by day shall rest upon that Temple, and by night the shining of a flaming fire will fill the whole heavens round about; after every dwelling place upon Mount Zion shall be clothed upon as with a pillar of fire by night, and a cloud by day, about that period of time, the ten tribes will be heard of, away in the north, a great company, as Jeremiah says, coming down from the northern regions, coming to sing in the height of the latter-day Zion. Their souls will be as a watered garden, and they will not sorrow any more at all, as they have been doing during the twenty-five hundred long years they have dwelt in the Arctic regions. They will come, and the Lord will be before their camp, he will utter his voice before that great army, and he will lead them forth as he led Israel in ancient days. This long chain of Rocky Mountains, that extends from the cold regions of the north away into South America, will feel the power of God, and will tremble before the hosts of Israel as they come to sing on the heights of Zion. In that day the trees of the field will clap like hands, says the Prophet, and in that day the Lord will open waters in the wilderness, and streams in the desert, to give drink to his chosen, his people Israel. And when they come to the height of Zion they shall be crowned with glory under the hands of the servants of God living in those days, the children of Ephraim, crowned with certain blessings that pertain to the Priesthood, that they could not receive in their own lands. In that day will be set apart twelve thousand out of each of these ten tribes—one hundred and twenty thousand persons ordained to the High Priesthood, after the order of the Son of God, to go forth to all people, nations, kindreds and tongues, for the salvation of the remnants of Israel in the four quarters of the earth, to bring as many as will come unto the Church of the Firstborn. Thus God will have twelve thousand out of all the tribes of Israel to fulfill his purposes; and when they have completed his work here on the earth, they will be called home to Zion, be crowned with glory and stand upon Mount Zion and sing the song of the redeemed, the song of the hundred and forty-four thousand, and the Father’s name will be written in their foreheads.

By and by, when all things are prepared—when the Jews have received their scourging, and Jesus has descended upon the Mount of Olives, the ten tribes will leave Zion, and will go to Palestine, to inherit the land that was given to their ancient fathers, and it will be divided amongst the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. They will go there to dwell in peace in their own land from that time, until the earth shall pass away. But Zion, after their departure, will still remain upon the western hemisphere, and she will be crowned with glory as well as old Jerusalem, and, as the Psalmist David says, she will become the joy of the whole earth. “Beautiful for situation is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.”

Zion will be caught up when Jesus comes, to meet him. Jesus will descend not only upon the Mount of Olives, but he will descend and stand upon Mount Zion. But before he stands upon it, it will be caught up to meet him in the air. Will the buildings of Zion be caught up? Yes. And its land? Yes. And Jesus will stand upon Mount Zion, according to the prediction of John the Revelator, and he will reign over his people during a thousand years; and his associates will be the resurrected righteous of all former dispensations, those, among others, who dwelt on this continent before the flood. Says one—“Do you mean to say that America was inhabited before the flood?” Yes, Adam dwelt on this continent. I do not know that the Garden of Eden was here, but we know from what God has revealed to us, that before Adam closed his days he dwelt on a certain portion of this continent with a great number of the righteous. All the righteous that lived on this continent before the flood, those who lived upon this continent who were righteous, who came from the Tower of Babel after the flood, and lived here some sixteen hundred years, before the nation was destroyed. All the Prophets, and wise, and good men of these several periods, will be permitted to reign as kings and priests upon this western hemisphere during the period of Christ’s reign on the earth. The Israelites, too, the remnants of Joseph, the forefathers of these poor degraded Indians, who are righteous, will come forth also to reign as kings and priests on this land.

We might continue this subject much further. We might portray before you the duties that will be performed by these resurrected righteous who reign as immortal beings on this continent and on the eastern continent. We might portray some of the great doings that will be accomplished by the King of kings and Lord of lords, when he shall sit upon his throne in the Temple at Jerusalem, surrounded by his Twelve Apostles, who will also sit upon twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. We might also relate to you concerning the judges and the thrones of those that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, who will reign on the western hemisphere as well as on the eastern; but time will not permit us to continue this subject any further.

May God bless the Latter-day Saints in the kingdom of God established here in the tops of the mountains; bless you in your residences, in your towns, in your cities, in your villages, and throughout the length and breadth of the land, and increase and multiply you as the stars of heaven that cannot be numbered, until the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ, and the Saints shall reign forever and ever. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, July 18, 1875.

I will read a few verses in the 29th chapter of Isaiah, commencing at the 18th verse. [The speaker read from the 18th verse to the end of the chapter.]

That which I wish to call to your mind, more particularly, on the present occasion, will be found in the first verse that I read—“In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book.”

The Latter-day Saints are a peculiar people among the inhabitants of the earth of the present age, peculiar in many things, peculiar in many religious notions and views. We profess to believe in this book, the Jewish record, called the Bible. We are not peculiar so far as this item of our faith is concerned; but in addition to the Bible, we believe in another book, called the Book of Mormon, which we believe to be equally sacred with the Bible. Some may, perhaps, call the Book of Mormon a bible, and in one sense of the word it may be called that, for it is a collection of sacred books, the same as the Jewish record is. The difference between the two records is merely in the history, and in some of the prophetic writings. The Bible professes to be a history of the people who lived on the eastern continent, while the Book of Mormon professes to be a history of the people who lived in ancient America. We have denominated the Jewish record the Bible, because it is a collection of books said to have been written by inspired men. I do not see any reason why we should not also, as Latter-day Saints, call the Book of Mormon a bible, it being a collection of books written by Prophets and Revelators. Perhaps, however, the world, or those who are strangers to the evidences concerning these two books, may object, and say that we have no right to call the Book of Mormon a bible, unless we can bring such evidence to substantiate its divinity as we can concerning the Jewish record. But supposing that we are in possession of similar evidences concerning this book in relation to ancient America, as you are in regard to the Bible, the history of the people of Palestine; supposing that we can bring forth as many evidences and substantial testimonies to prove the divinity of the Book of Mormon, as you can to prove the divinity of the Jewish record, then why should we not include it among the sacred books, and denominate it a bible, as well as call the Jewish record such? I will, this afternoon, by the assistance of the Spirit of God, endeavor to lay before you, Latter-day Saints, and strangers who may be present, some of the evidences that we have concerning the divinity of this book which we esteem so highly—the Book of Mormon.

In the first place, I will give you a very brief statement concerning the manner in which the Book of Mormon was found. In the year 1827, a young man, a farmer’s boy, by the name of Joseph Smith, was visited by an holy angel, as he had been for several years prior to this time. But on this occasion, in the fall of 1827, he was permitted to take into his possession the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated—the angel gave them into his hands, permitted him to take them from the place of their deposit, which was discovered to Mr. Smith by the angel of God. With this book, called the Book of Mormon, was a very curious instrument, such a one, probably, as no person had seen for many generations; it was called by the angel of God, the Urim and Thummim. We know that such an instrument existed in ancient times among the Jews, and among the Israelites in the wilderness, and that it was used to inquire of the Lord, and so sacred was that instrument in the days of Moses, that Aaron, the chief priest of the whole house of Israel, was commanded to place it within his breastplate, that when he should judge the tribes of the house of Israel, he should not judge by his own wisdom, but should inquire of the Lord by means of this instrument, and whatever decision the Lord, by aid of the Urim and Thummim, should give, all Israel should give heed to it. The same instrument was in use, many hundred years after the days of Aaron, by the Prophets of Israel. David inquired by means of an instrument of that kind, concerning his enemies, who pursued him from city to city, asking the Lord certain questions—whether his enemies would come to the city where he happened to be, and whether he would be delivered up to them by the people of that city; and the Lord gave him all necessary instruction, and by this means he was delivered out of the hands of his enemies from time to time.

But it seems that, before the coming of Christ, for some reason, probably through wickedness, the Urim and Thummim were taken away from the children of Israel, and a prophecy was uttered by one of the ancient Prophets, before Christ, that they should be many days without a Priest, without the Urim and Thummim, without the ephod, and without many things that God blessed them with in the days of their righteousness; but that in the latter days God would again restore all his blessings to the people of Israel, including their counselors and their judges as at the first.

With these plates that Joseph Smith, the Prophet, obtained through the instructions of the angel, he also obtained the Urim and Thummim, and by their aid he copied a few characters from the plates, and translated them. He was not a learned man himself, but an ignorant farmer’s boy, scarcely having the first rudiments of education. He could read and write a little, and that was about the amount of his educational acquirements. After having copied a few of the characters from these plates and translated them, he committed them into the hands of Martin Harris, a man with whom he was acquainted, who lived not far from his neighborhood; and Martin Harris took these few characters and their translation to the City of New York, to show them to the learned, and if possible to get some information in regard to their meaning. This was in the year 1827. Martin Harris was then a middle-aged man, being about forty-six years of age. On arriving in New York City, he visited the learned Dr. Mitchell, professor of languages, and obtained some information from him in relation to the manuscript which he held, and was recommended by Dr. Mitchell to see Mr. Anthon, professor of ancient and modern languages, probably one of the most learned men in ancient languages that ever lived in our nation. Mr. Harris went to see Mr. Anthon, and showed him the characters. The professor examined them and the translation, and, according to the testimony of Martin Harris, given from this stand, he gave him a certificate that, so far as he could understand the characters, the translation seemed to be correct; but he wished further time, and desired that the original plates should be brought to him. Mr. Harris then informed him how Mr. Smith came in possession of the plates—that he did not find them accidentally, but that an angel of God revealed to him the place of their deposit. This was after Martin Harris had obtained the certificate from Professor Anthon, and just before Mr. Harris took his leave of the learned gentleman; the latter having ascertained how Mr. Smith came in possession of the plates; that part of them were sealed, and that the Lord had given a strict command that they should not be shown to the public, but only to certain witnesses; I say that, the professor, having learned this, wished to see the certificate again; Mr. Harris returned it to him, and he tore it up, saying that there was no such thing as angels, or communications from the Lord in our day, and upon Mr. Harris telling him that a portion of the plates were sealed, he very sarcastically remarked, that he could not read a sealed book.

Mr. Harris left him, and returned, some two hundred and fifty miles or more, to the neighborhood where the plates were found, and informed Mr. Smith of his success with the learned, after which the Lord gave a special command to Joseph, unlearned as he was, that he should translate the record by the aid of the Urim and Thummim. Mr. Smith commenced the work of translation. Mr. Harris, acting as his scribe, wrote from his mouth one hundred and sixteen pages of the first translation, given by the Prophet.

The work was continued from time to time, until finally the unsealed portion of the Book of Mormon was all translated. In the meantime Martin Harris, Joseph Smith, the translator of the book, Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, four persons, retired to a little grove in the year 1829, not far from the house of old father Whitmer, where this Church was organized. They retired to this grove for the special purpose of calling on the name of the Lord, and they all knelt down and commenced praying, one by one, and while thus engaged they saw an angel of God descend from the heavens, very bright and glorious in his appearance; and he came and stood in their midst, and he took the plates and turned over leaf after leaf of the unsealed portion, and showed to these four men the engravings upon them; and at the same time they heard a voice out of heaven saying unto them, that the plates had been translated correctly, and commanding them to bear testimony of the same to all nations, kindreds, tongues and people to whom the translation should be sent. In accordance with this command, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris have attached their testimony after the title page of the Book of Mormon, testifying to the appearance of the angel, signing their names and testifying to the correctness of the translation; testifying to having seen the plates and the engravings upon them, and to the voice of the Lord, which they heard out of the heavens.

Now let me say a few words concerning the nature of this testimony. This testimony was given prior to the publication of the book, and also previous to the organization of the Latter-day Saint Church. The book was printed early in 1830, with their testimony. Thus you perceive that this work, this marvelous work, was not presented to the inhabitants of the earth for their belief, until God had favored them with four persons who could bear witness to what their eyes had seen, what their ears had heard, and what their hands had handled, consequently there was no possibility, so far as these four men were concerned, that they themselves could be deceived. It would be impossible for four men to be together, and all of them to be deceived in seeing an angel descend from heaven, and in regard to the brightness of his countenance and the glory of his person, hearing his voice, and seeing him lay his hands upon one of them, namely David Whitmer, and speaking these words—“Blessed be the Lord and they who keep his commandments.” After seeing the plates, the engravings upon them, and the angel, and hearing the voice of the Lord out of heaven, every person will say that there was no possibility of either of these men being deceived in relation to this matter; in other words, if it were to be maintained that in their case it was a hallucination of the brain, and that they were deceived, then, with the same propriety might it be asserted that all other men, in every age, who profess to have seen angels, were also deceived; and this might be applied to the Prophets, Patriarchs, Apostles, and others who lived in ancient times, who declared they saw angels, as well as to Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer. But says the objector—“No, those who testify that they saw angels anciently were not deceived, but they who come testifying about such ministrations in the latter days may be deceived.” Now let me ask, is there anything logical in such reasoning as this? If these, in the latter days, who testify to having seen angels, were deceived, all who testify to the same things in former days might have been deceived on the same grounds. And then, if these men, whose testimonies are attached to the Book of Mormon, were not deceived, it must be admitted that they were impostors of the most barefaced character, or else that the Book of Mormon is a divine record sent from heaven; one or the other must be admitted, there is no halfway in the matter. If they were not deceived—which they could not possibly have been according to the very nature of their testimony—then there are only two alternatives—they were impostors, or else the Book of Mormon is a divine revelation from heaven.

Now let us inquire what grounds there are to suppose that they were impostors? Forty-six years have passed away since this angel appeared and showed the plates to these individuals. Has anything transpired during this time that would give us any grounds to suppose that they were impostors? For instance, has either of these witnesses, or the translator of the engravings on the plates, ever, under any circumstances, denied his testimony? No. We have some accounts in the Bible of men of God, some of the greatest men that lived in ancient times, denying the things of God. We read of Peter cursing, and swearing that he never knew Jesus, and yet he was one of the foremost of the Apostles. His testimony was true so far as seeing and being acquainted with Jesus was concerned, and in regard to the divinity of Jesus. Why? Because God had revealed it to him and yet he denied it. “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonah,” said Jesus, speaking to Peter, “for flesh and blood have not revealed this unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven.” Peter knew, just as well as he knew that he had a being, that Jesus was the son of God, it had been revealed to him from the heavens and though he afterwards, through fear, in the presence of the high priest, cursed and swore and denied it, yet the former testimony that he had given was true.

Now did either of these three men or did the translator of the Book of Mormon, ever deny the truth, as Peter did? Did they ever in any way deny the divinity of the Book of Mormon? Never, no never. Whatever the circumstances they were placed in, however much they were mobbed and ridiculed, however much they suffered by the persecution of their enemies, their testimony all the time was—“We saw the angel of God, we beheld him in his glory, we saw the plates in his hands, and the engravings thereon, and we know that the Book of Mormon is true.” Joseph Smith continued to bear this testimony until the day of his death; he sealed his testimony as a martyr in this Church, being shot down by his enemies, who were blackened up and disguised, in order that they might not be known. Oliver Cowdery did not live his faith as he should have done, and he was excommunicated from this Church during Joseph’s lifetime. Did he still continue to hold fast to his testimony? He did. Never was he known to swerve from it in the least degree; and after being out of the Church several years, he returned to Council Bluffs, where there was a Branch of the Church, and at a conference he acknowledged his sins, and humbly asked the Church to forgive him, bearing his testimony to the sacred things recorded in the Book of Mormon—that he saw the angel and the plates, just according to the testimony to which he had appended his name. He was rebaptized a member of the Church, and soon after departed this life.

Martin Harris did not follow up this people in the State of Missouri, neither did he follow us up to the State of Illinois; but we often heard of him, and whenever we did so we heard of him telling, in public and in private of the great vision that God had shown to him concerning the divinity of the Book of Mormon. A few years ago he came to this Territory, an old man, between eighty and ninety years of age, and spoke from this stand, in the hearing of the people. He then located himself in Cache County, in the northern part of the Territory, where he continued to live until last Saturday, when he departed this life in his ninety-third year—a good old age. Did he continue to bear testimony all that length of time—over forty-six years of his life? Did he, at any time during that long period, waver in the least degree from his testimony? Not at all. He had a great many follies and imperfections, like all other people, like the ancient Apostles, like Elijah the Prophet, but after all, he continued to testify to the very last concerning the truth of this work. Nothing seemed to delight him so much as to tell about the angel and the plates that he had seen. It was only a short time prior to his death that one of our Bishops went in to see the old man; his pulse was apparently sluggish in its movements, and nearly gone, but the sight of the Bishop seemed to revive him, and he said to him—“I am going.” The Bishop related to him some things which he thought would be interesting, among them that the Book of Mormon was translated into the Spanish language, for the benefit of a great many of the descendants of Israel in this country, who understand the Spanish language, in Mexico and Central America. This intelligence seemed to revive the old man, and he began to talk about the Book of Mormon; new strength, apparently, was imparted to him, and he continued his conversation for some two hours, and in his last testimony he bore record concerning the divinity of the work, and was rejoiced to think that it was going forth in another language, that those who understood that language might be made acquainted with the wonderful works of God.

I will here state that Martin Harris; when he came to this Territory a few years ago, was rebaptized, the same as every member of the Church from distant parts is on arriving here. That seems to be a kind of standing ordinance for all Latter-day Saints who emigrate here, from the First Presidency down; all are rebaptized and set out anew by renewing their covenants. There are thousands of Latter-day Saints who have gone forth into the baptismal font, and been baptized for their dead kindred and friends. Martin Harris requested this privilege, and he was baptized here in Salt Lake City for many of his kindred who are dead. I mention these things in order that the Saints may understand something concerning this man who has just left us, almost a hundred years old. God favored him, highly favored him. He was among the favored few who went up from the State of Ohio in the summer of 1831, and journeyed nearly a thousand miles to the western part of Missouri, to Jackson County. The Prophet went at the same time, and that was designated as the land where the Saints should eventually be gathered, and where a great city should be eventually reared, called the city of Zion, or the New Jerusalem, and that the Saints should be located throughout all that region of country. God gave many commandments in those days concerning what might be termed the United Order; in other words, concerning the consecration of the properties of the Church. These things were given by revelation through the Prophet. Martin Harris was the first man that the Lord called by name to consecrate his money, and lay the same at the feet of the Bishop in Jackson County, Mo., according to the order of consecration. He willingly did it; he knew the work to be true; he knew that the word of the Lord through the Prophet Joseph was just as sacred as any word that ever came from the mouth of any Prophet from the foundation of the world. He consecrated his money and his substance, according to the word of the Lord. What for? As the revelation states, as an example to the rest of the Church.

As I have already mentioned, one more witness remains who saw that angel and the plates. Who is it? David Whitmer, a younger man than Martin Harris, probably some seventy years of age, I do not recollect his age exactly. Where does he live? In the western part of Missouri. Does he still hold fast to his testimony? He does. Many of the Elders of this Church, in going to and fro among the nations, have called upon him from time to time, and they all bear the same testimony—that Mr. David Whitmer still, in the most solemn manner, declares that he saw the angel and that he saw the plates in his hands. But he is not here with us; he has not gathered up with the people of God. That, however, does not prove that his testimony is not true, by no means.

Now then, let me bring forth some predictions or prophecies concerning these three witnesses. In the forepart of the Book of Mormon, we have a prediction that there should be three witnesses; it was uttered nearly six hundred years before Christ by a man, a Prophet of God, who came out of Jerusalem and came to this American continent; and in speaking of the last days, when this record should come forth to the human family, he foretells that there should be witnesses who should know of a surety concerning its truth. I will read what he says, “And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book, and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered. And behold the book shall be sealed; and in the book shall be a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof. Wherefore, because of the things which are sealed up, the things which are sealed shall not be delivered in the day of the wickedness and abominations of the people. Wherefore the book shall be kept from them. But the book shall be delivered unto a man, and he shall deliver the words of the book, which are the words of those who have slumbered in the dust, and he shall deliver these words unto another.”

Now this man spoken of was the translator, Joseph Smith; and the delivering the words to another had reference to what I have already related—the delivery of a few of the words of the book to Martin Harris. “He shall deliver the words unto another; But the words which are sealed he shall not deliver, neither shall he deliver the book. For the book shall be sealed by the power of God, and the revelation which was sealed shall be kept in the book until the own due time of the Lord, that they may come forth; for behold they reveal all things from the foundation of the world unto the end thereof. And the day cometh that the words of the book which were sealed shall be read upon the house tops; and they shall he read by the power of Christ; and all things shall be revealed unto the children of men, which ever have been among the children of men, and which ever will be even unto the end of the earth. Wherefore, at that day when the book shall be delivered unto the man of whom I have spoken, the book shall be hid from the eyes of the world, that the eyes of none shall behold it save it be that three witnesses shall behold it, by the power of God, besides him to whom the book shall be delivered; and they shall testify to the truth of the book and the things therein. And there is none other which shall view it, save it be a few according to the will of God, to bear testimony of his word unto the children of men; for the Lord God hath said that the words of the faithful should speak as if it were from the dead. Wherefore, the Lord God will proceed to bring forth the words of the book; and in the mouth of as many witnesses as seemeth him good will he establish his word; and wo be unto him that rejecteth the word of God!”

This was translated from the plates, and written in manuscript, before Martin Harris, David Whitmer, or Oliver Cowdery ever saw this angel, but there was a promise; it was on record; it was in the manuscript that three witnesses should behold it by the power of God. That prophecy, as I said before, was delivered nearly six hundred years before Christ. There was another prophecy delivered nearly a thousand years afterwards, which I will also read—“And now I, Moroni, have written the words which were commanded me, according to my memory; and I have told you the things which I have sealed up; therefore touch them not”—speaking to the translator that should find his records—“therefore touch them not in order that you may translate; for that thing is forbidden you, except by and by it shall be wisdom in God. And behold, ye may be privileged that ye may show the plates unto those who shall assist to bring forth this work; And unto three shall they be shown by the power of God; where– fore they shall know of a surety that these things are true. And in the mouth of three witnesses shall these things be established; and the testimony of three, and this work, in the which shall be shown forth the power of God and also his word, of which the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost beareth record—and all this shall stand as a testimony against the world at the last day. And if it so be that they repent and come unto the Father in the name of Jesus, they shall be received into the kingdom of God. And now, if I have no authority for these things, judge ye; for ye shall know that I have authority when ye shall see me and we shall stand before God at the last day.”

Here then were two prophecies delivered about a thousand years apart, translated before the three witnesses saw the angel. It was in consequence of these prophecies that these men went out to the grove to pray. You may ask me why they went there to pray? Because they had read these things, and they saw that there were to be three witnesses that should know by the power of God, being revealed to them from the heavens, concerning these matters, and they felt anxious that God might show them these things, that they might be the favored three.

Were there any others who saw these plates? Yes. How many? Eight; all of whom are now dead except one, John Whitmer, who is still living. They saw and handled the plates, and saw the engravings upon them, and they testify of the same to all people to whom the work should be sent. How many does this make? Three witnesses, eight witnesses and the translator, twelve in all, twelve who saw and bare record of the original. Now I ask everyone in this house, Saints and strangers, have you as many witnesses that have seen the original of any one book of the Bible, the Old and New Testaments? Have you one witness even that has seen the original from which any one of those books was transcribed? No, not one. You have the transcription of scribes from generation to generation; you have the translations from these manuscripts handed down from generation to generation, and transcribed one copy after another, until they have passed through, perhaps, thousands of copies, before the art of printing was known. But you believe the Bible, do you not? Replies one—“Oh yes, we believe that, but as to the Book of Mormon we doubt very much about that.”

Well, now, let me ask, is there anything inconsistent in a people receiving the testimony of twelve witnesses who saw and handled the original of the Book of Mormon, when they, at the same time, believe in the Bible, the original of which was never seen or handled by any man of this generation? In other words, which of the two is most consistent to believe in? The Latter-day Saints believe in both, because we know the Bible is true, for the Book of Mormon testifies of it, and we have obtained a testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon; and hence, as that book speaks of the Bible, we know that the Bible is true. When the people, mentioned in the Book of Mormon left Jerusalem, and came to the land of America, they brought the books of the Old Testament with them from the history of the creation to the prophecies of Jeremiah, and in their writings made on this land, they speak of the divinity and truthfulness of the Old Testament scriptures. Hence we, as Latter-day Saints, know one book to be true just as well as we do the other. But with the world it is different, for as they never had this testimony, the truth of the Bible rests to them entirely upon secondhand testimony. But we will pass on to other testimonies.

I will now refer you again to the 29th chapter of Isaiah, from which I read concerning a book, the words of which were to be heard by the deaf—“In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book.” What book do you mean, Isaiah? He means the one that he had just been speaking of in the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th verses—“And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot: for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precepts of men: Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”

Here we perceive the nature of the book that he mentions in the 18th verse, and we learn something about the way that it was to be brought forth; that the words of the book, not the plates themselves, not the original, but the transcript, a copy of the words, the words of the book would be delivered to the learned, requesting them to read it.

Martin Harris, who has now gone from our midst, was the honored instrument in the hands of God in fulfilling this prophecy, as I have already related, giving you the names of the learned to whom he presented these words. I have also related to you the conversation in the interview which Mr. Harris had with Professor Anthon; when he learned that an angel had appeared, and that part of the book was sealed, in a kind of sarcastic way the Professor remarked—“I cannot translate a book that is sealed.”

Now notice the next sentence—“And the book is delivered to him that is not learned.” Not the words of the book, not a few sentences, but the book itself is delivered to him that is not learned, saying—“Read this I pray thee.” And what did he say? “I am not learned.” He felt his weakness. That was the exclamation of Joseph, when he was commanded to translate the engravings on the plates. He looked upon himself as too weak to engage in a work of this description, and the Lord answered him in the very words made use of by Isaiah. When Joseph said—“I am not learned,” the Lord said—“Forasmuch as this people draw near to me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, and their fear towards me is taught by the precepts of men, therefore behold I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” And Joseph fulfilled the commandment of the Lord, and Martin Harris wrote the first 116 pages of manuscript; and Oliver Cowdery and others also wrote from the mouth of Joseph, while he was engaged in translating. Was not this a marvel– ous work? What could be more marvelous? A young man, a ploughboy, a boy that had scarcely any education, only as he obtained it in a country school; a man who had never studied theology, probably had never read the Bible through in his life. A young man of this description to be called upon to translate a language that was spoken by the ancient inhabitants of this country! A marvelous work indeed, and a wonder and an astonishment to the people. Isaiah says the people would wonder about it. He says—“Stay yourselves and wonder, cry ye out and cry, they are drunken but not with wine; they stagger but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes; the Prophets and your rulers and the seers hath he covered.” That is the condition of the people; or as is expressed by Isaiah in another place, “Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people.” The Prophets are covered; the seers are covered, the revelations of God that were given in ancient days are covered to them. They are taught, not by inspired men, not by communications and revelations from heaven, but by the precepts of men, is the fear of the Lord taught to them.

“In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness.” A great many people, perhaps, would want this spiritualized; but, whether it is spiritualized or not, I can bear testimony to one thing which I have seen with my own eyes, and that is that those who were deaf, so deaf that they could not hear the loudest sound, have been instantaneously restored by the administrations of the Elders of this Church, and thus the deaf, the literally deaf, have been enabled to hear the words of the book.

The eyes of the blind, not those alone who are spiritually blind, but of those who are blind physically, should see out of obscurity and out of darkness, when that book was revealed. Now I know that this, too, has been the case, and many in this congregation know it and have seen it; some have seen those who were born blind restored to their sight by the power of God since this book came forth. Thus have been fulfilled, literally, the words of our text.

“The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord.” There have been a great many meek persons among all Christian denominations, we do not dispute this; good, honest, upright persons, meek, humble, prayerful souls; but they wandered in darkness; they hardly knew which way to turn. One was crying, “Lo here,” and another, “Lo there;” another, “This is the way, walk ye in it;” and another, having an opposite doctrine—“We are the true Church, come and join us.” Thus they have been distracted and their minds crazed, comparatively speaking; yet they were anxious beyond measure to know the will of God. This book, when it came forth, was to set them in the right track. “The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord.” In what way? “Because,” says the Prophet, in the 24th verse, “they who erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they who murmured shall learn doctrine.” However much you may have erred, because you have been taught by the precepts of men; however much you may have walked in darkness and blindness, with the Prophets, seers, and revelations of God covered, and no voice of inspiration in your midst; however much you may have groped in outer darkness, yet if you have been meek before the Lord, you will come to understanding when this book makes its appearance, and not till then.

But will this take place in the latter days? Does it not refer to some former age of the world? Read what is said in the 20th and 21st verses, and you can judge of the age of the world in which this book was to come forth. “The poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” Not the rich particularly, unless they have a mind to; but the poor are to be gathered out from the nations to get homes for themselves. “For the terrible one is brought to nought, the scorner is consumed; and all that watch for iniquity are cut off, and they that make a man an offender for a word and that lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate.” All these are to be swept off. Has any such period ever arrived since Isaiah uttered this prophecy? No; but when a certain book should come forth it should bless the meek and lowly in heart, for their joy should increase in the Lord. And the poor among men be gathered out from the nations. Then, behold and lo, all that watch for iniquity shall be swept off from the face of the earth; there will be a clean sweep of them. As it was in the days of Noah so will it be in the days of the work preparatory for the second coming of the Son of man—every wicked person will be destroyed from the face of the earth, showing clearly that the revelations of this book refer to a latter-day work. Also in the fourth verse, in speaking of the people who should write this book, the Prophet says they shall be brought down, shall speak out of the ground, their plates, their books, their records, their writings, should come out of the ground—“Your speech shall be low, out of the dust,” the same as the Book of Mormon was taken out of the hill, anciently called Cumorah, in the State of New York.

Again, he says that the multitude of all the nations that fight against the people of God, shall become like the dream of a night vision, shall be as a hungry man who dreams, and behold he eats, but he awakes and his soul is faint; like a thirsty man that dreams, and behold he drinks, but he awakes and his soul hath appetite. So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.

Now, we do not care how many persecutors there are; if they include all the nations, kingdoms, and governments of the earth, it matters not. The multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion will become like the dream of a night vision—be swept away. That agrees with what I have already quoted—that all who watch for iniquity, all the scorners, and all who fight against the work of God, will be consumed from the face of the earth.

Now how is this book to affect the house of Israel? Is it for their benefit particularly? They have been a long time scattered, a long time abroad among the nations; are they to be affected by this book that is spoken of by Isaiah? Yes. Read the 22nd verse, which I have already once read before you—“Therefore, thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale.” Why? Because this book comes forth to bring the house of Jacob from all the nations and kingdoms of the earth; and this will commence just as soon as the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled; not until then. We must be warned first; we Gentiles must hear the word first; and when we count ourselves unworthy of eternal life, and fight against the book, and against the Zion and people of God, behold the Lord will then remember the house of Jacob, and they will no longer be ashamed, as they have been for about seventeen centuries past; they will no longer wax pale, as they have done wherever they have been scattered, for the Lord says, in the 23rd verse, that Jacob, when he shall see his children, the work of his hands, in the midst of him, that is, gathered out from among the nations, they shall sanctify my name, and shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.

Where will this work commence among the house of Israel? Among the remnant that we call the American Indians, who are the literal descendants of Israel. They seem to be more sunken and degraded than all the rest of Israel, but God will stretch forth his hand and will bring them to the knowledge of the truth. The descendants of Manasseh, and the descendants of Ephraim, are also mixed in with them, and they also will be brought to the knowledge of the truth, as the Lord has said by the mouth of Jeremiah, concerning the great latter-day work and the restitution of the house of Israel—“Ephraim is my firstborn.” In the great latter-day work, then, the Lord will search after the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, and will bring them also to the knowledge of the truth.

Do you wonder, then, that after forty-five years have passed away since the organization of this Church, and the voice of warning went forth to the Gentile nations, that God, in his mercy and power, should commence a work among this remnant of the house of Joseph, that wander as a multitude of nations upon the face of this continent? Recollect what Jacob said, concerning the seed of Joseph, in the 48th chapter of Genesis—they were to become a multitude of nations. They never were a multitude of nations in Palestine, neither in Asia, Europe, nor Africa, and if the prophecy is not fulfilled upon the great western continent, it will not be fulfilled at all. But it has been fulfilled on the continent of America; and we behold throughout the whole of its vast extent, from the frozen regions of the north, to Cape Horn in the south, a multitude of nations. Who are they? They are principally the remnants of one tribe, the remnants of the tribe of Joseph, and they are a multitude of nations in the midst of the earth. The Lord has commenced the gathering and restitution of the house of Israel among the very lowest specimens of humanity, and he will raise them up first, to carry on his great and marvelous work. The tens of thousands of Ephraim, and the thousands of Manasseh, will push the people together to the ends of the earth. Ephraim will not do the work alone, but he will be assisted by Manasseh. The Indians, the Lamanites, who will take hold in this great latter-day work, are the horns of Joseph, not to scatter the people, but to push them together. Where? To the ends of the earth, the 33rd of Deuteronomy says, and I have no doubt that when Moses saw this continent in vision, he called it “the ends of the earth.” There was to be a gathering there; they were to be pushed together; instead of being gathered from the nations of the earth back to Palestine, they were to be gathered in the latter days away in some distant country, that Moses designates by the term “ends of the earth.”

It is for this reason that God promised, by the mouth of Moses in the 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy, that he would give to Joseph a land more precious than the land of all the other tribes—a land of all climates, blessed with the precious things of the earth, and a fullness thereof; with the precious things brought forth by the sun, and the precious things brought forth by the moon, with the chief things of the ancient mountains, and the precious things of the everlasting hills. All these were to be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. “Blessed of the Lord be his land”—that was the promise that God gave to this one tribe, a land far superior to the inheritance of all the rest of the tribes. Jacob, who lived a long time before Moses, pronounced a similar blessing, as recorded in the 49th chapter of Genesis. When blessing his twelve sons, and telling them what should come to pass in the latter days, he says concerning Joseph—“He is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall.” That is, his branches should not stay in Jerusalem, or in Palestine, or in that land alone, but they should run over the wall to some distant country. Hence he says, in the same blessing, “The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the uttermost bounds of the everlasting hills, and they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.”

I suppose that Jacob saw this land as well as Moses, and he designates it a land afar off; the utmost bounds would signify a very distant land. He said this land was over and above, what his progenitors gave to him and he would give it to Joseph. No wonder that Moses said—“Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the deep that coucheth beneath.” For if Moses had a vision of it, he would look down through the earth and see that the great Pacific ocean rolled under his feet, that it couched beneath, and he would speak of it in that light, as it was revealed to him. No wonder that the Prophet Ezekiel, in speaking of the great latter-day work and the restitution of Israel, prophesied concerning the records of Joseph, that they should come forth, and be united with the record of Judah, to bring about that great work. The precious things of heaven were to be given to Joseph on this land. Blessed of the Lord be his land for the precious things of heaven, more precious than the fullness of earth, more precious than the productions of the various climates of the earth, more precious than the grain, and the gold and silver of the earth. The precious things of heaven revealed to the people of Joseph on the great land given to them unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills.

Said the Lord to Ezekiel—“Son of Man, take thou one stick and write upon it, for Judah, and for the house of Israel, his companions; then take another stick and write upon it, for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for the house of Israel, his companions, and join them one to another into one stick, and they shall be one in thine hand.” Then he said to Ezekiel—“When the people shall say unto thee, tell us what thou meanest, say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, behold I will take the stick of Joseph, written upon for Joseph, and I will put it with the stick of Judah, and they shall become one in mine hand. Just the same as the two sticks were one in Ezekiel’s hands, so the Lord would make these two books, of Judah and Joseph, one in his hand.” What to do, Lord? What are you going to do when these two records are joined in one? “Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, behold I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone. I will gather them on every side, I will bring them into their own land, I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel. They shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.”

Has that ever been fulfilled? “Oh, no,” says one, “that has never yet come to pass;” and it never will until the Lord brings forth the writings of Joseph and joins them with the Jewish record. Then we may look out for the restitution of Israel; as soon as the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, we may look out for the day of the Lord’s power, when he will cause the very powers of heaven to shake for the benefit of his people. The powers of eternity will be moved to bring about the great work of the restitution of the house of Israel. Then the mountains shall tremble, and the little hills shall skip like lambs, as is prophesied by the Psalmist David. Then all things shall feel the power of God, and his arm will be made bare in the eyes of all the nations, until the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God, manifested in behalf of his covenant people Israel. It will be emphatically the day of the Lord’s power.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, on the Occasion of the Attendance of the New England and New York Editorial Excursion Party, Sunday Afternoon, July 11, 1875.

I will call the attention of the congregation to a portion of the word of God contained in the 19th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. [The speaker read the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 verses.]

I have read these passages of Scripture in order to dwell, this afternoon, if the Lord will, and his Spirit shall so direct my mind, upon the subject of marriage, and to show wherein the people called Latter-day Saints differ in their views from other Christian denominations in relation to this great and divine ordinance, and to make such other remarks, not particularly connected with the subject, as the Spirit of the Lord may direct.

First, however, before taking up this divine ordinance, it may be well to state, in brief terms, some of the views of the Latter-day Saints in regard to the doctrine which they have embraced. I shall endeavor to be very brief on every point, in order to enumerate, as far as possible, the variety of doctrines and principles which we have embraced, that are peculiar to us as a people. I will commence by saying, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not grown out of the various religious societies that now exist, or that have existed, in Christendom; neither has it grown out of any of their institutions. Our Priesthood, our doctrine, our authority, the organization of our Church, and everything connected therewith, have been something revealed directly from the heavens. Perhaps you may inquire—“Have you not been guided more or less in relation to these principles by the book which is called the Bible?” I answer that, in the organization of the kingdom of God on the earth in the nineteenth century, we have been guided by direct revelation to us from heaven. We do not profess that our doctrines and principles are entirely distinct and something entirely different from those which are recorded in the Bible, we are far from making any such profession; but we believe that the same God who organized his kingdom in ancient times, and revealed his will to the inhabitants of the earth, has revealed, in these last days, principles in accordance with those revealed in former times, and that he is a consistent Being, and that he would not communicate a Gospel for the inhabitants of the earth to observe in the 19th century that was not revealed and understood in former ages. The same Gospel, therefore, which God has revealed anew in our day, when compared with the Gospel contained in the New Testament, is found to accord in every principle, and in all its ordinances and institutions, with ancient Christianity.

This Church was organized on the 6th day of April, 1830. The very day of the month on which it should be organized was pointed out by new revelation; the officers that were placed in the Church were appointed, and the names of many of them were given by new revelation. The duties of these officers were also appointed by direct revelation from heaven. God organized the Church with Apostles in it, the same as he organized his ancient Church; he organized it with Revelators and with Prophets, inspired from on high, the same as he organized the ancient Christian Church. He commanded the people to believe in his Son Jesus Christ, as the great Redeemer who died in the meridian of time for the sins of mankind. He commanded, by new revelation, that we should believe in the same Redeemer and in the same atonement; he commanded us to repent of all our sins, forsake all unrighteousness, cease to do evil and learn to do well, and to reform our lives in every respect, the same as he commanded the people in the ancient dispensation of the Gospel. By new revelation we were commanded to be baptized by immersion in water, for the remission of our sins, the same as he commanded the people in ancient times to attend to the same divine ordinance. By new revelation, he commanded his servants the Apostles, and those to whom he gave power and authority, to lay hands on all baptized believers, and to confirm upon them the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, the same as was practiced among the Saints in ancient times. By new revelation the Lord promised that certain signs should follow the believers among all nations, kindreds, tongues and people to whom this Gospel should be sent. All that would believe, men and women, were promised certain signs, among which I will name that they should cast out devils, speak with new tongues, and if they should take up serpents, or drink any deadly thing, it should not hurt them, they should lay their hands upon the sick and they should recover. The same promise was made by our Savior under the ancient dispensation of the Gospel. He commanded his servants, in these days, to go forth and preach to the Gentile nations first; and when we had faithfully borne our testimony to them, and they were sufficiently warned, then we were to turn to the scattered and dispersed remnants of Israel in the four quarters of the earth, and preach the Gospel to them. He commanded, by new revelation, that his servants should say unto the inhabitants of all the earth that would believe, repent, be baptized, and receive the Gospel of the Son of God, that they should leave their respective nations, and gather together in one place, which the Lord, by new revelation, should appoint.

All this was given by new revelation. Does it agree or disagree with the Scriptures contained in the Bible? Judge ye for yourselves. Did the ancient Christian Church have inspired Apostles, who had power to call upon God and receive new reve– lation from him? So does the modern Christian Church, which God has reorganized on the earth; claim to have the same officers, Apostles, not in name merely, but inspired from heaven, to receive new revelations, as the ancient Apostles were. Is there any disagreement, then, between the former pattern and the latter-day pattern? Did the ancient Christian Church have a multitude of inspired Prophets, men and women, who could prophesy concerning future events? So the latter-day Christian Church, organized by new revelation, has an abundance of Prophets and Prophetesses to whom the future has been opened, and they foretell future events; hence there is no disagreement between the ancient pattern and the latter-day pattern. Did the Apostles lay on hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, and did the Spirit of God descend from the heavens, and fall upon the baptized believers through the laying on of hands? So in the latter days have the same blessings been given among all the nations and people and kindreds and tongues, wherever this Gospel has been preached. No difference, then, so far as this is concerned.

Did the ancient Christian Church have a great variety of members possessing a variety of spiritual gifts? So does the latter-day Christian Church believe in the same thing. Did any in the Christian Church presume, in ancient times, to take unto themselves the authority of the ministry, without being called of God by new revelation? Never, no never! All were called by new revelation to officiate in the various offices of the Church, after the same pattern that Aaron was called. “No man,” says Paul, “taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God as was Aaron.” Everybody knows, from the history given, how Aaron was called by new revelation. Have any among all the peoples and nations of the earth authority to administer baptism? Yes. Who are they? Those who are called by new revelation, and none else. Have any authority to administer the Lord’s Supper among all the Christian nations of the earth? Yes. Who are they? Those to whom the Lord has spoken, whom the Lord has called as he called Aaron. Have any Christian denominations who deny new revelation, authority to administer this sacred ordinance? Not one upon the face of the whole earth. Are ordinances, administered by those who deny new revelation, accepted by the Most High? Not one of them. Why? Because God does not sanction that which is not appointed by him.

Perhaps some may inquire, if this does not cut off the Christian Church from the face of the earth? I answer, it does, unless God has a Christian Church with revelators and Prophets in it, and whose officers are called by new revelation. Inquires one—“Do you mean to say that we have had no true Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries?” I do mean to say this, unless there have been persons authorized, according to the requirements of the holy Scriptures. If we can find a Church anywhere on the face of the earth that has Apostles in it, and revelators, and inspired men, then we have a true Christian Church; but if we cannot find this, then we have no such Church. If we can find a church that has the gifts and the signs spoken of by the New Testament, we can find a true Christian Church; but if we can’t find such, we have no reason to believe that there is such a Church on the earth. “But,” says one, “we call ourselves Christians.” That is a very easy matter; but calling yourselves Christians or Christian churches does not make you such. Inquires one—“Is it not contrary to the Scriptures to suppose that the world would be left for so many centuries without a Christian Church?” No; it is in accordance with the Scriptures, for they foretell the Apostasy, the falling away and the darkness that should reign over the nations, and show that instead of having true teachers, men would heap to themselves teachers without authority from God, uninspired men, whose ears would be turned away from the truth unto fables. This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now. A short time after the death of the last of the Apostles, the Christian Church, what few of them remained, were persecuted from mountain to mountain, from den to den, from one cave of the earth to another, and from nation to nation until they were entirely exterminated and rooted out of the earth. Well, what was left? An apostate Christianity, a Christianity without revelators, without any voice of God, without any Prophets to unfold the future, without visions, without any communications from the heavens. Apostasy succeeded the Christian Church and has borne rule over all the nations of the earth; and these Scriptures have been fulfilled; for they say that a certain power should arise, and make war with the Saints and overcome them, and they should be given into the hands of that power.

But is our earth always to be left without the Church and kingdom of God, and without Apostles, Prophets, or a voice from the heavens? No. John saw in his vision on Patmos how the Gospel should again be preached among the nations, after great Babylon should arise, after she should persecute the Saints and destroy them from the earth, and present her golden cup full of filthiness and abominations for all nations to drink thereof.

After he had seen this, he saw how the Christian Church should again return to the earth. In the fourteenth chapter of Revelation and sixth verse, he says—“I saw another angel flying through the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, unto 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.” And another angel followed this one that had the Gospel, saying—“Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” Why? Because she hath made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

Immediately after this the Son of Man was seen by John, sitting upon a white cloud, coming in his glory and power to destroy the nations of the earth. Here, then, were three great events portrayed by the ancient Apostle John, which should take place just prior to and at the time of the coming of the Son of Man. The Gospel is to be brought by an angel. For whom? For all people. Now, if there had been any people, nation, kindred, or tongue, in any part of the earth that had the Gospel, and had the authority to administer its ordinances, there would be no necessity for this angel’s coming, all we would have had to do, would be to hunt up that people, and there, among them, we should have found Apostles, Prophets, revelators, and men having power to call upon God, and get revelation; and then persons would be called by new revelation to the ministry. But no such people existed, and hence, when the angel brings the Gospel, it has to be preached to all people, nations and tongues, under the whole heavens.

Now the Latter-day Saints have happened to live in the day when the Lord has sent this angel, and when he has again established his Church, and has commanded his servants to go forth, calling them by name, to preach the Gospel to the people, without purse and scrip, to organize his people among all nations and to say unto them—“Gather out from all these nations unto one place.” “But,” says one, “what does this mean? Did the ancient Apostles and the ancient Christian Churches gather?” I answer that the same doctrines which they taught are taught in these days; yet when it comes to some of the great temporal principles of salvation, God has varied in his plans in every dispensation. To Noah a command was given to build an ark; that was the way in which was to be effected the temporal salvation of all believers in his day. Abraham was commanded to leave his country, kindred and friends; that was a command of a very different character to the one given in the dispensation of Noah. In the days of Moses, another command was given quite different from that given to either Noah or Abraham, and so on down. In the days of Jesus, so far as temporal salvation was concerned, the believers were permitted to remain at Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia and in all the countries wherever the Christian Church was organized; there was no gathering in that day. But the last dispensation is to be a dispensation of gathering together of all of the people of God. It is spoken of by Paul in the first chapter of his epistle to the Ephe– sians, where it is said “that, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, the Lord will gather together in one all that are in Christ, whether they be in the heavens or upon the earth, that they may all be gathered in one.”

Now if this angel who brought this Gospel from the heavens, and commanded this Church to be organized, had left out this gathering together in one, we would have had reason to suppose him to be an impostor. Why? Because the great essential feature of the latter-day dispensation was a gathering together in one of all things in Christ. That is the reason why these vales are filled with inhabitants of different nations and tongues; they have heard in different parts of the earth the sound of the Gospel which God has brought to light in these latter days by an angel; they heard the voice of the Lord calling upon them to flee from Babylon, and to gather together in one, and that is why they are here. This agrees with the testimony of John, that, after the angel came, the Gospel should be preached to all nations. He heard a great voice from heaven, saying—“Come out of her, my people, lest ye be partakers of her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have reached to the heavens, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” That voice, recollect, was not to be a cunningly devised fable, got up by a certain number of divines or theologians, according to their own wisdom; it was to be a voice from heaven, a new revelation, commanding the people to do this. About a hundred thousand of the Latter-day Saints, dwelling in this mountain region, building up towns and cities for some four or five hundred miles in extent, have heard the voice of the Lord from the heavens and have gathered out. You have heard the proclamation, when the latter-day kingdom was established, to take your lamps and go forth to meet the Bridegroom. Instead of staying in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, or among the islands of the sea, you have been commanded to take your lamps and gather out; this is like the fish net that was cast into the sea, and “gathered all kinds, both good and bad.” “Do you mean to say,” says one, “that there are some gathered among you who are bad?” Yes; if there were not the parable of our Savior would not be fulfilled. But by and by there will be a sorting out, and the bad will be cast away unto their own place, while the good will be gathered into vessels and be saved.

This will be fulfilling the words of the Prophet Isaiah, in the 43rd chapter—“I will gather them from the east, and from the west, I will say to the north give up, and to the south keep not back. Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth, even every one that is called by my name.” Says one—“Do you really think there will be no Christians left in the north, nor in the south, nor in the east, nor in the west, but that everyone that is called by the name of the Lord will be gathered in one?” Yes, that is what we believe, and that is one of the peculiarities of what the world call “Mormonism,” we do not believe there will be a Christian left on the whole face of the earth, but what will be gathered together. “Well,” says one, “if that is true, if Isaiah told the truth about that, and the day is at hand for his prophecy to be fulfilled, the nations will truly be in an awful dilemma, when every Christian is gathered out.” I think they will, I think you draw a very correct conclusion.

Why does the Lord gather them out? As the Prophet Isaiah has said in another place, he gathers them out to the mountains, and they say one to another—“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob.” What for? “That he may teach us of his ways, and that we may walk in his paths.” It seems, then, that the Lord will have one people somewhere on the face of the earth, up in some mountainous region, who are going to teach the nations his ways, and how to walk in his paths.

Now, if we can find out where that mountain is where the Lord is going to have a house built, and to which the nations shall gather, it will be well for us to open our eyes and to see whether we are gathering together to learn the ways of the Lord.

Perhaps you may enquire, “What peculiarities are to be taught in the mountains different from what are taught abroad?” I answer, undoubtedly there will be a great many; and among the rest is that of marriage, and now we come to the words of our text. You may ask, “Do you not marry here in the mountains, as we do in the East?” In reply, I will say, in the first place, that marriage is a divine ordinance, as you see by the words of my text—“What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Now how does the Lord join together persons in marriage? Does he ordain a justice of the peace, who avows himself to be an infidel, and does not believe in God, or his Son Jesus Christ, or in the Gospel of life and salvation? Has such a man the authority of God to join the sexes together in marriage? Suppose that such pronounce the marriage ceremony, what has the Lord to do with it? Does the Lord inspire the infidel—one who has no faith nor con– fidence in him, to join together the sexes in marriage? I think not.

But suppose we pass by the infidel who holds the authority of the civil law to administer the ordinance of marriage, are there not many persons among the Christian nations, who do believe in God and his Son Jesus Christ, who are justices of the peace, and who have authority, under the civil laws of the country, to administer the ordinance of marriage? I answer—there are many who hold this authority under their respective governments; we do not dispute this. The infidel I was speaking of, who is a justice of the peace, has authority by the laws of his State or county, to administer and officiate in the ceremony of marriage. But God has nothing to do with it; it answers the ends of the civil law, and that is as far as it goes.

Now suppose you take those persons who are not infidels, but who profess to believe in God, and they hold authority, under their various governments, to pronounce a man and woman husband and wife, has the Lord anything to do with that? He has if he has appointed that minister or justice of the peace; if he has given him a revelation authorizing him to officiate in the ordinance of marriage, then he has authority to do it, according to the mind and will of God. But on the other hand, if God has said nothing to him, he has no divine authority—and if he is a sectarian he is sure to reject all revelation, unless it happens to be in the Bible, and the Bible calls no man by name in the 19th century to officiate in marriage, neither in baptism nor any of the ordinances of the Gospel—his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ does not give him divine authority to administer the ordinance of marriage. Nevertheless the individuals whom he marries are mar– ried according to the laws of the country, and the marriage is legal so far as the laws of the country are concerned; but if God has not spoken to those men, if he has not given them revelation authorizing them to do this, their ceremony, so far as God is concerned, would be just the same as though it was administered by a heathen priest, just the same as though it was ministered by an infidel, for God has nothing to do with it.

Who is it then, that the Lord joins together? It is those who are married by one authorized of God to officiate in that sacred and holy ordinance, and the Lord could not do this, without he gave new revelation; hence you begin to understand what our views are as Latter-day Saints in regard to the nature of marriage. Inquires one—“Do you mean to say that there have been no marriages legal in the sight of God for nearly seventeen hundred years past, among all the nations?” Yes, that is what we say. Those old and middle-aged men, who were married in the nations before they heard the sound of the Gospel, were married legally according to the laws of man, and their marriages will stand all the controversies of the law, and their children are legal heirs to their property; but they are not joined together of the Lord.

Now let us come to a marriage where the Lord officiates. It is indirectly referred to here, in this 19th chapter of Matthew—“In the beginning God made them male and female.” And who officiated in the first great marriage ceremony? It was the Lord. Probably, if there had been any man on the earth at that time who held the keys, authority and power, the Lord would not have come and officiated directly; but inasmuch as the marriage was between the first pair who dwelt upon the earth, and there was nobody else to officiate, the Lord took it in hand to officiate himself; and after he had formed the woman he brought her to the man, and the man said—“This, now, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, therefore she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.”

Now let us inquire in regard to the perpetuity of this first marriage, for all Christendom, and I do not know but all heathendom, have got the curious idea into their heads that marriage pertains only to this little speck of time called our present life, and that by and by the grim monster Death will come along and part man and wife asunder, and that is the end of the marriage union. Such is the idea of all Christendom, and that is the way they marry; it is after this form that justices of the peace, the professed ministers of the Gospel, and all the judicial authorities of the various states, territories, nations, countries and empires of the world have officiated in the marriage ceremony—“I join you together,” or, “I pronounce you husband and wife,” as the case may be, “until death shall you part.” Oh indeed! It is a very short time to be married, is it not? We might die in the course of a day or two after being married, then the contract is run out, no more claim after that, according to their ideas. But now, in relation to this first marriage between Adam and Eve, who were they? Two immortal beings. What! Does God marry immortal beings? Yes. We have no account of his coming officially to marry a couple of mortal beings; I do not know that we have any such account anywhere. But these two personages, Adam and Eve, were immortal. Says one—“I never knew before that immortal beings were to be connected as husbands and wives, I thought marriage pertained to mortality, and until death should us part, and that was the end of it.” I know that we have had a great many erroneous ideas about baptism, about the laying on of hands, about marriage, and about a great many things, all of which came in consequence of the darkness that is spread over the nations, since ancient Christianity was rooted out of the earth. Two immortal beings—Adam the bridegroom, Eve the bride, stood up together, and the Lord gave the bride to the bridegroom. For how long, I wonder? If he had learned the ceremony of these Protestant and Catholic denominations, he might have said—“I pronounce you husband and wife until death shall separate you.” No, I think he had never learned that; death had not then come into our world; the forbidden fruit had not been eaten then; there were no fallen beings then on the earth, no mortality yet upon the face of our fair creation, but two immortal beings who were capable of enduring to all ages of eternity were united together in marriage.

This, then, was marriage for eternity, not for a little speck of time, not for a hundred or a thousand years, not for a million years, but for all eternity, to be as durable in its nature, action and effects as the immortal beings themselves. “But,” inquires one, “are you sure that Adam and Eve were immortal?” I am; the Scriptures inform me that by transgression sin came into the world, and death by sin. If sin had not come into the world there would have been no death. “But, do you really think that Adam and Eve would have been alive today?” Yes. Can you reflect in your minds upon a period in the future, when they would not be immortal, when they would be overcome? Can you point out the time when they would no longer be husband and wife? Never. When did the Lord give the commandment to be fruitful and multiply, etc.? He gave it to them as immortal beings. Supposing it had been possible for Adam and Eve, before they fell, to have had children, what kind of children would they have been? Would mortal children have descended from immortality without any transgression? Would people of flesh and blood and bones come into the world from immortal parents? No. We must suppose, then, that when God said to Adam and Eve, “be fruitful and multiply” that he spoke to them as beings that were not fallen.

Perhaps you may enquire, how long would they have multiplied and fulfilled this commandment? I answer, as long as eternity endures. Can you tell how long that will be? “Do you mean to say there would be no end to their increase?” None at all. If they had fulfilled that great commandment, and had multiplied their posterity, their children would have been immortal, as well as the parents, and there never would have been a period throughout all the endless ages of eternity but what they would have continued to increase their children—their own sons and daughters.

Perhaps you may say—“I really thought that mankind now, over the face of the earth, were fulfilling that great first commandment.” You have been highly mistaken; we have not one of us fulfilled it. “Do you mean to say that all these people here who have been married and have multiplied sons and daughters throughout all this Territory, have not been fulfilling the command given to Adam?” Not one pair of us, we were not in a condition to do it; we shall be by and by, however, when we get our immortal bodies, as Adam had his. But while we are here, we are permitted to multiply—what? Poor, weak, pusillanimous, fallen, sickly bodies, calculated to last at the longest, seventy, eighty, or a hundred years, and then crumble back to their mother earth. Are you going to substitute such an offspring as this to fulfill the great first commandment that was given to immortal man? Oh no, the Lord will accept no such substitution as this.

But how can we fulfil the commandment then? I will tell you how—be married for all eternity, as your first parents were, and then, when you come up in the morning of the first resurrection, and God again restores to you your bodies, male and female, you can fulfil that commandment that was given in the beginning, to the first immortal pair.

Shall we continue to multiply through all eternity? Yes; there never will be a time when those who are really married for eternity will cease to multiply their species, not children subject to pain, disease and death, but children of immortality. Millions on millions will be multiplied, worlds without end, by each pair of immortal parents, and their children will be as immortal as themselves. Then the commandment will be fulfilled.

Perhaps some of you may say—“Your remarks explain a certain passage we have often read, the 11th chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, and 11th verse, which says—’Neither is the man without the woman in the Lord, neither is the woman without the man in the Lord.’ We never knew what that meant before, but it seems that you Latter-day Saints have got a clue to it.” It seems then that if we wish to fulfil the object of our creation, and if we are truly in the Lord, then we must go into the eternal worlds as married, not for time; not by some justice of the peace that is an infidel; not by a man that has no right to join us together under the revelation and authority of the Most High; but we must be married for eternity by a man who has the right to speak, being commanded of the Lord, holding the keys of authority and power, who can say to the man and woman, I pronounce you husband and wife for time and all eternity. Then you will be married according to the pattern given; then you will have a claim upon each other after death. But have married people, in the nations, a claim upon each other after death? I mean those who have not been married after the pattern and authority of heaven. By no means. Their contracts are made only for a little space, some twenty, thirty, fifty or seventy years, as the case may be, then death comes along and the contract runs out; and when you come up in the resurrection who are you? Have you any wife there? Oh, no. Why not? Because you were not sealed or married, to each other by divine authority, that is the reason. What position will you occupy? If you have been pretty good people and have kept the commandments of God as far as you understood them, and have done well in many respects, you may have the opportunity of becoming angels; but there is quite a difference between angels and those who have the privilege of endless increase, and of being crowned as kings and priests in the eternal worlds. Whom do you suppose you will reign over? Will you get somebody else to multiply and spread forth their offspring, and then give that offspring to you? Will you go to your neighbors and say—“Come, you were married for eternity when you were back in yonder world and you have come forth, having a claim to your wife or wives in the morning of the resurrection. I did not attend to that matter while there, and I was not married there according to the first pattern that was given in the Bible, and inasmuch as I failed in doing this will you, neighbor, give me part of your children? I should like to be a king, and have some subjects to reign over, will you part with some of your children?” “Oh no,” says the neighbor, “if you neglected, in yonder world, the divine ordinances pertaining to the probation, you must bear the loss, I cannot spare any of my children. They belong to me; they are under my patriarchal government, they will be my kingdom and I shall reign over my own offspring forever and ever.”

What will this poor man do then? Why he will have to be an old bachelor, if we may use the expression, and continue that way to all ages of eternity. He will do for a servant, and they will have a great many servants there. A man of God has a great kingdom, and his kingdom spreads forth, and his subjects multiply like the stars of heaven, or the sands upon the seashore, and he will naturally want some who have bodies of flesh and bones to go and minister for certain purposes; and those who have deprived themselves of the benefits of marriage for eternity, will do first-rate for that, if they have been righteous enough to get into a position where angels are.

There were some in the days of our Savior righteous enough for that, but through the apostasy that had prevailed some three centuries before he came, they had lost the authority of obtaining this higher glory, and when Jesus spake to them about the resurrection of the dead, he said—“In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” To whom was he talking? Not to the righteous, but to some of the members of the pious denominations that happened to exist in that day, that had in some measure lost the spirit of the Lord. Such never having been married for eternity in this world could rise no higher than angels in the next world; and if they became righteous enough to become celestial angels, they would be servants forever. Servants to whom? Those that are worthy to receive a kingdom and a glory, that have attended to their ordinances and to the commandments of God, and have been led by him in all things pertaining to marriage as well as other things.

Let us now come to another item that grows out of marriage for eternity. For instance, there are a great many in this congregation who were married by the Gentile laws, by justices of the peace and various other officers, in England, Scotland, Wales, Denmark, and in the various nations of Christendom. They come up here with their wives, many of them just as good people as can be found anywhere on the earth. Were they married by divine ordinances? Did God join them together? No. Are they, therefore, to be condemned? No. Why not? Because God did not send the word to them. When the word goes forth from the Lord Almighty to a people, and light comes into a nation and among a people, then comes condemnation if that light is rejected, but not till then.

The word of the Lord told you to gather up here. What for? That you might, among other things, be married according to the law of God. I am endeavoring to tell you some of our peculiarities. We do believe that every man who gathers up with the Saints, whether married by the Gentile law or not, should be married by one holding divine authority to officiate, and thus have the ordinance, the ministration sealed on earth that it may be sealed in the heavens; then it will stand; but everything that is not done by the authority of God will not stand, but will be shaken; and when the day of the resurrection shall come, it will only be that which God has appointed that will endure the test. In that day, when they come up out of their graves, there will be no chance for people to be married, any more than there will be for them to be baptized. If people do not get baptized here in this life, they will have no chance to be baptized there. And Jesus says, that if you are not born of the water and of the spirit, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, that is, into the highest kingdom, the highest glory, the third heaven; you cannot enter there, consequently you must not put off baptism until the resurrection day, and say you will attend to it then, for that will be too late for baptism, and also for marriage.

Here is another question. A great many of those good people abroad, who, with their ancestors, back for seventeen hundred years, while God had no authority or Church on the earth, have gone down to their graves, without knowing anything about the pattern of marriage as recorded here in the Bible, which is eternal in its nature. What are you going to do with them? I answer, it would look rather hard if there was no provision made for them, would it not? There are about seventeen centuries or generations, and if we compute a thousand million of people for every generation, coming upon and passing away from the earth, we shall have about fifty thousand million altoge– ther, who have gone down to their graves without baptism, without the administration of the ordinances, without divine authority to administer in their marriages! Do you suppose that the Lord has made no provision for all these things? All must have a chance. There is not an individual that ever lived upon the earth, from the days of Adam down to this time, whether it was among the heathen or savages, who never heard of Jesus or of the true God, and who went down to his grave in total ignorance; there never was a man or woman on the face of the globe, but what will have an opportunity, either in this life or in the life to come, to obey and enjoy the benefits of the Gospel of Salvation.

“But did you not say that there was no opportunity for them to attend to these ordinances in the life to come?” I did. “Then why did you say, that there will be an opportunity for them?” There is quite a difference between having an opportunity, and attending to the ordinances. You cannot attend to the latter in the life to come. Parties who have died in this generation or in the generations passed, without having an opportunity to be baptized by a man holding authority, will have an opportunity of hearing the Gospel in the life to come; but they cannot attend personally to the ordinances thereof. Why? Because God has ordained that men, here in the flesh, shall be baptized in this life; or, if they die without a knowledge of the Gospel and its ordinances, that their friends in the flesh, in the day of his power, when he brings forth the everlasting Gospel, shall officiate for them, and in their behalf. This is another peculiarity of the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints—baptism for the dead.

You see a Temple building here, east of this tabernacle, and a great many inquiries are made respecting the nature of this building. Some suppose that we are going to hold meetings in it, and preach to the people; but no, that pertains to the tabernacle. God has pointed out the uses of a Temple by new revelation, the same as he pointed out the object of a tabernacle in the days of Moses, and the object of the Temple of the Lord in the days of Solomon; and among those objects he has told us that in the basement of the Temple there should be a baptismal font. What for? That those who are living here on the earth may be baptized for and in behalf of those who die without a knowledge of the Gospel.

Does that reach back to all generations who have died in ignorance? Yes. To all our ancestors? Yes; it reaches back to our fathers, our grandfathers and their progenitors away back to ancient days, when the Priesthood was upon the earth. Baptism for the dead! The same thing was attended to in ancient times, so that we have not got a new pattern, it is the old pattern renewed. Paul says, in the 15th chapter of the first of Corinthians—“Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the dead?” Sure enough! It was a strong argument to prove the resurrection of the dead, that the people who belonged to the ancient Christian Churches had the privilege of going and being baptized for those who had died before the Gospel came among them.

Now do you not see that we are not so uncharitable as a great many would suppose? Instead of sending all the generations who lived in former ages to hell, because they did not happen to hear the Gospel, and because there was no Christian Church upon the earth; I say that, instead of sending them all to an endless hell, God has made provisions that the living may act for and in behalf of the dead. The ordinances thus attended to here on the earth in behalf of the dead, will be recorded and sealed here by proper authority; and what is thus recorded and sealed here will be recorded and sealed in the heavens in behalf of those individuals; and if those spirits who are in prison and in the eternal worlds will repent when the Gospel is taken to them, they can have the benefit of the ordinances administered for and in their behalf here, and they will have part in the first resurrection.

Then again, if baptism for the dead is true, every other divine ordinance is equally true and necessary for the dead, for one is just as consistent as the other. The laying on of hands in confirmation upon a person that is living here in the flesh, for and in behalf of those who are in their graves, is just as consistent as baptism for the dead.

Again, if our fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, have died without being married by divine authority, the same authority that would cause a people to act for the dead in relation to baptism, would cause them to act for and in behalf of the dead in relation to their marriage ceremonies too. Such a plan gives them all a chance. For there are no marryings, nor baptisms, nor confirmations, in and after the resurrection. The resurrected dead can do none of these things; but if it is done here for them, and they will accept of it, it will be acknowledged in the heavens. Hence, here is another peculiarity of the Latter-day Saints pertaining to the Temple, the house of the Lord to be built in the tops of the mountains in the latter days, as Isaiah says in the second chapter—“Many people shall say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us of his ways, that we may walk in his paths.” A Temple, therefore, instead of being a place for teaching and preaching, is a place for the administration of holy ordinances.

Another question. A great many have wondered why so many people in the eastern, southern and middle States have been stirred up for a number of years past in searching out their ancestors. Now the Lord does a great many things unknown to the people, and this is one of them. The people do not know why they are interested in their ancestry, but they are wrought upon by some invisible operation, and they feel very anxious to know about their progenitors. I think that some four hundred different families have already got extended family records, tracing their ancestry back from generation to generation to the first settlements of the New England States, and then back into Old England if it is possible, to make out the connection. Do they know what they are doing this for? No; they feel wrought upon, that is all they know about it. Now I will tell you why it is, for a great many of the people in this congregation, and many who are scattered through the villages, towns and settlements in this Territory, emigrated from the New England States, and they had fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, and ancestors, now in their graves, who were just as pure, upright, virtuous and honest in their feelings as we their children are. Now we are going to act for them. We have not time to search up all these genealogies, but all we have to do is to go and get the books which the Lord has wrought upon them to get up, containing the names of hun– dreds and thousands of the dead, and we will receive baptism, confirmation and marriage for eternity, and all the ordinances of the Gospel for them, that they, if they will receive what is done for them, may come forth in the resurrection, and inherit all that their children will inherit. Why? Because they were worthy of it. Our pilgrim fathers were a good people, just as worthy as we are, but unfortunately they did not happen to live in the time that God has set for establishing his kingdom on the earth, and sending his angels from the heavens.

Thus you see that this Gospel reaches after the dead as well as the living. Our Savior set the example in regard to this matter, for we are told that when his body lay in the tomb, his spirit was not idle; and instead of going off into the heavens and sitting down there for three days and three nights in perfect idleness, he had something to do, and while his body lay in the tomb, his spirit went and opened the prison doors in which were confined those who were drowned in the flood. What! Were they in prison? Yes. Did Jesus truly visit them? Yes. Did he preach to them? Yes. Where have we this recorded? In Peter’s declaration. He says that, “Jesus was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit, by which he also went and preached to the spirits which were in prison, which sometime were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing.” Oh indeed; He went to those old antediluvians then, that had not received their resurrection, and preached to them. What did he preach to them? The following verses tell us what he preached. What would you think he preached? Says one—“If he followed the ex– amples of our sectarian preachers, he would go and tell them that their doom was irrevocably fixed, that they were cast down to prison, never to be recovered; that as the tree falls so it lies, and that there was no hope in their case.” Well, that was not the kind of preaching that Jesus did to the antediluvian spirits. “For, for this cause,” says Peter, “was the Gospel preached to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, and live according to God in the spirit.” Though they were in the spirit world, without any bodies, yet they had the privilege of hearing the same Gospel that Jesus preached to those here in the flesh. They could repent, for that is an act of the mind; they could believe in Jesus, for that is also an act of the mind; but the spirits could not be baptized, for that is an act of the body, it is something that pertains to this life. Jesus could preach repentance to them, he could preach the same Gospel to those antediluvians that he had preached to men in the flesh, and they could then be judged according to men in the flesh, and live according to God in the spirit. Men in the flesh could be baptized for them, and they could come forth and receive all the blessings of those who received the Gospel in the flesh.

There are a few more remarks which I would like to make, if time will permit, upon a subject which grows out of this eternal marriage or union between the male and the female. For instance, here is a good young man who courts up a wife in the kingdom of God. He says to her, “Let us go and be married for time and all eternity, according to the requirements of heaven.” Very well; they are agreed in it; they attend to the ordinance, and it is sealed upon their heads and recorded for their benefit. We will say that, in the course of two or three months after this marriage, some accident befalls the wife and she dies. They loved each other and were married for all eternity, and he mourns over the fact that in his youth, in the very prime of his manhood, he is left alone, a widower. Now is it right for him to marry another wife after having been married to one for time and for all eternity? Is it right for him again to receive a young lady for a wife? “Oh, yes,” you answer, “it is perfectly right, because that would not be living with two on the earth at the same time.” Very well, he goes and marries again; and now the question arises, suppose that they only marry for time, or until death shall part them—we will suppose this, because the man already has a wife on the other side of the veil—what is to become of the second wife in the morning of the resurrection? Can you answer that question? If he only marries her for time, she has no husband when the resurrection comes. Perhaps she is just as good a woman as the wife the man married first for all eternity. What are you going to do with her? Shall she be left in a condition where she can have no posterity, no endless increase, no kingdom in connection with a husband, and no husband? Shall she be left throughout all the future ages of eternity without any such privilege, while the first wife, no better than she is, is married for all eternity, and inherits all the blessings arising therefrom? Would not there be partiality in this? There certainly would. How are you going to remedy this? We answer, when this widower takes this second wife, let her also be married to him for time and all eternity, the same as the first; then, by and by, when the resurrection comes, there come up the two women. What will you do then? This introduces plurality into the next life, does it not? Polygamists in the next world? It certainly does; and these two women, both having received this man as their husband for all eternity, one of them will now be in just as good a condition as the other.

Let this principle be extended. There are some cases in life where two women might die, and a man be still left in his young days without a wife, and he marries a third and perhaps a fourth; in the resurrection they are contemporaneously his wives. Plurality, therefore, would be perfectly consistent in the world to come, but, “Oh,” says a sectarian, “how awful it is in this world!”

Thus you see that the very moment we admit the eternity of marriage, the very moment that we admit that Adam and Eve were immortal beings, when they were married, and we undertake to follow that pattern, plurality necessarily comes along; either marriage has no bearing upon eternity, and no bearing upon immortality and immortal beings, or else plurality of wives necessarily must exist in eternity.

Says one—“Turn it about the other way, then we shall have plurality of husbands.” Let me say to the congregation that the object of marriage is to fulfill the commandment which God gave to immortal beings. Could a woman multiply faster by having two husbands? Everybody knows that in this respect there is a difference between the male and the female. In this life, at any rate, if one woman had two husbands, instead of making her more fruitful, the probability is that it would prevent her raising any offspring at all; and if she did, how would the father be known? And hence, God has strictly forbidden, in this Bible, plurality of husbands, and proclaimed against it in his law.

I should be glad to touch upon a great many other points, in relation to plurality, but time will not permit. You have heard partially explained some of the peculiarities of the faith of the people called Latter-day Saints. Now what is necessary in regard to polygamists? Our enemies say, “There should be a law passed that all polygamists should be shut up in prison from five to ten years, as the case may be, and pay a heavy fine.” Very well; this is the voice of the people. But does the voice of the people rule in a manner that is inconsistent with the Constitution of our country, by taking away the rights of the minority? Is it the order of our government that the minority must have their rights wrenched from them because the majority decide against them? Let me ask, suppose the majority of the people should decide against infant sprinkling, many look upon that with the utmost horror, and it is only a small minority in our nation that believe in that awful doctrine, suppose the majority should take it into their heads that those who practice infant sprinkling should be imprisoned, they have the same right to do that as to do the other thing which I have named.

Again, there is a certain class of people, and they are far in the minority in this great nation, who believe in dancing on the Sabbath day. I allude to the Shaking Quakers. Would it be right to pass a law against this small minority, and say they shall be imprisoned, because the voice of the people in general happens to denounce their practice of dancing as a crime? “But then,” says one, “polygamy is a crime.” Who told you so? Does the Bible tell you so? Oh no, neither the Old nor the New Testament; no Prophet, no revelator, no Apostle, no man of God, nor Jesus himself, nor any angel ever denounced it as a crime, but on the contrary they advocated it, and the Lord himself administered in this divine ordinance. He gave to Jacob his four wives and children, so Jacob tells us in Genesis.

Then we might continue and show that every Christian denomination in the United States possesses peculiarities which the majority do not believe in, and which they are convinced should be denounced by the civil law as criminal, and that those who practice such peculiarities ought to be imprisoned for doing so. But because the majority of people condemn a principle, that is no proof that it is a crime. Supposing that the great majority of the people condemned the principle of baptism by immersion, would it be right to pass laws punishing those who practice it? No, the Constitution of our country was framed to protect the people in every item of doctrine that they might glean out of this Bible, and instead of condemning these doctrines as criminal, all the States and all the Territories ought to leave Bible principles as matters of conscience; especially the great principle of marriage should be left open and free to all, either to marry one wife, or two or three, or a dozen, as the case may be, only making laws in relation to criminal abuses of the marital state, and in regard to property, how it should descend to the children, etc. But the very moment that they pass laws that are proscriptive and restrictive in their nature, condemning principles that are not condemned in the Bible, taking away the privileges of the people to believe that which is contained in the word of God, religious liberty is in danger, and there is no telling where that infringement will lead to. By and by they may have a blending of Church and State; and no one must believe anything, unless it be doctrines or creeds got up by the State, or by Congress, or by some legislative body; and everybody must bow to that, or be fined, or imprisoned, or be burned, butchered, or hung.

That our great, and free country may never be afflicted with such a species of despotism, is my most earnest prayer. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Wilford Woodruff, delivered June 27, 1875, in the Second Ward Schoolhouse, Salt Lake City, at the Funeral Services of John Houseman, Aged Six Years, and Willie Franklin, Aged Four Years, Sons of William and Ann Wheeler, Burned to Death at Wanship, Summit County, U. T., June 24, 1875.

I am entirely dependent this morning upon the Spirit of the Lord to guide and direct me in what I may say upon this painful occasion. Those who have assembled here—Brother and Sister Wheeler, and their friends who mourn with them, are dependent upon the same source for comfort in their serious bereavement; and in fact we are all dependent upon the blessing and Spirit of the Lord in all the labors of life, and I hope that, in our services this morning, a large measure of that Spirit will be imparted unto us.

I feel disposed to read the first chapter of Job as a preliminary to any remarks I may make. [The speaker read the first chapter of the Book of Job.] We also see in reading the history of Job that the devil did not finish with him there, as it seems the devil had another conversation with the Lord on this subject, in which he informed the Lord that a man would give anything for his life and that if he, the devil, touched Job’s flesh, he would certainly curse God. And it seems from reading this history that the Lord put Job into the hands of the devil, to do as he pleased with him, only to spare his life. Of course the history is familiar to you all who have read the Bible, and you are aware that the devil smote Job, and he was covered with boils from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, so that he was in great distress, trouble and tribulation, yet in the midst of it all he did not sin, but acknowledged the hand of the Lord.

I may say with regard to the case which has brought us together this morning, it is a little similar to that of Job. We meet with some strange things in the history of our lives in the dispensations and dealings of God with men. In the case before us we are called to mourn the loss of two children taken from Brother and Sister Wheeler, we may say as suddenly and, in one sense of the word, as miraculously, as were the sons and daughters of Job. His affliction consisted not only in the loss of two children, but of all his children and also of all the possessions that he had, yet still, under all this he said—“Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I know very well it is hard for any person to be called to pass through the scenes that we sometimes are called to pass through in this life, it is so in the case before us this morning. The loss of these little children, taken away as they were, is certainly painful, not only to the parents, but to every person who reflects; and it is a very hard matter for any of us to enter into and appreciate the depth of sorrow which parents feel on occasions like this, it is difficult to bring the matter home to our own hearts unless we have been called to pass through similar affliction and sorrow. At the same time there is no doubt that we all sympathize with our friends when called to pass through trials and bereavement. And I will here say to Brother and Sister Wheeler, and to all my friends, there are a great many worse things in this world than the case we are now called to mourn.

Our children are taken away from us in infancy and childhood, and they are taken away as Job’s were, in one sense of the word, through the dispensations of Providence, causing us severe trials. This we will acknowledge; but, as I have already said, there are many things in this world that are far more painful and afflicting than to have our children burned to death. My friends may ask—“What is Brother Woodruff driving at in this remark?” I will tell you. I have lived in these valleys twenty-seven years, since the pioneers came here. I have seen a whole generation of men and women grow up in these valleys of the mountains, and they have become parents. I have seen some, I will not say a great many, but I have seen some young men, I say nothing about maidens, who have met with untimely deaths and who have gone to the grave disgraced, and a dishonor to themselves and to their parents. Circumstances of this kind are far more painful to any parent in the world than it is for their children to meet with sudden death by accident or any other way. I do not make these remarks to apply to Brother and Sister Wheeler, for none of us know what course our children will take. We set good examples before them, and we strive to teach them righteous principles, but when they come to years of accountability they have their agency and they act for themselves.

Many things are transpiring in the earth today which we should regard as great calamities and as grievous to be borne if we had to pass through them. Think of these late earthquakes in South America, eight thousand people out of ten thousand in one city sunk in the earth in a few moments. And then, the tremendous floods that are sweeping over France and other parts of the earth, causing the death of hundreds and thousands of men, women and children. All these things are in fulfillment of the revelations of God, and of the judgments which he has promised should come upon the earth in the last days. One of the purposes which the Lord has in view in gathering his Saints to the valleys of the mountains is that they may not share in the sins or partake of the plagues of Babylon; therefore we have reason to rejoice before the Lord because of his mercies and blessings unto us. And with regard to a case like this before us this morning—the loss of those children—I want to say a few words for the consolation of those who are sorrowing. In the first place these children are innocent before the Lord; as to their death and the cause thereof, that is in the hands of God, and we should not complain of the Lord or his dispensations any more than Job did. These children have been taken away very suddenly, and in such a manner as to cause great sorrow and distress to their parents, but there is this consolation connected with the matter—they are innocent, they are not in transgression. They have paid the law of death which God passed on Adam and all his posterity; but when their spirits left their bodies and got into the spirit world their trouble and affliction were over. Their death was a very painful one, but their suffering is now over, and in a few years from now they will come forth out of their graves in the morning of the resurrection, not marred by fire or any element, but clothed with glory, immortality and eternal life, in eternal beauty and bloom, and they will be given into the hands of their parents, and they will receive them in the family organization of the celestial world, and their parents will have them forever. They will live as long as their God lives. This, to Latter-day Saints, who believe in the resurrection, should be a source of comfort and consolation.

Why our children are taken from us it is not for me to say, for God never revealed it unto me. We are all burying them. I have buried one-third of the children that have been given unto me. I have had some thirty children born to me, and ten of them are buried, all of them young. The question may arise with me and with you—“Why has the Lord taken away my children?” But that is not for me to tell, because I do not know; it is in the hands of the Lord, and it has been so from the creation of the world all the way down. Children are taken away in their infancy, and they go to the spirit world. They come here and fulfill the object of their coming, that is, they tabernacle in the flesh. They come to receive a probation and an inheritance on the earth; they obtain a body or tabernacle, and that tabernacle will be preserved for them, and in the morning of the resurrection the spirits and bodies will be reunited, and as here we find children of various ages in a family, from the infant at the mother’s breast to manhood, so will it be in the family organization in the celestial world. Our children will be restored to us as they are laid down if we, their parents, keep the faith and prove ourselves worthy to obtain eternal life; and if we do not so prove ourselves our children will still be preserved, and will inherit celestial glory. This is my view in regard to all infants who die, whether they are born to Jew or Gentile, righteous or wicked. They come from their eternal Father and their eternal Mother unto whom they were born in the eternal world, and they will be restored to their eternal parentage; and all parents who have received children here according to the order of God and the holy priesthood, no matter in what age they may have lived, will claim those children in the morning of the resurrection, and they will be given unto them and they will grace their family organizations in the celestial world.

With regard to the future state of those who die in infancy I do not feel authorized to say much. There has been a great deal of theory, and many views have been expressed on this subject, but there are many things connected with it which the Lord has probably never revealed to any of the Prophets or patriarchs who ever ap– peared on the earth. There are some things which have not been revealed to man, but are held in the bosom of God our Father, and it may be that the condition after death of those who die in infancy is among the things which God has never revealed; but it is sufficient for me to know that our children are saved, and that if we ourselves keep the faith and do our duty before the Lord, if we keep the celestial law, we shall be preserved by that law, and our children will be given unto us there, as they have been given here in this world of sorrow, affliction, pain and distress. It has no doubt been a marvel many times, in the minds of men and women, why God ever placed men and women in such a world as this, why he causes his children to pass through sorrow and affliction here in the body. The Lord has revealed something to us concerning this matter, and we have learned enough about it to know that this thing is necessary. We know that we are created in the image of God, both male and female; and whoever goes back into the presence of God our eternal Father, will find that he is a noble man, a noble God, tabernacled in a form similar to ours, for we are created after his own image; they will also learn that he has placed us here that we may pass through a state of probation and experience, the same as he himself did in his day of mortality. And time and again it has been revealed in the revelations of God given in our day, as well as in the Bible and Book of Mormon, that these things are necessary in order to enable us to comprehend good and evil, and to be prepared for glory and blessings when we receive them. As the Apostle argues very strongly in the Book of Mormon—“If we never taste the bitter how will we know how to comprehend the sweet? If we never partake of pain how can we prize ease? And if we never pass through affliction, how can we comprehend glory, exaltation and eternal blessings?”

The Lord has said concerning Jesus, that he descended below all things that he might rise above all things, and comprehend all things. No man descended lower than the Savior of the world. Born in a stable, cradled in a manger, he traveled from there to the cross through suffering, mingled with blood, to a throne of grace; and in all his life there was nothing of an earthly nature that seemed to be worth possessing. His whole life was passed in poverty, suffering, pain, affliction, labor, prayer, mourning and sorrow, until he gave up the ghost on the cross. Still he was God’s firstborn son and the Redeemer of the world. The question might be asked why the Lord suffered his Son to come here and to live and die as he did. When we get into the spirit world, and the veil is withdrawn, we shall then perhaps understand the whys and wherefores of all these things. In the dispensations and providences of God to man it seems that we are born to suffer pain, affliction, sorrows and trials; this is what God has decreed that the human family shall pass through; and if we make a right use of this probation, the experience it brings will eventually prove a great blessing to us, and when we receive immortality and eternal life, exaltation, kingdoms, thrones, principalities and powers with all the blessings of the fulness of the Gospel of Christ, we shall understand and comprehend why we were called to pass through a continual warfare during the few years we spent in the flesh.

It certainly does require a good deal of the Spirit of the Lord to give comfort and consolation to a father and mother mourning for the loss of their children; and without the Gospel of Christ the separation by death is one of the most gloomy subjects it is possible to contemplate; but just as soon as we obtain the Gospel and learn the principle of the resurrection, the gloom, sorrow and suffering occasioned by death are, in a great measure, taken away. I have often thought that, to see a dead body, and to see that body laid in the grave and covered with earth, is one of the most gloomy things on earth; without the Gospel it is like taking a leap in the dark. But as quick as we obtain the Gospel, as soon as the spirit of man is enlightened by the inspiration of the Almighty, he can exclaim with one of old—“Oh grave, where is thy victory, Oh death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the gift of God is eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The resurrection of the dead presents itself before the enlightened mind of man, and he has a foundation for his spirit to rest upon. That is the position of the Latter-day Saints today. We do know for ourselves, we are not in the dark with regard to this matter; God has revealed it to us, and we do understand the principle of the resurrection of the dead, and that the Gospel brings life and immortality to light. We have received the Gospel, and if we are true to the principles of that Gospel as long as we live, we shall be made partakers of immortality, exaltation and glory.

I know very well that the loss of their children in this terrible manner is a sad affliction to brother and sister Wheeler. It was a sad affliction for Job when his children and possessions were taken from him in an hour, but yet he had sense or knowledge enough to understand and say that when he came into the world he possessed neither children, houses, lands, horses, oxen, camels nor asses, but that all his wealth had been given to him by the Lord, and that the Lord had taken them away and blessed be his holy name. I will say to our mourning friends, your children are taken away and you cannot help it, we cannot any of us help it; there is no censure to be given to parents when they do the best they can. A mother should not be censured because she cannot save her sick child, and we have to leave these things in the hands of God. It will be but a little time until they will be restored to us; in a little time brother and sister Wheeler will again have the children whose loss they now mourn.

With regard to the growth, glory, or exaltation of children in the life to come, God has not revealed anything on that subject to me, either about your children, mine or anybody else’s, any further than we know they are saved. And I feel that we have to put our trust in the Lord in these afflictions, we have to lean upon his arm and to look to him for comfort and consolation. We do not mourn under these afflictions as those who have no hope; we do not mourn the loss of our children as though we were never going to see them again, because we know better. The Lord has taught us better, and so has the Gospel; the revelations of Jesus Christ have shown us that they will be restored to us in the resurrection of the just. And I will here say with regard to the Gospel of Christ, that it is one of the greatest mysteries under the heavens to me why there are so few of the human family, whether in the Christian, Pagan or Jewish world, who take any interest in eternal things, in the state of man after death. If we read the Bible we learn that Noah, filled with revelation, and with the Gospel in his hand, although he labored a hundred and twenty years, could not get a solitary soul except his own family to go with him for salvation. It was similar in the days of the Patriarchs and Prophets, and if we come down to the days of Christ, we find that his testimony was rejected by the rabbis, high priests and the great mass of the people, and he chose for his Apostles twelve poor fishermen, and they and very few of the people, comparatively speaking, were all that received the teachings of Jesus and followed him through the regeneration; while the whole Jewish nation, with these few exceptions, were ready to put their Shiloh to death, and he was the person upon whom the salvation of the whole house of Israel depended. It is just so today. The great majority of the people reject the words of life and salvation which are proclaimed unto them. God, in these last days revealed the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Joseph Smith by the teachings of angels out of heaven, and its principles are made known to the world, and there has never been a congregation of Gentiles, from that day to this, to whom the Elders of Israel have borne record of these things, but what the Spirit of God has also borne record of the truth of their testimony; and herein lies the condemnation of this generation, for “light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.” I ask, in the name of God and humanity, why is it that intelligent beings, made in the image of God, take no interest in their condition after death? They know they are going to die, and, if they have any sense or reflection, they know they will live after the death of their mortal bodies; still men will sell their eternal interest for money, for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars they will sell all the interest they have in the eternal world; in fact, they take no interest in their eternal welfare. Their cry is—“Give me gold, silver and honors the few years I spend here, and eternal life may go where it pleases, I have no interest in that.” I ask again, why is it that the human family take no interest in these things? We have preached over forty years. I have been engaged in that work over that time, and have proclaimed the words of eternal life to millions of people, and have traveled more than a hundred thousand miles in so doing, and, as the Prophet has said, I have found one of a family and two of a city who have had eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand, and they have been gathered up from the various nations of the earth into the mountains of Israel, and here today we have a little handful of people, out of the twelve hundred millions who dwell upon the earth, who feel an interest in building up the Zion and kingdom of God upon the earth, and who are desirous of being saved in that kingdom.

Now I would rather be poor all the days of my life, I would rather go through poverty and affliction, it matters not how severe, even to the sacrifice of my own life, than lose salvation and eternal life, because I have faith in it and always had. I always have had faith in the Bible and in the revelations of God since I was a boy like these sitting on these seats, eight or ten years old, when I went to the Presbyterian Sunday school and read about Jesus Christ. I believed then that he was the Savior of the world; I believed that the Old and New Testament was true. I believe it today. What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What will a man give in exchange for his soul? When he comes into the presence of God he can’t buy it. This is the position of the world. There is none of us going to live but a little while; we shall all pass away soon, and our eternal destiny depends upon the few days, weeks, months or years that we spend here in the flesh. Do you not think it will pay a man or a woman to keep the commandments of God? It will, and when we enjoy the Holy Spirit, when we are trying to live our religion here on the earth, we are the happiest people on God’s footstool, no matter what our circumstances may be. I do not care whether we are rich or poor, whether in happiness or affliction, if a man is living his religion and enjoys the favor and Spirit of God, it makes no difference to him what takes place on the earth. There may be earthquakes, war, fire or sword in the land, but he feels that it is all right with him. That is the way I feel today.

With regard to the Gospel of Christ, it is a thing that we should all labor to maintain the few years that we spend here. When I get through with this life and go into the spirit world, I do not want to miss what I have in anticipation. I have always desired to see the Savior, Father Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and those old Prophets we read about in the Bible. I desired this before I heard this Gospel, I desire it today; and I do not wish to miss this, for nothing in this world would pay me for such a sacrifice. But I know that it requires constant warfare, labor and faithfulness before the Lord in order for us to keep in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and to live in such a manner that we may obtain these blessings. Jesus says—“Strait is the gate and narrow the way that leads to eternal lives, and few there are who find it, while broad is the way that leads to death, and many there be who go in thereat.” The road to death is broad enough to catch the whole world, and they do not like to walk in the strait and narrow one, they do not like to keep the celestial law. I have met with professed ministers of the Gospel, in my travels, at whose tables I have eaten and drank, and I have given them the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and have talked to and labored with them, and I have known some of them spend days and days in this warfare, trying to decide which to do, whether to receive the Gospel of Christ and take the reproach of the world, or reject it; and I may say that in nine cases out of ten they have come to the conclusion to reject it. When I visited Fox Island the first time, I went to the house of Mr. Newton, a Baptist minister; and I stayed with him. But first I went to his church and heard him preach, and when he got through I wanted to bear record of the Gospel, for I had a message to that people, and I appointed a meeting for four o’clock in the afternoon, and I preached the Gospel to them, and Mr. Newton took me to his home and I gave him the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and for ten days that man walked about his room until midnight trying to decide what he should do. The Spirit of the Lord bore record to him that my testimony was true, and he felt that if he obeyed the Gospel which I had proclaimed unto him he would lose his good name and honor among men, but that if he did not receive it, he would be damned. Finally he rejected it, and the consequence was that he became a vagabond, and a miserable outcast. I baptized all his flock who owned any portion of the meetinghouse, and if he had embraced the Gospel and been gathered with them he would have been here and saved in the kingdom of God, instead of the vagabond that he has since become. I merely mention this to show how the minds of some men are acted upon by the tidings of the Gospel. Some of them feel that it would be a great reproach to obey that Gospel and to keep the commandments of God. Bless your souls, we who obey the Gospel of Christ are all in good company. Whenever you are persecuted for righteousness sake, said Jesus, rejoice and be exceeding glad for so persecuted they the Prophets and Apostles which were before you.

I will say to all, whether in the church or in the world, it will pay you to keep the commandments of God. Here is a man who has a wife that he thinks a great deal of; they have lovely children, and the ties of affection bind them closely. Now should not such a man have respect enough for God to keep his commandments and so secure to himself his wife and his children in the celestial world after the resurrection? But you cannot get worldlings to believe in such a principle; the people, as I said before, have not interest enough in the things of the kingdom of God to be willing to keep the commandments of God.

I say to the Latter-day Saints, we should be faithful to our God. We are blessed above all the people that breathe the breath of life upon the earth, and we are blessed above all other dispensations and generations of men, for the Lord has put into our hands the power to build up his Zion upon the earth, never more to be thrown down, and this is what no other generation has ever been called to do. But although this is the mission of the Latter-day Saints, we have a continual warfare to wage—a warfare with the powers of darkness, and a warfare with ourselves. The ancients had a similar experience to pass through—they had their day of trials, troubles and tribulations. Enoch labored three hundred and sixty-five years in building up Zion, and he had the opposition of the whole world. But the Lord blessed him so that he maintained his ground for that length of time, and gathered together a few out of the nations of the earth, and they were sanctified before the Lord, and he had to take them away, and the saying went forth—“Zion is fled.” So you may trace down all the Prophets. Read the history of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and others, and you will find that it was a warfare with them all the way through. And so with Jesus and the Apostles. But all those dispensations have passed and gone into the spirit world, and they have their eyes upon us, and in fact God our heavenly Father and all under him—the whole heavenly host, have their eyes turned towards the Latter-day Saints, because this is the great dispensation of which Adam, Enoch and all the ancient patriarchs and Prophets have spoken, in which shall take place the final redemption of the House of Israel, the restoration of their kingdom, the rebuilding of their city and Temple, the restoration of their oracles and Priesthood, of the Urim and Thummim, and the preparation for the final winding up scene in the last days; all these things will take place in the dispensation in which we are permitted to live.

Let us, then, try and fulfill and perform our duties as good Latter-day Saints. Let us bear with each other’s faults, and bear the yoke of Christ, live our religion and keep the commandments of God. Let us try and bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Let us set them good examples and teach them good principles while they are young. They are given to us by our heavenly Father; they are our kingdom, they are the foundation of our exaltation and glory; they are plants of renown, and we should strive to bear them up before the Lord, and teach them to pray to, and to have faith in, the Lord as far as we can, that when we are passed and gone and they succeed us on this stage of action, they may bear off the great latter-day work and kingdom of God upon the earth. I do not believe that the day is very far distant when the revelations which God has given concerning the last days will have their fulfillment. I believe there are many children now living in the mountains of Israel who will never taste of death, that is, they will dwell on the earth at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will acknowledge that there is a great deal to be done, and the Lord has not revealed to man the day or the hour, but he has revealed the generation; and the fig trees are now putting forth their leaves in the eyes of all the nations, indicating the near approach of the second coming of the Son of Man. It is my faith that hundreds and thousands of the children that have been given to us will be alive in the flesh when Christ comes in the clouds of heaven in power and great glory. The Lord will not disappoint the inhabitants of the earth in these last days in regard to his second coming, any more than he has with regard to other great events and dispensations.

We live in a very important age and generation; we live in the day and time when God has set his hand to fulfill a measure of prophecy and revelation to man, in the great dispensation of all dispensations. As an individual I do not believe that many more years will roll over the heads of the inhabitants of the earth before the resurrection will be upon them, and then these children, which we are called to bury today, will come forth from their graves, clothed with glory, immortality and eternal life. You may ask why I believe this. I believe it because the revelations of God say so. I read the Scriptures, and I believe that the revelations and prophecies therein contained mean what they say, and I also believe that the saying of every Prophet or Apostle spoken under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost will have its fulfillment, and, as Paul said, no prophecy of Scripture hath any private interpretation, but holy men of old spake as they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost. They spake the mind and word of the Lord, and none of their sayings will fail to be fulfilled, for the Lord has said—“Though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not fail, but shall be fulfilled.” That is the way I read prophecy and revelation.

The Jews will be moved upon by and by, and they will return to the land of their fathers, and they will rebuild Jerusalem. These Lamanites here will receive the Gospel of Christ in fulfillment of the revelations of God. The Prophets which have been shut up in the north country with the nine and a half tribes led away by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, thousands of years ago, will come in remembrance before God; they will smite the rocks and mountains of ice will flow down before them, and those long lost tribes will come forth in your day and mine, if we live a few years longer, and they will be crowned under the hands of the children of Ephraim—the Elders of Israel who dwell in the land of Zion. And by and by the testimony of the Gospel will be sealed among the Gentiles, and the Gospel will turn to the whole house of Israel, and the judgments of God will back up the testimony of the Elders of this Church, and the Lord will send messengers who will go forth and reap down the earth. The unbeliever may say that what we term judgments have always prevailed more or less among the nations, and that God has nothing to do with them, they are all natural. Well, if they have always prevailed, they will prevail to a greater extent in these last days than ever before, until everything that God has spoken shall have come to pass. Judgments await the world, and they await this nation, and the day is at hand when the Lord will sweep the earth as with a besom of destruction. In the vision which the Lord gave to Enoch, he saw the heavens weeping over the earth because of the fall of man; and when Enoch asked the Lord—“When will the earth rest from under the curse of sin?” the Lord told him that in the last days the earth should rest, for then it should be redeemed from the sin, wickedness and abominations that were upon it. The earth is now pretty near ripe, and when ripened the Lord will cut them off. These things are before the Latter-day Saints, but the world do not believe in them any more than they believed in the message of Noah or Lot.

Brethren and sisters, let us read the revelations of God for ourselves, and when we read them, let us believe them, and try to live in such a way that we may be ready for whatever dispensation the Lord may have in store for us, and so that we can acknowledge his hand as Job did, and not find any fault with him because of his providences toward us. If we cannot comprehend them now, we shall be able to do so in a little while. The Lord may have purposes in view in his dealings with us that we do not understand; I presume he has. In fact, the whole of the dealings of God to man are a mystery. There is a veil over the world, and it is ordained of God that it should be so, for if it were not so, and if men could comprehend eternal things, as God comprehends them, there is no man on the earth, no matter how wicked he may be, but what would be willing to keep the commandments of God, and to pass through anything that God ordained, for therein he would see there was salvation and eternal life. But God has an order in these matters, as he revealed unto Joseph Smith. He said unto Joseph—“I will prove you whether you will abide in my covenant; if you are not willing to abide in my covenant even unto death, you are not worthy of me.” And it is so with the Saints. If they are not willing to abide in the covenants they have made with God, even unto death if necessary, they are not worthy of him. Jesus laid down his life to redeem the world, and passed through suffering and affliction all his life in order that he might fulfill the mission which was given him. So it is with us. The Lord says—“I am going to prove the children of men.” There are a few individuals in this dispensation who will inherit celestial glory, and a few in other dispensations; but before they receive their exaltation they will have to pass through and submit to whatever dispensation God may decree. But for all this they will receive their reward—they will become Gods, they will inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities and powers through the endless ages of eternity, and to their increase there will be no end, and the heart of man has never conceived of the glory that is in store for the sons and daughters of God who keep the celestial law. And yet God has a veil over all in regard to these things. The whole world will be judged according to the deeds done in the body, and they will inherit kingdoms according to the laws which they have kept, every man being preserved by the law which he has observed, and all will be saved in some glory, except the sons of perdition.

Now, brethren and sisters, the Gospel of Christ is before us. We are all passing along, and it will only be a little time before a good many of us will be on the other side of the veil. Our friends are passing off every day, and we look in vain for many with whom we have been familiar in years that are past. If I go into a congregation of ten thousand and enquire for the Saints I knew in Kirtland, and request them to lift up their hands, it will be like a standard bearer on the mountains, there is only here and there one. You ask a congregation how many of them knew Joseph Smith, and it is only here and there one, they are passing away to the other side of the veil. It is so with us all, we are hastening to the end of life’s journey, and a good many of us are on the downward grade. I ask that what little time I live, I may keep the faith and have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and of the Saints of God, that when I get through I may be satisfied with life, satisfied with my acts, that I may receive a welcome into the Kingdom of God. That is all I ask and all I labor for. As for riches and wealth, I do not want them if they will damn me. I would like to have enough to clothe, shoe and feed my wives and children, and to make them comfortable, if I can get it honestly before the Lord; but I would rather myself and them all be in poverty than to have wealth and be destroyed. Riches are dangerous unless we can use them so as not to destroy us; if we cannot use them to the glory of God and for the building up of his Kingdom, we are better without them. I do not expect to live a great many years longer. The young, the middle-aged and the old are dying off. For many years of my life the gospel of Jesus Christ has been a consolation to me. I have spent a good deal more than half of my life in laboring in this Church. I labored to find this Church, I may say, from my childhood up, and many a midnight hour have I pled with the Lord, in the wilderness, in the woods, and in my mill, and under various circumstances, that the Lord would let me find a people who contended for the faith once delivered to the Saints. I desired this from reading the Bible, and from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for in the pages of that sacred book I learned that a people once lived upon the earth who had communion with God, and they had power to command the elements, and they obeyed them; they conversed with angels, and had the gifts and graces of a religion which had power and salvation in it. I could not find this on the face of the earth. I prayed to the Lord to let me live to find such a people, and he promised that I should, and I have lived to find them. I have seen the faces of Prophets and inspired men, and it has been a great consolation to me. I have my failings and imperfections, and I expect that we are all subject to them, more or less. I want to overcome them, because I desire to partake of eternal life. I also desire this for the Saints of God and for the honest and meek of the earth everywhere.

I have labored many years, and traveled without purse and scrip, preached without money and without price, for the purpose of saving my fellow men. I labor on Mount Zion to try and save the dead; I spend a good deal of time in this. It is a consolation to me, I pray God my heavenly Father to bless you and all the Latter-day Saints, and that he will give us enough of his Holy Spirit to keep us in the path of duty and rectitude, virtue and righteousness, that we may be justified before him. I pray my heavenly Father that he will bless Brother and Sister Wheeler in their bereavement, and give them his Holy Spirit, that, when they lie down at night and rise in the morning and miss their children they may feel to commit themselves into the hands of the Lord, and realize that their separation from their little ones is not forever, but that in a little while they will be restored to them. This applies to us all in the loss of our children. We lay them away in the grave, but they will come forth in the morning of the resurrection, and if we are faithful to the truth, we shall receive them and rejoice with them; and when we have passed through the sorrows of mortality and have the joy and glory of the celestial kingdom conferred upon us we shall then know that the afflictions of mortality have prepared us for and enabled us to appreciate the blessings which God has in store for the faithful.

May God bless us, and give us his Spirit, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.