A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 9, 1856.

I rise to explain one principle to Elders who are in the habit of preaching the Gospel to the world. Not but what their views coincide with mine, not but what they fully comprehend the matter, but all have not the power and faculty to develop what is in them; some are at a loss to explain that which they understand.

I wish to refer more particularly to a remark made by brother Benjamin L. Clapp, who has just been speaking to us concerning men coming to him in Texas, and saying that things were thus and so in Utah. What can they tell about Utah? To begin with, they do not know any evil of this people; the sins of this people are with themselves and their God. I defy all hell and all the devils in and about the inhabitants of the earth to substantiate permanent acts of wickedness against the Elders of this people.

Suppose that men came to brother Benjamin in Texas, and told him that I was the biggest scoundrel in the world, do not this people know better about that than they? And even Benjamin himself knows it to be a falsehood. We know that is falsehood, and I should have taken the liberty of telling them so.

I never preached in Texas, but I have preached in places as wicked; and when a man told me that which was not true about this people or about the leaders of this people, I would take the liberty of telling him that he was not telling the truth. I preached during twenty-four or twenty-five years among the wicked, and I never yet saw a man that I was afraid to tell that he was saying that which was not so, when I knew better; frequently they would turn and say to me, “You had better tell me that I lie,” and my prompt reply would be, you do, sir, and that before God.

What fault could the world justly find with this people? Some have passed through here to California to dig gold, but they have received nothing at the hands of this people but kindness. What do they know about us? They cannot charge us with one evil. Suppose there are wicked men here, I say the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that gathers fish both good and bad, and I say this because it is true.

We have in our community the worst creatures that the world can produce; the Gospel net must gather them of necessity, or the saying of Jesus, and what he knew of the kingdom in the last day would not come to pass. There are as bad men and women within the pales of this Church as there are upon this earth, and the Gospel being preached to them prepares them to become devils. As you have frequently been told, that is the only way men can become devils; they must have the knowledge to sin against the Holy Ghost, or yet the day of redemption awaits them, one or the other.

Suppose I was preaching in the world, and they should allege that some of the people in Utah swore, stole, and were wicked in many ways, I would acknowledge it to be the case. They might then inquire, “Why do you say that you have got the Gospel of salvation? And why do you come to us to preach, seeing that your own people do wickedly?” I would reply that the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that gathers fish of all kinds, therefore we must have the good and the bad in Utah, or else it cannot be the kingdom of heaven.

We have some of the bad, and those who pass through our settlements, or sojourn in our midst for a brief period, become familiar with those who are wicked, but do not become acquainted with the righteous. The great majority of this people are righteous, but the worldlings seek out and mingle with the few wicked here, because both those classes love the spirit of the world.

As to the great argument against the kingdom of God, because there are some evildoers in the Church, I will take the principles and doctrines taught by Jesus and his Apostles, and show that these go to prove and substantiate the fact that this is the kingdom of God. Why? Because we can produce the meanest curses there are on the earth, those who take all the revelations given by the Almighty, and every influence and revelation they can get from the devil, and make use of them to add sin to sin. This fact is also another proof that all hell is against this people, for there is not a person in the world, that gives way to wickedness, but what has antipathy against this people.

Now hearken, O ye Texans; do you say there are people here who are wicked? So we say. Could I wish things to be otherwise? No, I would not have them different if I could. We can produce the best men and the worst, the best women and the worst, and thus prove, according to the sayings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, that this is the kingdom of God, or at least answers to the Savior’s description of that kingdom.

Were I in Texas I would say, let me tell you that I have not embraced any man on this earth, in my faith, but I have embraced the doctrine of salvation, and it is no matter what the people do in Utah. Here is the doctrine of salvation, talk against that, prove that to be false, or find a flaw in it, if you can. As for the people, they cannot save you. Never embrace a man in your faith, for that is sectarianism.

There are many of the men and women now before me who have looked for a pure people, and have supposed that that was a proof of the truth of our doctrines, but they will never find such a people until Satan is bound, and Jesus comes to reign with his Saints. The doctrine we preach is the doctrine of salvation, and it is that which the Elders of this Church take to the world, and not the people of Utah.

Some of the Elders seem to be tripped up in a moment, if the wicked can find any fault with the members of this Church; but bless your souls, I would not yet have this people faultless, for the day of separation has not yet arrived. I have many a time, in this stand, dared the world to produce as mean devils as we can; we can beat them at anything. We have the greatest and smoothest liars in the world, the cunningest and most adroit thieves, and any other shade of character that you can mention.

We can pick out Elders in Israel right here who can beat the world at gambling, who can handle the cards, cut and shuffle them with the smartest rogue on the face of God’s footstool. I can produce Elders here who can shave their smartest shavers, and take their money from them. We can beat the world at any game.

We can beat them, because we have men here that live in the light of the Lord, that have the Holy Priesthood, and hold the keys of the kingdom of God. But you may go through all the sectarian world, and you cannot find a man capable of opening the door of the kingdom of God to admit others in. We can do that. We can pray the best, preach the best, and sing the best. We are the best looking and finest set of people on the face of the earth, and they may begin any game they please, and we are on hand, and can beat them at anything they have a mind to begin. They may make sharp their two-edged swords, and I will turn out the Elders of Israel with greased feathers, and whip them to death. We are not to be beat. We expect to be a stumbling block to the whole world, and a rock of offense to them.

I never preached to the world but what the cry was, “That damned old Joe Smith has done thus and so.” I would tell the people that they did not know him, and I did, and that I knew him to be a good man; and that when they spoke against him, they spoke against as good a man as ever lived.

I recollect a conversation I had with a priest who was an old friend of ours, before I was personally acquainted with the Prophet Joseph. I clipped every argument he advanced, until at last he came out and began to rail against “Joe Smith,” saying, “that he was a mean man, a liar, money digger, gambler, and a whoremaster;” and he charged him with everything bad, that he could find language to utter. I said, hold on, brother Gillmore, here is the doctrine, here is the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the revelations that have come through Joseph Smith the Prophet. I have never seen him, and do not know his private character. The doctrine he teaches is all I know about the matter, bring anything against that if you can. As to anything else I do not care. If he acts like a devil, he has brought forth a doctrine that will save us, if we will abide it. He may get drunk every day of his life, sleep with his neighbor’s wife every night, run horses and gamble, I do not care anything about that, for I never embrace any man in my faith. But the doctrine he has produced will save you and me, and the whole world; and if you can find fault with that, find it. He said, “I have done.”

It is the fashion in the world to embrace men in their faith, or a fine meetinghouse, or a genteel congregation, thinking, “O, what perfect order, and how pretty they look; how straight they walk to meeting, and how long their faces are during the services; how pretty that deacon looks under the pulpit; the people are so pretty, the meetinghouse is so nice, that we want to join such pretty people.” Such feelings will take a people to hell. Embrace a doctrine that will purge sin and iniquity from your hearts, and sanctify you before God, and you are right, no matter how others act.

I wish you all to understand that no Elders go to any place among the world, but what the wicked find fault with the people of God. They found fault with Joseph Smith, and at length killed him, as they bare a great many others of the Latter-day Saints. What for? Because of his wickedness? No. But the cry was, “Away with him, we cannot do with this man nor with his people.” Did they hate him for his evil works? No. If he had been a liar, a swearer, a gambler, or in any way an evildoer, and of the world, it would have loved its own, and they would have embraced him, and nourished and kept him. If he had been a false prophet they never would have lifted a hand against him, because he could have spread still more delusion through the world around him.

We are hated, because we are righteous. If we have sinned, the people in Texas know nothing about it; they cannot in truth find a word of fault with the character of this people, except with the few we have on hand ready to beat them at their meanness. The Lord wants those few here to fulfil His words and purposes, and they are fit for no other place. The sheep and the goats, the calves and the pigs, are all good in their places. The Lord will make use of us to His glory; and though a good many of those who now profess to be good Latter-day Saints may meet condemnation, even their course will finally result to the glory of God. Are these ideas correct? Judge ye.

Now, brethren, let me say a few words to you. Let us repent of our backslidings and tell the people of Texas that we ask no odds of them, nor of anyone else but our Father and our God, and those we are associated with in His kingdom. As brother Benjamin has exhorted you, confess your faults to the individuals that you ought to confess them to, and proclaim them not on the housetops. Be careful that you wrong not yourselves. Do you not know that if a good person is guilty of committing a crime he thinks that everybody knows it, and is ready to confess here, and there, and everywhere he has an opportunity?

I do not want to know anything about the sins of this people, at least no more than I am obliged to. If persons lose confidence in themselves, it takes away the strength, faith and confidence that others have in them; it leaves a space that we call weakness. If you have committed a sin that no other person on the earth knows of, and which harms no other one, you have done a wrong and sinned against your God, but keep that within your own bosom, and seek to God and confess there, and get pardon for your sin.

If children have sinned against their parents, or husbands against their wives, or wives against their husbands, let them confess their faults one to another and forgive each other, and there let the confession stop; and then let them ask pardon from their God. Confess your sins to whoever you have sinned against, and let it stop there. If you have committed a sin against the community, confess to them. If you have sinned in your family, confess there. Confess your sins, iniquities, and follies, where that confession belongs, and learn to classify your actions.

Suppose that the people were to get up here and confess their sins, it would destroy many innocent persons. Does Texas know about it? No, nor you about one another, if you will be wise and confess your wrongs where they ought to be confessed, and keep the knowledge of them from every person it ought to be kept from. In this way you will have strength against the enemy, who would otherwise buffet you and say, “Here is your wickedness made manifest,” and would overcome you and destroy all the confidence you have in yourselves and in your God.

If the Lord has confidence in you, preserve it, and take a course to produce more. If the Lord had a people on the earth that He had perfect confidence in, there is not a blessing in the eternities of our God, that they could bear in the flesh, that He would not pour out upon them. Tongue cannot tell the blessings the Lord has for a people who have proved themselves before Him.

That we may have confidence in Him, and He in us, let us take a course to create it, that He may open the heavens and pour upon us the blessings and power of the Holy Ghost.

Fathers, reflect for yourselves. Suppose that a father had thirty thousand dollars to distribute among three of his boys, and that one of them was a spendthrift who would prodigally sow his share to the four winds, and cause his wife and children to come on his father for support. Would that father have confidence to bestow ten thousand dollars on his spendthrift son? No, but he would deal it out to that son’s wife and children as they might need, and the rest he would preserve for him to another time. Our Father has to deal in that manner with us, for He has not confidence to know that we will do the things we ought and economize His blessings, if He should bestow them upon us.

We are like children who want the looking-glass to play with, and who cry for the sharp razor and for the moon they see reflected in the water, desiring them for playthings. Let us take such a course that God will have confidence in us, and then we shall receive all we need, all we desire and ask for.

Take a wise course; do not be foolish. I want you to reform, for there is need of it; though the world knows nothing about it. They hate us for the truth’s sake, and seek to destroy us; and I say to them, go it ye cripples, while you are young; for the day is coming in which you will find yourselves as badly crippled as ever the “Mormons” were.

May the Lord bless you. Amen.

A Discourse by President J. M. Grant, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 9, 1856.

I believe, with brother Kimball, that many of this people partake of the sacrament unworthily. Some will steal their neighbor’s spade, or his crowbar, or wood from his pile, or cabbages and potatoes from his garden, or hay from his stack, or go into his yard and milk his cows, and commit numerous other sins, and the next day come here and partake of the sacrament.

When I see persons very religious outwardly, I always look for them to commence stealing the first opportunity they have, and on the next day expect to hear them speak in tongues in some class meeting, or ward meeting, and give the interpretation of tongues, or relate some remarkable dream or vision. I noticed another thing in this Tabernacle. When it was first completed, brother Brigham wanted a certain number of seats reserved for his family. Now, would you believe that some of the most pious old ladies and sisters in the Church would be at the four doors of this Tabernacle by seven o’clock in the morning, that they might crowd into seats reserved for the President’s family and crowd them out. Those are professedly the most pious among us; bless you, they are professedly just as full of religion as they can be.

I wish to see people come to meeting right and in order; to do so they must be right at home, they must be right all the while.

I seriously question, when some people are baptized, whether they do not come out of the water the same poor miserable devils as they went in.

There must be a foundation in the people, the right standard in the breast, and that must be inherent in the people more or less, or else our professions are in vain. I, therefore, want every person to leave the bread in the salvers, and the water in the cups, and not partake of the sacrament, unless they are right. I want every thief, and every unrighteous person to let the bread alone.

If I could have one prayer effectually answered forthwith, it would put a stop to a great many evils in Israel, to say the least of it. But as the work of reformation increases among the people, our President says, and it is so, that we may look for the workings of an opposite power. The solution he gave last night, in the High Priest’s Quorum, is the best explanation that I have heard concerning the fogs that we have felt for some time past. The principle was this, that as we advance in the light and in the truth, the arch adversary and his associates will make a corresponding effort to darken our minds and becloud our atmosphere, and thereby throw us into the fog.

I am aware that we have only a few among us but what feel determined to reform; the great majority wish to live their religion, and I am glad of it. I believe that the majority of this congregation that are here today actually intend to do right. Now do not let the devil cheat you; and if the devil marshals his forces against you and beclouds your minds, tell him that you are serving the God of Israel. If you are in the dark and cannot get light, keep a firm hold on the foundation of truth, and be determined not to be jostled off it.

Brother Kimball frequently alludes to discords in families. I was listening, as I came along the street, to a Bishop who spoke of discord in a certain family in his Ward. The person he alluded to has but one wife and is said to be a fine man, and his wife is said to be a fine woman, and of good parentage. They have some five promising children, but that woman wants to forsake her husband and go to her father.

You may sum up the difficulties in families throughout the country, and you will find ten to one more jars in families where there is but one wife, than in families where there are a number.

I believe there has been a disposition, on the part of some men and women to break the strong tie that ought to bind families together, but I do not believe they will accomplish much. I look for our relations to be permanent and the institutions of the Church to be eternal, because they are perfectly right; I now refer more particularly to our family organizations. But there is more or less discord in families, I would like it to cease altogether; and I would actually like the day to come in Israel, when the people will not only love the doctrines and revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ, but rejoice that they live in the day when the Prophet Joseph has brought them forth.

To the man I have just now been alluding to, say to that wife, “Go to your darling people then.” If she wished to leave me, and the Almighty had blessed me with the means, I would bless her and bestow upon her everything I could. I would give her all my cattle, horses, and other property, and say, “God bless you, go and prosper, if you can.” If necessary, I would rise at midnight and write her out the neatest bill she ever saw, and I would figure it all over with flowers and doves, and bedeck it with red ribbons.

I make these remarks, not that I have had any difficulty with my own family, but because there is a principle I wish to speak upon. I believe that men should lead their families, and not drive them. Some people do not understand the difference between leading and driving a flock of sheep. Brother Willes has seen the shepherds and their flocks in the Eastern countries, and can tell you the difference in the management of flocks in those countries and America. In America the sheep are driven; in the East the shepherds lead their flocks. The American and English spirit, and also the spirit of some other nations, places the sheep in front and the shepherd must follow.

If there is any difficult place, a stream to ford, or a slippery log to walk on, the American’s spirit is to try his wife first on the log, to drive his wife and children across first; he must drive. I do not like that, though some men are almost compelled to do so, because the women are determined to lead.

I have traveled with brother He– ber, and I never saw a milder man in my life, when everything is right and people keep out of his track. But when they get in his path he is obliged to tread on their heels, for they cannot walk so fast as he can. He is not to blame for that; they are to blame.

In the early ages of the world there was a youth imprisoned by the ruler of the people. His parents went to the ruler and pled with him to release their son, but they could not prevail at first. They then wept and tore their reverend locks from their heads to move the ruler to pity, and when they had done this he released their son from prison. The historian remarks that it was not so much the weakness existing in the youth’s parents that caused them to tear their hair, as it was the obstinacy in the ruler; they were obliged to take that course, resort to such means, to effect their purpose.

Am I to blame for scolding the people? Not at all. Is brother Heber? Not at all. Is he to blame for chastising an unruly wife? No. If she gets in his path and he steps on her heels, is he to blame? No, and if she is hurt thereby, it is the result of her own acts.

What will be the result of the chastisements given to this people? I answer, if they heed them, they will bring them into the true path. It is the situation of the people that prompts the teachings they now receive from God’s servants. If all the people did right, they would not be chastised at all. If a man’s family conduct themselves right, do you suppose that a consistent, reasonable man will find fault with them? No. If all the people in a Ward do right, will the Bishop chastise them? No; but if they do not do right, the Bishop is placed under the necessity of coming forth, clothed in the armor and power of the Almighty, to put them right, and of calling upon the teachers to assist him in this work. And when the people repent and are found to be on the right track, the Bishop lays the rod on the shelf.

This is the case with brother Brigham. Does he chastise this, that, and the other man, because he likes the job? No. You know that he is mild, and is a father to this people; and were I to take any exception to his course, it would be on account of his being so merciful. Why? Because he is more merciful than I am. When he extends mercy to the people, he deals it out more lavishly than I would, unless the Lord should lead me as he does him. I have not so much mercy, so much of God and eternal life in me as brother Brigham has in him; it does not belong to me to have so much, for he stands at the fountain of life; he descends below all things and ascends above all things to this dispensation.

I hear men undertake to laugh and joke in their familiar chat with each other, and say that they heard brother Brigham say this or that, and that they saw brother Brigham do this, that, or the other, and strive to justify themselves on that account. But brother Brigham commands an influence that you do not command, and cannot be thrown off the line of propriety and truth, as easily as you and I. When men do not know the power that constrains them, they ought to be cautious how they speak and how they act.

Brother Brigham is a father to the Quorums of this Church; and when the people are right, has he a disposition to chastise them? No, he has a fatherly feeling to bless them, and so has brother Heber. I do not know whether I have as much of that feeling as either of them, with regard to the Church, but I do not suppose that there is a man on the earth that is fonder of children than I am. If I do not like old people so well as some do, I like children well enough to balance the deficiency.

I would be glad to see more peace, mercy, truth, equity, justice, and righteousness made manifest in the midst of this people. We want the hay, the straw, the wood, the stubble, the dross, and every impure principle burnt up. When a man is wrong and will turn round and do right, I love him better than I did before. We do not feel like casting you off, like casting you into the mire, and saying “God Almighty damn you.” “Get out of the mud and may the Lord God of Israel bless you” is what we say. I had rather bless ten men than curse one. I am not led to curse, but I am led to chastise iniquity, to bring out the alloy, expose sins and bring to light that which is wrong among the people; but I do not want to curse them.

I tell you that the devil is working against us, and Lucifer is in the land. Did you know that he had come to this country? Let me tell you the news today, if you have not heard it; he has come to this country and has been seen, the real old fellow himself, the same Lucifer that was cast down from heaven.

Another thing; did you know that all hell is let out for noon? The master is in the schoolhouse, therefore. When we talk of hell we mean uncle Jim, uncle Bill, uncle Sam, and all our uncles and cousins over the wide world. We mean old Babylon, the confusion that is over the wide world.

But thanks be to our God, and to high heaven, the light of God is here and the truth of God is here, and we have waged a war with Lucifer, under the banner of the Lord Jesus Christ. May we be able to stand in the contest and overcome. We bring no railing accusation against our common enemy, but we tell him and his host that they must surrender. We say to the sinners in Zion, be afraid, you must surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. We say to you, Saints, rub up your armor, gird on the sword of the Almighty and walk forth to battle, and never yield the ground.

Some men say that they feel sick and faint, and weary, when they see so much darkness among the people. I feel as though I could say to the mountains and to all hell, get out of my way, or I will kick you out; I am not going to surrender. I want no poor pussyism around me; hang not your sickle on the tree to rust, but make it still sharper, and cut more grain in one day than you have ever done; and tell the devil that you are ahead of him. You old men, that let your sickles rust, take them down and sharpen them up, and walk into the fields and reap down the grain, that there may be wheat in the house of our God, for the harvest is great and the reapers are few.

I am not of that class that believes in shrinking; if there is a fight on hand, give me a share of it. I am naturally good natured, but when the indignation of the Almighty is in me I say to all hell, stand aside and let the Lord Jesus Christ come in here; He shall be heir of the earth; the truth shall triumph, the Priesthood and Christ shall reign.

I had rather fight the devils that are out of tabernacles, than those that are embodied. The grand difficulty we have to encounter is from devils that enter into you; they take possession of your houses, and then we have to fight devils in tabernacles. We want the devils cast out of you, and the power of God and the light of the Almighty to shine in you as a lamp.

The result of the teachings we are receiving, if practiced, will reform the whole community. When you are right we will cease to chastise, we will cease to rebuke; we will cease throwing the arrows of the Almighty through you, we will cease telling you to surrender, to repent of all your sins. But until you do this, we will continue to throw the arrows of God through you, to hurl the darts of heaven upon you and the power of God in your midst; and we will storm the bulwarks of hell, and we will march against you in the strength of the God of Israel. And by the power of the Priesthood restored by the Prophet Joseph, by the light of heaven shed forth by brother Brigham and his associates, we expect to triumph; and in the name of Jesus Christ, we do not mean to surrender to evil.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, November 9, 1856.

I wish to say to the brethren, as many as are here today, who have come across the Plains with the handcarts, that I feel to bless you, and you may be sure that you have my best feelings all the time.

While brother Ellsworth was speaking about the Spirit, and the spirits that were around them, the spirit that he seemed to have to contend with, and the spirit that the people had to contend with, I wanted to tell one secret. While those brethren and sisters were faltering, and did not know whether to stop or go along, there was faith in this valley that bound them to that journey and they were obliged to perform it, they could not help performing it. Who had that faith? The people here; and the Spirit of the Lord was all the time prompting them, and the brethren who led them. They were, as many are now, they were prompted to do as they did; they could not do anything else, because God would not let them do anything else. The brethren and sisters came across the Plains because they could not stay; that is the secret of the movement. But let the devil have his will, and do you suppose that any of them could have crossed the Plains? No, not a person ever would have started. But they did start, and they performed the journey.

We are doing a great many things, and Joseph did a great many things, because the Spirit of the Lord prompts us to do them, as it prompted him. Joseph could not do anything else than what he did; it is the same with us all the time. The Lord prompted the handcart companies all the time, in the midst of their afflictions, to prepare for and start upon their journey, and they only had faith and power for the day, and on the morrow it seemed as though they certainly had to stop. But when tomorrow came they had faith and power to perform the journey of that day, and so they have been prompted day by day, to this point.

God is at the helm of this great ship, and that makes me feel good. When I think about the world, and the enemies of the cause of God, I care no more about them than I do for a parcel of musketoes. All hell may howl, and they may run up and down the earth and seek whom they may destroy, but they cannot move the faithful and pure in heart. Let those apostatize who wish to, but God will save all who are determined to be saved.

Brethren and sisters, I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Discourse by President Jedediah M. Grant, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 2, 1856.

I always regret that circumstances should occur to call from our President remarks like some of those he was moved upon to make this forenoon; but such circumstances do occur, hence similar remarks must be made.

As an individual I have been and am very anxious in relation to the immigration now upon the Plains. Their situation is very distressing, and several have died in brother Willie’s company. Some had died before the brethren could reach them, and a few more died during the first five days after they met them. The company had encountered cold and storms, and one very stormy day which caused nearly one-third of the deaths that had happened.

They had no serious or contagious diseases, but the storms came and the air was very cold, as a matter of course some who were fatigued with the toil and anxiety of the journey sank under the inclemency of the weather; they were furnished by those that returned to them, with shoes, clothing, and food. They were not entirely destitute of provisions when the return teams met them; their rations at the outfitting were more than those of the companies in advance of them. When met they had nearly four hundred pounds of sea bread, but their last rations of flour had been dealt out on the evening previous.

Brother Willie’s company was met with on the upper crossing of Sweet Water, but the whereabouts of the ox-trains and the handcart company in rear of brother Willie are yet unknown to us.

We have now some two hundred teams out to meet them, and some were only prepared with seven days forage for animals. It will be necessary for more teams to go to their relief, with grain and hay to sustain the animals already sent out, or they will die.

The weather had been cold enough to freeze over the Sweet Water; I mention this that you may know how the thermometer stood in that region; and some animals had been frozen to death. It is winter where they are, and they are actually in the cold and snow which was near one foot deep, and as they went east it appeared to grow deeper.

The observations made this morn– ing, as a matter of course, would only be treasured up by those who had in them the spirit of life. We have persons that have so much death in them that they do not know the counsels that are given to the immigrating Saints, that do not know the tenor of advice contained in the general epistles of the Presidency of the Church. But I do not suppose that the thinking part of the community anticipated any censures being placed upon the First Presidency of this Church, in consequence of the sufferings of the people now upon the Plains. Still there is a certain class of people whose brains never reach above the calves of their legs, and they never will know anything about the general policy of the Church, about what is written, what is desired, counseled, or asked for.

In relation to handcart companies, I have said, and I say it again, that they should start by the first of May, and then they can travel leisurely according to their strength and feelings; they can then have May, June, July, and August for the accomplishment of their journey. They could not travel so leisurely this year, from the fact that there were no grain depots on the route, consequently they had to hurry through, lest their rations should fail. Were grain deposited at convenient points on the route, the trip is, in every sense of the word, a feasible one for handcarts, for without that advantage, the present year has proved the feasibility of the undertaking.

The grand difficulty with a portion of our immigration this year has been in starting in the forepart of September instead of the first of May, but even then it is worse with ox teams than with handcarts, for if the cattle fail the people have no facilities for transporting their tents, bedding, clothing, and provisions. Unless I have different feelings to what I now have, I should never wish to see a train leave the Missouri River after the middle of June, or after the first day of July at the latest, until we can establish grain depots on the route, for I do not consider any train safe in starting late.

Brother Brigham has invariably advised early starts, and he gave his reasons for so doing this morning, and I do not wish to reiterate them.

I wish to see those who are directly engaged in carrying out the operations of gathering the Saints, to correctly understand the advice given and the system adopted for the gathering, and when they understand that and carry it out, as planned and given by brother Brigham, our immigration will be free from the sad results of mismanagement. But for persons, who are ignorant of the special causes and agents in any unpleasant transaction, to at once blame the head is the height of nonsense, though people in all ages have been prone to censure their leader, in times of special distress. When crickets and grasshoppers devour, when famine wastes, and when snows, storms, and accidents occur, it is natural, in that portion of the community that lack the gift of the Holy Ghost, to murmur against the leader of the people.

With Saints, what is the practical result of that murmuring? It shuts down the gate between you and heaven, between you and the Almighty, and you cannot get the Spirit of God. The murmurings and rebellions of ancient Israel prevented Moses from leading them to the land of Canaan. So soon as they had to endure hardship they began to murmur against Moses, and the result was the Lord would not give them His Spirit; the same has been the result in this dispensation.

In the days of Joseph, if a woman happened to put on her stocking wrong side out she would blame the Prophet; and if a man happened to tie his shoestring in a hard instead of a bow knot, he was angry with the Prophet for not having inspiration enough to have prevented so dire an event. The brains of that class of people never reach above the calves of their legs. I like to see the people have a little hard sense, like the mule; I like to see them understand the principles of the Son of God.

With regard to this people, I know that they are the best people on the earth, but there is more or less alloy among them which we hate. The Savior said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a net that gathereth all kinds of fish; and I believe that parable holds good in our day, with regard to the gathering of the people that are caught by the Gospel of the Son of God, through the practical preaching of the Elders. I believe this, from observing the unwise sayings and doings of some who profess to be Saints.

I am aware that the world, because we are not all strictly living our religion, will imagine, as a matter of course, that we are bursting to pieces up here, and will say, “That is what we like; we told you that if you would let the ‘Mormons’ alone they would all burst to pieces.” We can, by taking an unrighteous course, burst ourselves to pieces, but they cannot burst us to pieces, if we do right, that is certain, for they tried it when there were but eight or ten in the Church, and when there were a few hundred, and when there were a few thousand, and they were unable to burst the Church. Now they flatter themselves that we shall burst under the weight of our own conduct, but I will tell you that we are after the evildoers.

If the Bishops and Teachers will go to work, together with every officer in the Church, we can soon find out those who are not disposed to do right; and let their names be written down, and let the offense and place of residence be written against the name, that we may know who are living in sin, where they live and what their offenses are.

I know that a great many people are full of sympathy, and yet they talk of the celestial law that they are going to keep and abide; but let me tell you that if you violate that law, you must meet the penalty. How many have we got here that would sympathize with those who are guilty of breaking their covenants, and thereby virtually partake of their crimes? I believe it to be a correct doctrine that the sympathizer is more or less implicated. The President enjoined it on the High Priests to expose those they knew to have committed or to be committing evil, and if they did not, hereafter the sin would be upon their heads.

Let the whole people take warning; and let every man and woman in Israel understand that the indignation of the Almighty rests upon that person who fails to expose iniquity. And let the wrath of God be upon any officer of the Church that knows of abomination, unless he comes out and makes known that abomination. I believe this ought to be, for we want the evil deeds of every person exposed.

We want to feel after the people and hunt them up; and we want the wrath of Brigham, and the wrath of Heber, and the wrath of all the men and woman on earth that are right, and the wrath of Joseph, and the wrath of Michael, and the wrath of Raphael, and the wrath of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the wrath of Almighty God and of all the Gods in eternity to burn against those that will sin. And we want the indignation and fire of the Almighty to sweep through the land like the locusts of Egypt, until every nauseous weed that grows among the Saints of God is destroyed.

Words are said to be light and windy, but I tell you that talking these things foreshadows what will be literally and really. I would be glad, when I speak to the people, that the Lord would let His Holy Spirit accompany my words, for I do not want my words to go alone. We have to speak to this people often, and when we talk to them like a man reading off a sermon that is written, it takes but little effect. When words go to the people alone, they are not profited by them.

Instead of all the people being desirous and anxious, as they should, to serve their God and practice what they know to be right, many are all the time longing for some fantastical doctrine, for something to gratify their vain imaginations. If you wish to feast on the word of God and feel its realities, you must practice the revelations of Jesus Christ. You must advance and do the will of God, and then you will be blest.

I am aware, as the President said this morning, that it is of no use talking about the Holy Ghost, the power of God, the gift of God, or the light of the Almighty resting on this people, until they become morally reformed. Some people laugh at and deride sectarian religion. I never was a sectarian; I have been in this Church from my boyhood; but in the region where I was raised, sectarian morality exceeds, in some respects, the morality of many who call themselves Latter-day Saints.

Some here keep their children too dirty for admission into a district school where I was raised; and in some houses the towels look as though they had passed Noah’s ark, or had been used by some of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the knives and forks have the appearance of having been rusting ever since Adam was driven from the garden of Eden.

I want to see the people wake up and reform, forsake all their evil habits and everything that is dark, loathsome and impure. I want to see them eschew all dirt, and filth, and degradation, and cease profaning the Sabbath, and the name of the Lord God of Israel; I want to see them become at least as moral and temperate as any people in the Gentile world, as we call it. I tell you that the Gentiles would be shocked at the filth and dirt of some of the sons and daughters of Israel, and feel offended to associate with them; I mean that portion of the Gentiles that are pure in their moral habits.

I want to see the people repent, as the President said this morning, and make a reformation in their lives, in their doings, and in keeping their houses, farms, and everything they have, clean and tidy.

We talk about our boys being smarter than their fathers. How many of our boys are learning trades, are learning to be farmers, or to understand any useful occupation? How many boys have we that are trustworthy; and as good as their fathers were at the same age? I know that our boys are bright and active, full of energy, life, and power, but many of the parents do not teach their children as they ought. They expect the schoolmaster to teach them, but what can the schoolmaster teach them, when the parents teach them nothing at home, and take no interest in what they are learning at school?

We talk about daughters rivaling their mothers. How many daughters have we that know how to spin, make butter, keep hairs and flies’ wings and legs on one plate, and the butter on the other, make good cheese, knit their own stockings, and make good hasty pudding or mush? How many of them can make their own bonnets and dresses? How many know how to use fine needles and coarse needles, and every kind of needles?

Many parents need to reform. Let the fathers teach their sons how to work, the art of chopping and hauling wood, of breaking up the ground, and of raising grain, cattle, sheep, hogs, &c.; and let the mothers set their daughters to work; and let every man, woman, and child, that is old enough, learn the arts of industry.

We want every Bishop to teach these reforms in Israel, we want every man in Israel to teach them; and when all reform in such matters, the Lord our God, will shower His blessings upon the people of this city and upon the people in the valleys of these mountains.

You may talk of reform, you may preach upon a virtuous life, upon cleanliness, upon God and the Holy Ghost, but while there is filth around the house, filth in the yard, and in every part of the city, your preaching will not amount to much. Some people are never contented unless the cow yard is under their noses, the hen coop in the parlor, and the privy in the kitchen, that is if they have any privy.

I want the people to wake up to a sense of their duty, and begin to serve God and repent of their sins, repent of every improper habit.

I sometimes confess men’s sins for them, and they will get up and parry off. I confessed a man’s sins here lately, and he supposed that I did not know what I was talking about. If he had corrected me a little further, I would have told all his sins; I would have told the things that were in his very heart; and if he parries again, I will come out more pointedly than I did then.

In some of the wards men will rise up and confess their sins, and after a week’s reflection, they will go to meeting and commence parrying, and make themselves as good as an angel. Again, some people, when they get the Spirit of God, when they actually pray fervently, are deemed by their neighbors to have sectarian religion. If God Almighty moves upon a man to pray with a loud voice and in earnest, some are ready to exclaim that he is a sectarian, and are so anxious to put away sectarianism, that they bundle the religion of Jesus Christ out of doors. In their zeal against sectarianism and doctrines they do not like, they leave God and the Lord Jesus Christ out of the question, and prayer, and keeping the Sabbath, and moral honesty, and virtue, and purity and everything that is good.

Every portion of sectarian religion that is good is my religion. If they have a precious gem it belongs to my religion; if it is purity, virtue, integrity, the gift of the Holy Ghost, fervency, and prayer, it is my religion. Some people talk of wildfire; I would rather have wildfire than no fire at all. I would like you to come up to the light of the Almighty, and if you want to pray to God, if you want to shout and make heaven and earth ring—drive the devil out of doors, chase darkness from your houses, and from your families, and raise the banner of the Lord Jesus Christ in your households, and the flag of God in your city, and say, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will do right, and root up everything that is wrong.

This makes me think of a circumstance that occurred when we went to Kaysville to preach the reformation, under the direction of brother Brigham. There was a dark and dull spirit there which was not very congenial to our natures, and brother Joseph Young felt life in him, he was full of the Spirit. After staying a couple of days, he said to me, “Brother Grant, they feel cold, and I guess we had better go to Farmington, preach there, and go home.” After a while I said to him, “Do you know how I feel about it? In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will never leave this land, until this people surrender. I will hang the flag of the Lord Jesus Christ on their doors, and there shall be a siege of forty days. Then let every man storm the castle, and rule against the bulwarks of hell, and let every Elder throw the arrows of God Almighty through the sinner, and pierce their loins, and penetrate their vitals, until the banner of Christ shall wave triumphantly over Israel. Shall we give up, and let the wicked and ungodly overcome us? No, in the name and by the power of God we will overcome them. We will cleanse the inside of the platter and have Israel saved, through the name of Jesus Christ, and by the power of his word.”

Those who will not repent by the preaching of the Gospel, we will bring to the standard of the Lord Jesus Christ in the right and proper way, for we are determined to save you all, if possible. In former days the Lord cut off rebellious Israel by thousands, to save them; He had no other way for saving them. He had tried every other means; He had opened the sea for them to pass over dryshod, and overthrew their enemies, the horse and his rider, in the flood; He made the mountains skip like rams, and the little hills like lambs; He spoke to the angels, saying, throw down your food to them, and the bright clouds shed down manna to sustain them; He spake to them in thunders, in lightnings, in earthquakes, and tried every means to save them, that a God could try in the plentitude of His mercy, and when He had exhausted the arrows of His wrath in chastisement, and the wells of His mercy in blessings and entreaty, He cut them off by thousands.

O Israel, hear, while the voice of entreaty is in the land, hear the voice of brother Brigham, and awake from your slumbers; forsake your sins and abominations and turn unto your God, that repentance may reach you, and remission of sins, and the gifts and blessings of God come upon you. May God bless you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 2, 1856.

You have heard what brother Brigham has said to you today, and his words are as true as any that were ever spoken by Moses, by the Prophet Joseph Smith, or by any other man that ever lived or is now living upon the face of the earth.

Were this people living their religion as faithfully as they ought to, when a person rose up to teach you the principles of life and salvation, his mind would be free, his tongue would be loosed, and you would be able to draw from him those instructions best adapted to your feelings and circumstances. But at times it is almost impossible for a man to speak to this people. It seemed to brother Grant and me, in the Social Hall the other night, as though every person in that congregation had their hearts shut against our words; and in our congregations here I occasionally notice more or less of the same feeling. This may be measurably due to a murmuring spirit, which I am rather inclined to believe some of you have, and I will tell you wherein. Some find fault with and blame brother Brigham and his Council, because of the sufferings they have heard that our brethren are enduring on the Plains. A few of them have died, and you hear some exclaim, “What an awful thing it is! Why is it that the First Presidency are so unwise in their calculations? But it falls on their shoulders.” Well, the late arrival of those on the Plains cannot be helped now, but let me tell you, most emphatically, that if all who were entrusted with the care and management of this year’s immigration had done as they were counseled and dictated by the First Presidency of this Church, the sufferings and hardships now endured by the companies on their way here would have been avoided. Why? Because they would have left the Missouri River in season, and not have been hindered until into September.

There is a spirit of murmuring among the people, and the fault is laid upon brother Brigham. For this reason the heavens are closed against you, for he holds the keys of life and salvation upon the earth; and you may strive as much as you please, but not one of you will ever go through the strait gate into the kingdom of God, except those that go through by that man and his brethren, for they will be the persons whose inspection you must pass. I tell you this plain truth, and you may do what you think best with it.

Three handcart companies have arrived in safety and in good season, and with much less sickness and death than commonly occur in wagon companies. Does it make a man sick to labor and be diligent? Let me sit down and be inactive in mind and body, let me cease building and making improvements, or doing something useful, and I should not live six months, nor would brother Brigham, because we have become so inured to occupation.

If the immigration could have been carried on as dictated by brother Brigham, there would have been no trouble. The devil has tried to hedge up the way, so that we should not bring about the wise plans devised by our President, and has tried to make those plans look as disagreeable and as miserable as possible. Our brethren and sisters on the Plains are in my mind all the time, and brother Brigham has given, to those who wish it, the privilege of going back to help bring them in. If I do not go myself I will send a team, though I have already sent back nearly all my teams, and so has brother Brigham. Those who have gone back never will be sorry for or regret having done so. If brothers Joseph A. Young, my son William H., George D. Grant, and my son David P. had not gone to the assistance of those now on the Plains, I should always have regretted it. If they die during the trip, they will die while endeavoring to save their brethren; and who has greater love than he that lays down his life for his friends? Manifest your love by your works. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments;” by this you shall know that you love him. If you love brothers Brigham, Heber, Jedediah, and the Twelve, please to keep our commandments that are given to you from day to day, and you will be blest and exalted. I do not want a woman to tell me that she loves me, when she does not keep my commandments, for her statement would be vague and foolish.

Were I in the situation of some of you, I would not sleep another night before starting to the assistance of the people that are now struggling through the snow. I would not wait until tomorrow, I would start today, and I would toil until I reached those brethren, and they were in this valley. When the brethren who went back first met them, they felt as though they were truly saviors to them; and when they came into their midst, they would not permit them to go ten rods from them, for while one of them was present they felt as though they were safe, as though they would be preserved from misery, from starvation, and death. And yet, perhaps, some of these very persons we are striving to save may turn against the Church, and become our most bitter enemies.

Those that have died, I presume were some of the best men and women in the company, and the most faithful. Why did not the Lord take the ungodly? It may be that He thought He would let the devil handle them a little, and kill a few of them, and the devil is so much of a financier that he will not kill his own subjects. Well, if he has slain the Saints with God’s permission, and they were a good people coming to Zion to serve God and seek for eternal glory, they have gone home happy, and we will see them again. And they will thank God that they stepped out of the world when they did, for if they had come here they would have seen the wickedness of some of this people, and perhaps they would have become unrighteous too.

As brother Brigham has said, I would rather be helping in those on the Plains than to be here, if circumstances and duty would permit. We offered our offering and started to go, but the Lord ordered it otherwise and we came home. But we have done a better work than if we had gone, for the brethren would have said, “Brother Brigham is there with his Council, and we will sit down here and roast our shins, say our prayers and lull ourselves to sleep.” There would have been no general stir in behalf of our brethren on the Plains; but scores and hundreds have now gone to meet them, and they have had good weather so far, have they not?

I cannot account for the barrier that is between you and the Lord in any other way, only that there is quite a sympathy at work against brother Brigham and his Council. But there is not a thing which he has dic– tated but what has come out right, and will now, and will work together for good to those that love God and keep His commandments. We have to acknowledge the hand of God in all things; and that man or woman that feels to murmur and complain is in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, and does not know it. May God have mercy on you. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 2, 1856.

I am very thankful for the privilege that I enjoy this morning, with so many of the Latter-day Saints. I am thankful that we have the privilege of assembling here to worship the Lord in so comfortable a building, and in quite a moderate climate. I am happy for the privilege of addressing the Saints, and I could hope with all my heart, that I may never be called upon to address any other class of people; still, the Gospel must be preached to the world, that the wicked may be left without excuse. We have done a great deal of preaching and talking to persons that knew nothing of the Gospel of salvation, and I have occupied many years in trying to lay before the inhabitants of the earth the principles of life and salvation, until, through the providence of God, I have been called to other duties than to mingle or associate with those who would not believe and practice the Gospel. Still, I should have been more than satisfied, had my duty led me in a path to associate, more or less, with unbelievers, for I can say that I would rather preach to them, would rather associate with them, would rather take my chance among a people who have never heard the Gospel preached at all, than to live in the midst of the ungodly. The term ungodly conveys an idea to my mind, perhaps, that it does not to all present, for it is a fact that a man or woman must know the ways of God before they can become ungodly. Persons may be sinners, may be un– righteous, may be wicked, who have never heard the plan of salvation, who are even unacquainted with the history of the Son of Man, or who have heard of the name of the Savior, and, perhaps, the history of his life while on the earth, but have been taught unbelief through their tradition and education; but to be ungodly, in the strict sense of the word, they must measurably understand godliness.

It is lamentable to any person who understands by the visions of eternity the plan of salvation, the providences of God to His creatures, to see one who has his mind opened to see, understand, and embrace the principles of life and salvation in his faith, and who has the privilege of being adopted into the family of heaven, of becoming an heir with the Saints that have formerly lived upon the earth, an heir with the Prophets and with Jesus Christ, and of being numbered with the children of the Most High, with a legal administrator to officiate for the attainment of all these privileges, and to open the door of salvation and admittance into the kingdom, neglect so great a salvation. But for any of this people who enjoy the privilege of seeking unto the Lord their God, of being made acquainted with the ways of life and salvation, to procure to themselves an eternal exaltation, who have the privilege of preparing themselves to dwell with Christ in the presence of their Father and their God, of being joint heirs with Christ, and with all the Holy Ones that have lived, to turn from those holy commandments, to cease or neglect performing every duty made known to them, and to let the gay and giddy fancies of this life entangle their feelings, and draw them from the principles of eternal salvation, is most astonishing to me, or to any person that ever had the vision of their minds opened.

Every principle of philosophy that is known upon the face of the earth, every argument and reason that can be adduced, would prove that such a man or woman was taking a course destructive to themselves; that they were blindfolding themselves by shutting their own eyes, and, literally speaking, rushing to a precipice from whose verge they would be dashed to pieces. It is most astonishing to every principle of intelligence that any man or woman will close their eyes upon eternal things after they have been made acquainted with them, and let the gay things of this world, the lusts of the eye, and the lusts of the flesh, entangle their minds and draw them one hair’s breadth from the principles of life.

True there are many in the world who profess to be what we call infidels, who have no knowledge of anything beyond the researches of their education, who have not the faculty to pry into and understand things beyond what they can see with their natural eyes, hear with their ears, or comprehend with their natural understandings; yet there are but few that are really left indeed in the dark, left to be in reality what they profess to be. And those few have not one particle of good sound reason, not one argument on their side, to prove that a licentious, ungodly life is of any advantage to any person on the earth, but will argue the point, and that strenuously, that strict morality should be observed among all intelligences, and an honest bearing, an upright walk, and a gen– tlemanly conversation, not giving way to vulgarity and foul language, nor doing anything in the dark that they would not be willing to be scanned in daylight. For all this they argue strenuously, and yet say that they know nothing about God and eternity. We are here, we exist on the earth. I am sure that I am alive, for I can see others living. I am endowed with a certain degree of intelligence, where did it come from? An infidel might say, “I do not know.” Where did I originate? “I do not know.” Who was the maker and former of all we can see? “I do not know.” Yet those very characters will argue the necessity of a moral life, of an honest upright walk, one with the other.

But what are their arguments and what are their hopes? Why, they say, “We are today, tomorrow, perhaps, we shall be no more. We came into existence, but how we cannot tell. We have no faith, or belief, or confidence in the God that you Christians talk about; we have no confidence in His providence; by chance we are, and by chance we shall go and be no more.” Do you not perceive that their arguments land them in the vortex of ignorance and unbelief, of misery and annihilation? Go into the world and observe those who do not possess principles that reach into eternity, and that are in eternity, principles by which they exist and by which God created all things, and you will see that those principles are lost to them, and that, whether they believe in those principles or not, their course and profession will land them without an existence, or the possession of the least thing in heaven, earth, or hell.

These reflections bring to my understanding the greatest ignorance that can be manifested by an intelligent people, those in particular that are now before me, who have had the privilege of the holy Gospel and neg– lected their duty, turned away from the holy commandments, and ceased to live their religion in every point; such conduct does manifest the greatest weakness, ignorance, foolery, and wickedness that can be produced by intelligences. If you comprehend my ideas you will agree with me, for no sensible man or woman can see the subject in any different light. If we are here by chance, if we happened to slip into this world from nothing, we shall soon slip out of this world to nothing, hence nothing will remain; consequently we have nothing to gain or lose. But the man of better judgment, of more sound reasoning, must know that everything that was, that is, or that will be, everything that can be in all the eternities in the vast expanse that we behold, must have had a Creator. No principles exhibited to the human family will suggest that a book, a bench, a house, a tree, or any growing or manufactured article, can be produced without a producer. All we know, all we see, hear, and understand, proves to us that there is no fabric without a constructor.

These reflections lead me to contrast the world with a people like this before me, a people endowed with intelligence and a knowledge of heavenly principles. That is our profession before the world, and is our confession to God and angels, to all that have lived on the earth and that are now on it; and you will hear the world exclaim, “You poor Mormons, you Latter-day Saints that have left your homes, your houses, your friends, your families, your possessions, the place of your birth, and everything that is near and dear to you, you say that the visions of your minds have been opened, that you have had the visions of eternity opened to your understanding, so that you do know that there is a God, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world; so that you do know of the principles of life and salvation proffered to you; and for these you have forsaken all and gone to the mountains.”

Of these things the whole world are witnesses against us and for us, wherever the sound of this Gospel has been; and you can hardly find a nook on the earth where the sound of it has not reached, for it has gone to the uttermost parts of the earth, and hosts are witnesses of this. Yet all acknowledge that you have something superior, that you have light and intelligence that others do not enjoy; that God has opened up the heavens to your minds, and taken away the veil from your understandings. And you say that there is a God, that you understand His character, that He has revealed Himself to you, and that you have left all and come to the mountains, and what is the cry here? Why the people need reforming, there is necessity for reformation.

“I am thankful,” says one, “that I found the spirit of reformation when I came home.” What would an angel of the Lord say, if he came here, or a devil either? “O, shame on these Latter-day Saints, it is a disgrace to intelligence, to your officers as Elders in Israel, to your characters, to your names and beings on the earth, that you have had the visions of eternity opened to you, and many have forsaken everything that is near and dear to them by way of preparation for the Celestial kingdom, and now cry out the necessity of a reformation. It is most astonishing.” I will leave it to every man, woman, and child, if it does not look strange. What! Reformation? Yes, for in one sense we intend, that is as knowledge comes to us, to reform daily. But shall the sound go forth that we do not see and understand things as we did when in England, in France, in Germany, in Denmark, in the East Indies, or anywhere else on this earth? This sound goes forth, it is echoed by the angels into the ears of our God and Father in eternity, and it is carried on the wings of the wind over the earth, that the Latter-day Saints are digging and toiling, going by sea and by land, traversing distances of thousands of miles and circumscribing the earth to be with their brethren, and when they get here they need reforming. Why? Because they have backslidden.

You may ask me whether there is a need of reformation. Yes; and if I were to dictate you how to reform I should have to tell the old story over again, as I already have hundreds of times. First, reform as to your moral character, dealing, walk, precepts and examples. Reform first morally, before you get down before the Lord and plead with Him for the visions of eternity to be opened to your understandings, before you ask for the veil to be taken from your eyes. First reform in your moral character and conduct one towards another, so that every man and woman will deal honestly, and walk uprightly with one another, and extend the arm of charity and benevolence to each other, as necessity requires. Be moral and strictly honest in every point, before you ask God to reform your spirit.

If the people in their present situation and mode of dealing in this city, to say nothing of those out of the city, all go to work now and have meetings and call upon God to get the spirit of reformation, but sing and pray about doing right without doing it, instead of singing themselves away to “everlasting bliss,” they will sing and pray themselves into hell, shouting hallelujah. You cannot be saved by any other principle than that of the holy Gospel; and if you live in the neglect of the performance of the duties that you know are required at your hands, if you do not walk uprightly before God and your brethren, if you do not deal justly with one another, if you do not walk in honesty and soberness with one another, your faith is vain and your reformation is vain. You must repent of your evil deeds and first of all morally reform yourselves, before you can ask God for His Spirit to reform and enlighten your spirits. This is my doctrine and philosophy; were it not, I would say, let those who steal, steal on; and you that are in the habit of swearing, swear away; and you that have been in the habit of taking advantage of each other, cheat away; and those who lie, lie away; and you that trespass upon your brother, trespass away; and so continue, Christian like, only be sure, just as you are going to die, to look out and not have death catch you asleep, that when it comes you may be awake enough just to repent of all your sins and turn to God, and then you will be as fit subjects for heaven as powder would be for a burning dwelling. Our limekiln, when it is burning to its zenith, would be as fit a place for a powder house, as is the celestial kingdom for such characters.

Do you think that I am telling you the truth? I do not care one groat whether you think that I am telling you the truth, or not; for when the day comes that we shall be weighed in the balance, you will know. I am charged by the whole world with almost every degree of immoral conduct, with the most erroneous practices that were ever indulged in by any person on the earth, and for what? Because I have such an influence over these men who are sitting here; because you all hearken to your leader. I would to God that this was altogether the truth, for I tell you, in the name of the Lord, that there would not be a professed Latter-day Saint in this Territory, but what would live his religion. They think we are all one, but when the Saints gather here they are far from being one; they have not yet learned to be one in Christ, they do not understand the principle of being one in a church capacity, to say nothing about being one in a family capacity, or in a neighborhood capacity. The people might have known, long ago, what the difficulty is, if the influences, temptations, and lusts that are in us naturally are given way to, and we are led captive at the will of him that rules the world; that forms the grand difficulty.

Do you want to know the reason why I speak of our being so comfortably situated this morning in so comfortable a meetinghouse? We can return home and sit down and warm our feet before the fire, and can eat our bread and butter, &c., but my mind is yonder in the snow, where those immigrating Saints are, and my mind has been with them ever since I had the report of their start from Winter Quarters (Florence), on the 3rd of September. I cannot talk about anything, I cannot go out or come in, but what in every minute or two minutes my mind reverts to them; and the questions—whereabouts are my brethren and sisters who are on the Plains, and what is their condition—force themselves upon me and annoy my feelings all the time. And were I to answer my own feelings, I should do so by undertaking to do what the conference voted I should not do, that is, I should be with them now in the snow, even though it should be up to the knees, up to the waist, or up to the neck. My mind is there, and my faith is there; I have a great many reflections about them.

Have any of you suffered while coming here? Yes. How many of you sisters present buried your husbands, or your fathers, or your mothers, or children, on the Plains? How many of you brethren buried your wives? Have you suffered, and been in peril and trouble? Yes, you had to endure anguish and pain from the effects of cholera, toil, and weariness. Do you live your religion when you get here, after all the trouble, afflictions, and pains you have passed through to come to Zion? And to a pretty Zion! Men and women start across the Plains for this place, and are they willing to wade through the snow? Yes. To travel through snow storms? Yes. To wade rivers? Yes. What for? To get to Zion. And here we are in Zion, and what a Zion! Where it is necessary for the cry of reformation to go through the land, both a spiritual and temporal reformation. God is more merciful than man can be, and it is well for us. Again, when I consider the backsliding of the people, and their sins, I will not ask God to be more merciful, and have more sympathy towards me, than I have for my brethren and sisters.

A good many teams have already gone out to meet the Saints who are struggling to gain this place; I can hardly keep from talking about them all the time, for when I am preaching they are uppermost in my mind. The brethren were liberal last Sunday in turning out to meet them with teams, still if any more feel desirous of going to their assistance, I will give them the privilege, and advise them to take feed, not only for their own animals, but also for those of the brethren who have already gone out, for they will very likely be short. But I should be more particularly thankful if the minds of this community could be so impressed and stirred up, so wakened up, that when those poor brethren and sisters who are now on the Plains do arrive they may be able to say of a truth and in very deed, “God be thanked, we have got to Zion.” But fearfulness and forebodings of disappointment to them are in my feelings. How far they may be disappointed, I do not know.

I do not wish to be personal in this congregation, but let me say to the authorities, to the Elders of Israel, the Seventies, High Priests, Bishops, or any other quorum or class of officers, if you will appoint meetings and have only those present whom we wish to be there, I will then tell you how to commence a reformation. I will there be particular and personal in my remarks, if necessary, and I will talk to you as severely as I already have to some of the quorums. Now then, morally reform. “In what?” In everything. Reform your moral character, and be at least as moral as you would if you belonged to a Methodist, Presbyterian, or Baptist church, or to the Roman Catholics: be as moral as those classes of people, for heaven’s sake. Then there will be a chance for you to reform in spirit, and to get the light of eternity to shine upon your efforts.

There are a great many things to be taught and practiced. I have frequently thought that I would rather preach to and baptize new converts than to fashion over the old ones, for you can seldom get a good pattern out of them. Some will be full of seams and checks, and you never can make a sound piece out of them. If I had the material to work with I would rather make new ones, than patch up the old ones: but as we have not the new materials to work upon, we must patch up the old ones. Patch up yourselves—make your characters comely to each other. I am not so anxious about the Spirit; let a man walk as pure and holy as the Gods and angels, and then see if there will not be the light of eternity in him. Let a man or woman walk without spot or blemish and the Spirit and power of God Almighty will be with them all the time, and the angels of God will be round about them all the time, they will be preserved to do the will of God preparatory to an eternal exaltation.

Do not talk to me and tell me that you are so backslidden and dark, but reform and get the light of God within you. Some get up here and say, “I will live my religion, I will brethren; O pray for me, I will live my religion, if it costs me my life.” Yes, some of the great men of Israel talk in that style. Some of the Presidents come here and say, “I will live my religion, God being my helper, if it takes away my life.” When a man talks about his religion costing him his life, I want to ask that man if he has any common sense about him. Have you any true philosophy, argument, light, or intelligence in the least degree? “O yes, we are philosophers.” Then ask yourselves from whence you derive your lives, your means, your property, everything you can enjoy in time and eternity. Do you receive them outside of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? No you do not. And still a man will get up here and say, “I will serve the Lord, if it costs me my life.” I will say what I said yesterday, such a man is a fool. Such a man is condemned, and the wrath of God is upon him. His eyes are closed, and he is no more fit for a President of the Seventies, or any other quorum, than a red hot limekiln is for a powder house. Cut such a man off from the Church, for he has backslidden to that degree that nothing but death stares him in the face, when he looks to God and Christ with a view of keeping their law. We wish those rotten branches cut off from the Church, severed from the trunk of the tree; slash them off, and put a little wax on where you cut the limb off, that the wound may heal over, and the tree grow more thrifty. May the Lord bless us. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 2, 1856.

Brother Kimball, in his remarks, touched upon an idea that had not previously entered my mind, that is, that some of the people were dissatisfied with me and my counselors, on account of the lateness of this season’s immigration. I do not know but what such may be the case, as I am aware that those persons now on the Plains have a great many friends and relatives here; but it never came into my mind that I was in the least degree censurable for any person’s being now upon the Plains. Why? Because there is not the least shadow of reason for casting such censure upon me. I am about as free from what is called jealousy, as any man that lives; I am not jealous of anybody, though I know what the feeling is; but it never troubled me much, even in my younger days. Neither am I suspicious of my brethren, therefore I was not suspecting any censure of the kind just named.

Aside from entire want of foundation, and aside from my freedom from jealousy and suspicion, there are other reasons why I could not be expected to have indulged in the suspicion of such a charge. Our general epistles usually go from here twice a year, and the immigration, the gathering of the people, is dictated in those epistles, with a considerable degree of minute detail; I also advance many ideas on the same subject, from time to time, which are written and published; and I write a great many letters on this subject, and many of these are published.

There is not a person, who knows anything about the counsel of the First Presidency concerning the immigration, but what knows that we have recommended it to start in season. True, we have not expressly, and with a penalty, forbidden the immigration to start late, but hereafter I am going to lay an injunction and place a penalty, to be suffered by any Elder or Elders who will start the immigration across the Plains after a given time; and the penalty shall be that they shall be severed from the Church, for I will not have such late starts. You know my life; there is not a person in this Church and kingdom but what must acknowledge that gold and silver, houses and lands, &c., do multiply in my hands. There is not an individual but what must acknowledge that I am as good a financier as they ever knew, in all things that I put my hands to. This is well known by the people, and they consider me a frugal, saving man, therefore there is no ground or room for their suspecting that my mismanagement caused the present sufferings on the Plains. I presume that brother Kimball never would have thought of such an idea, had he not heard it.

Say that we start a company from the Missouri River as late as the first of June, and allow them three months in which to perform the journey, then they have time to travel moderately and one month of good weather for leeway, in which to finish the journey, provided they do not complete it in three months; then they may be ninety days or more in coming a thousand miles, which a child of four years old could walk it in that time. They may stop and feed their teams, and after they arrive they will have the autumn in which to look round and prepare for winter. This is my policy, and then during the first half of the journey the cattle can get what is called prairie grass while it is at its best, for it is easily killed by frost, and cattle must have the privilege of feeding upon it before it is too dry, or frostbitten. The month of June is the best month for that grass, and this all know who are acquainted with the western prairies. Then they come to the mountain grass in the latter part of their journey, which though probably dry by the time they get to it, is filled with nutrition, nearly as much so as grain, and will fatten cattle.

They can come along moderately, take their time, and arrive here in August. They should be here in that month, what for? To help us harvest our late wheat, corn, potatoes; to help get up wood, put up fences and prepare for winter. This plan also puts into the possession of newcomers time and ability to secure to themselves their winter’s provision. Do you not see that such is the result? I have known this all the time. I have always said, send the companies across the Plains early. Companies have suffered loss upon loss of lives and property, but never by the dictation of the First Presidency. Do you not readily understand that if the immigration had been here a few months ago, or by the first of September, that they would have had opportunity to rest, and then to secure wheat, to lay up a few potatoes, to get up wood and lay in the staple necessaries for winter?

But our Elders abroad say, by their conduct all the time, that we here in the mountains do not understand what is wanted in the east, as well as they do. They do not proclaim it in so many words, but their conduct does, and “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Their actions assert that they know more than we do, but I say that they do not. If they had sent our immigration in the season that they should have done, you and I could have kept our teams at home; we could have fenced our five and ten acre lots; we could have put in our fall wheat; could have got up wood for ourselves and for the poor that cannot help themselves; and thus we might have been providing for ourselves, and making ourselves comfortable; whereas, now your hands and mine are tied.

This people are this day deprived of thousands of acres of wheat that would have been sowed by this time, had it not been for the misconduct of our immigration affairs this year, and we would have had an early harvest, but now we may have to live on roots and weeds again before we get the wheat. I look at this matter as plainly as I do upon your faces. I have a philosophical forecast, and I do know the results of men’s work; I know what the conduct of this people will produce in their future life. If I have not this power naturally, God has surely given it to me.

Well, what shall be done? Why, we must bear it. The Elders east fancy that they know more about what is wanted here than we do, and we have to bear it. Let me have had the dictation of the emigration from Liverpool, and I could have brought many more persons here, and at a cost of not more than from three to five dollars of what it has now cost, provided I could have dictated matters at every point. That is not boasting; I only want to tell you that I know more than they know. But what have we to do now? We have to be compassionate, we have to be merciful to our brethren.

Here is brother Franklin D. Richards who has but little knowledge of business, except what he has learned in the Church; he came into the Church when a boy, and all the public business he has been in is the little he has done while in Liverpool, England; and here is brother Daniel Spencer, brother Richards’ First Counselor and a man of age and experience, and I do not know that I will attach blame to either of them. But if, while at the Missouri River, they had received a hint from any person on this earth, or if even a bird had chirped it in the ears of brothers Richards and Spencer, they would have known better than to rush men, women, and children on to the prairie in the autumn months, on the third of September, to travel over a thousand miles. I repeat that if a bird had chirped the inconsistency of such a course in their ears, they would have thought and considered for one moment, and would have stopped those men, women, and children there until another year.

If any man or woman complains of me or of my Counselors, in regard to the lateness of some of this season’s immigration, let the curse of God be on them and blast their substance with mildew and destruction, until their names are forgotten from the earth. I never thought of my being accused of advising or having anything to do with so late a start. The people must know that I know how to handle money and means, and I never supposed that anybody had a doubt of it. It will cost this people more to bring in those companies from the Plains, than it would to have seasonably brought them from the outfitting point on the Missouri River. I do not believe that the biggest fool in the community could entertain the thought that all this loss of life, time, and means, was through the mismanagement of the First Presidency.

I know how to dictate affairs; and no man need to have walked in darkness touching his duty with regard to the foreign immigration. You can read their duty in our epistles, letters, and sermons; and what is the purport of those documents, on this point? That we are new settlers in a wild and uninhabited country, and are thrown upon our own resources; that we need all our teams and means to prepare for those persons who are coming, instead of crippling us by taking our bread, men, and teams, and going out to meet them. And if the present system continues, this people will be found like the Kilkenny cats, which eat up each other clear to their tails, and they were left jumping at one another; such operations will financially use us up.

Last year my back and head ached, and I have been about half mad ever since, and that too righteously, because of the reckless squandering of means and leaving me to foot the bills. Last year, without asking me a word of counsel, without a word being spoken to me about the matter, there was over sixty thousand dollars of indebtedness incurred for me to pay. What for? To fetch a few immigrants here, when I could have brought the whole of them with one quarter of the means.

What is the cause of our immigration being so late this season? The ignorance and mismanagement of some who had to do with it, and still, perhaps they did the best they knew how.

Are those people in the frost and snow by my doings? No, my skirts are clear of their blood, God knows. If a bird had chirped in brother Franklin’s ears in Florence, and the brethren there had held a council, he would have stopped the rear companies there, and we would have been putting in our wheat, &c., instead of going on to the Plains and spending weeks and months to succor our brethren. I make these remarks because they are true.

As to the companies now out, we must bring them in; and another year we will send men to the Missouri River who understand the right management of affairs, and will send them in the speediest conveyances, so that they may not get the “big head” before they arrive there, and then they may be able to do as we tell them.

Can people come across the Plains with handcarts? Ask brothers Edmund Ellsworth, Daniel D. McArthur and William Bunker, who led the three handcart companies that have already arrived; and the brethren and sisters in those companies state that they crossed quicker and easier than the wagon companies.

Those who counseled the companies to come on have nearly all gone back to their assistance, after staying at home but about two days, after their return from a long mission, thus manifesting their faith by their works.

I cannot help what is out of my reach, but I am on hand to send more teams, and to send and send, until, if it is necessary, we are perfectly stopped in every kind of business. Brother Heber says that he will send another team, and I mean to send as many more as he does; I ought to send more than brother Heber, for I am fourteen days older than he is. I can send more teams, but I do not intend that the fetters shall be on me another season.

I will mention something more. You cannot hear George D. Grant, Daniel Spencer and others of the lately returned missionaries speak without eulogizing Franklin D. Richards. They are full of eulogizing Franklin D. Richards, but they need to be careful or they will have the “big head” and become as dead and devoid of the Spirit as old pumpkins. And with them it is, “What could I have done without brother George? And what could we have done without brother Franklin? And when you hear me calling you Rabbi, know ye that I want to be called Rabbi;” and so it goes, but I suppose that this is not what they do it for.

Don’t you know that I know whether you are good for anything, or not, without my praising you? I know all about you, without telling what great things you have done, and what you have not done. But the very spirit some have in them of pride, arrogance, and self-esteem, has led men and women to die on the Plains, by scores, at least their folly has. And if they had not had any such spirit about them, God would have whispered to them to have held a council, and would have stopped them from rushing their brethren and sisters into such suffering. But we must now rescue those people, and may God help us to do it. Amen.

A Discourse by J. M. Grant, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, October 26, 1856.

While the sacrament is passing, I will occupy a short time, for I wish to bear my testimony to the truth of what we heard in the forepart of the day. It is not for want of truths or testimonies that the people are care– less, but it is for the lack, on their part, of living up to the truths and testimonies they hear.

We have, in the revelations of God and in the teachings of the servants of God, a great variety of truths, but those truths are not specially in force and brought to bear upon our minds, and to be carried out in our practice, until we are fully impressed by that gift of the Lord God, which we call the Holy Ghost.

When the Spirit of the Lord rests upon a community, they naturally are inclined to feel after the Lord their God, and they are inclined unto righteousness, and they like the influence of that Spirit which leads into all truth; it is sweet and very delicious to them. But when darkness beclouds the people in consequence of their transgressions, they have but little relish for the things of God; they relish everything else but the things which pertain to the kingdom of God on the earth, and the kingdom of God hereafter. They cannot enjoy the Gospel as do those who are not in the dark, for those who are in the light can appreciate the light they are in the enjoyment of.

But while people are in the dark, they do not see the light; their deeds are not made manifest, for it is the light that maketh manifest. If a room be dark, the objects in that room are not discernible, but when light breaks into the room, the objects therein can be plainly seen.

We may say the same of the people of God; when they are in the dark, no difference how much light they may have had, if they pass from the light into the dark, they may remember that they once saw the light, they do not enjoy the light because they have passed from light into darkness, and they do not discern the objects in themselves. They gradually are sliding from the law of God, or from the Church of God, and do not discover where they are going or what from, from the fact that they are in the dark, they cannot see.

But when the light comes they discover that they are about falling from a precipice, about plunging into ruin, about going to destruction; the light makes this manifest, and they see their situation.

I have no idea that chastisement from this stand will increase the darkness, or aggravate the transgressions of the people; but if light breaks forth from any source and reflects upon the people, they then see the motes, the beams, and the dross in themselves. While the light makes manifest, the Spirit of God reveals the secrets of the heart, and makes manifest those dark spots that exist among the Saints of God.

Some suppose that they can pass by the Priesthood of God on the earth, and very lightly esteem the men who hold it. They think it is not material about offending the Bishops or the presiding Elders, or the councils that preside over them, and no difference, specially, about brother Brigham, “he is only brother Brigham, no difference about giving offense to him, or in associating with him.”

“We are conscious,” says one, “that we have offended him and many of the Councils of the Church, but notwithstanding this, we will go to God and ask Him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to forgive us, and we will make it all right between us and our God; and if we can only keep the stream pure between us and our God, no difference whether the water is dark and turbid between us and His servants, or not. We can get the Spirit of God for ourselves, and the blessings we want we will ask God for, no difference about offending His Servants.”

A great many people actually suppose that they can treat with impunity the authority of God, and the light of God, the chain that the Almighty has let down from heaven to earth, which we call the Priesthood; that they can break and insult that chain and trifle therewith, as much as they please, and when they please, that they can abuse Jehovah in His power and attri– butes. I reason in a different circle, or upon a different principle; I have practiced a different principle. When I offend one of God’s servants, I consider it my duty to atone, to make reconciliation for my offense, no matter whether he be above or below in this Church, as the term is used; no matter whether it be President Brigham Young or my teacher, I have erred in either case.

A great many say, “If I can only keep the stream clear between me and the heads of the Church, that is all I want or care for.”

A High Priest in the road the other day, a talented man, an important man, said, “If he could only keep the stream clear between himself and the heads of the Church, that he would consider that he was all right.” I said to him, if you act upon that principle, in the same sense you have thrown it out to me, it will send you across lots to hell. The spirit of the principle to me was, that it did not matter about offending persons below him, or injuring different individuals in the Church, such as Elders, Priests, Teachers, Deacons, and Members, if he could only keep the stream pure between him and the First Presidency.

This idea a great many people entertain; they can offend their Bishops, or the Bishop’s Counselors, and the Teachers, and they can offend the President of a Branch of the Church, the President over the High Priests’ Quorum, and the President over the High Council, and they can offend all the Church, so they can only have the good graces of brother Brigham and his Council, that is enough for them.

That is actually the idea of some people. Such doctrine as that, with me, is the height of nonsense. You have not their good graces, only as you treat every person right. If you are dishonest with one of those poor benighted Indians, you foul the water between me and you, and God Al– mighty will not give me power to bless you, until you rectify that wrong with that poor Indian, or with the least person on the footstool of God. And you should not pass by your Bishop and insult him, if you do, you will forfeit your claim to the throne of God in heaven, until you make reconciliation to that Bishop, or to any other person you have injured; and then it is time enough for you to bring your offerings, and they will be accepted in the sight of God, and in the sight of His servants.

We exist here in an organized Branch of the Church, we have several councils, quorums, and organizations. We were called upon during the last Conference, to elect a President of this Stake of Zion; Daniel Spencer and his two Counselors, Elders Fullmer and Rhodes, preside over this Stake. Now suppose they know that the Bishop of some ward, or one of his Counselors, is teaching an erroneous doctrine, it is the duty of Daniel Spencer to send for that Bishop, or that Counselor, or instruct some one in that ward to rectify that people.

The Presidency of this Branch of the Church should go to work and learn whether every quorum in this Branch is doing its duty. The First Presidency, by their sanction, have ceded the local Branch of this Church in Great Salt Lake City, to Daniel Spencer and his Council, and he should understand whether the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth wards are in order; and if his jurisdiction extends beyond the city, he should ascertain whether every man is doing right within the bounds of that jurisdiction. And he ought to come up to the First President of the Church, and consider himself one of his Council, and report the situation of the different wards; and he ought to have a book containing full and correct reports from every Bishop of the different wards, that when the First President of the Church shall say, brother Spencer, in what condition is this or that Branch of the Church, he may be able at once to give a truthful report. He ought to know all about the High Priests, their number, and the number of the Seventies; where they meet, and what they are about. His eye ought to be through the city like the eye of God, to search the people over whom he is made President; and he ought to know that his Counselors are alive and active in the discharge of their duty. I do not know whether he can report so now or not, but I very much doubt whether he can.

Brother Spencer should come to the First President of the Church, and not consider that he is intruding, for he is rightly connected with him. Can a man be intruding when he does those things he has a right to do, and which pertain to his duty? No. Neither can he be intruding by reporting to the First President of the Church.

The presiding Bishop belongs to the First Presidency of this Church, and he ought to know about the situation of each ward, and not merely talk about the people’s paying their tithing, for there has been too much mere talking about it already. I would ask, have the people in this city paid their tithing? I sincerely doubt whether one fourth or even one eighth, have paid it. It is the duty of the Bishop not only to sound his trump outside this city, but in this city, and learn what persons are deficient in this point, and not cease with merely talking about it. Talking so much and not doing is one of the grand evils; it is not for the Bishop to merely talk about the people’s paying their tithing, and say that they are good fellows, &c., but we want him to know that the people pay their tithing, and that they are right; and then come to the First President of the Church and tell him those facts, reporting faithfully the situation of all the Bishops in the Church, and how they stand in their accounts with the General Tithing Office; and let him gather all the pile together.

If Bishop Hunter waits until the roads are muddy, he may expect to meet with drawbacks and losses, the bins are now as full as they will be. Strike while the iron is hot, is the old adage; but my adage is, strike while the roads are good, and while there is grain.

If you wait until after cold weather comes, after the mud comes, and after the people come in hungry, the bins where the wheat is now may be like they were with brother Browning; he had several hundred bushels of tithing wheat, and when we sent for it, there were somewhere about forty or fifty bushels; it had wasted; the cats, the goats, the ducks, the rats, the mice, the geese, and the ganders all were at work in those bins.

I want the Bishop to understand that we want the tithing brought to the storehouse of God, while it can be brought without delay; not merely to talk about it, but we want the work performed. I tell you that the people in this city do not walk up to their duty on the subject of tithing.

Members of the quorum of the Twelve, when at home, ought to be right about the First President of the Church with the power of God that is in them, and communicate some of that light to brother Brigham to comfort him. Do you expect brother Brigham to put fire into the whole of this people, and no man on earth put fire in him and bless him, and give him instruction and information? Must he impart and teach, and teach, and no man tell him anything?

We have missionaries who go out to different parts of this Territory, and over the earth, gaining experience and information, but can we get them up here to tell us one single thing they know? No, unless you take them by the back of the neck, and the seat of their pantaloons and haul them in sight, making them squeal like a “possum cat,” before you can get anything out of them.

We want you to impart what you know, if you have the light of God, or any information about heaven, earth, or hell. We want you to furnish your share to the fund of information, and not cry, all the day long, give, give, give, without imparting anything to the giver. We want the Twelve, when they are full of the Holy Ghost, to come up and bless us. And if any of you know how to make a good goose yoke, a hog yoke, a good jackknife, or anything else that is valuable, do not put your hands on your mouths and cry mum.

If you know how to raise wheat, potatoes, or anything else, impart your knowledge, that the light in you may not be hid under a bushel. It is so with almost every person in the Church; if they have light they keep it under a bed, or under a bushel; they keep it locked up within their bosoms, and we cannot get it out.

If a man knows anything valuable, we want him to impart his knowledge. We want the President of the Seventies, brother Joseph Young, about us; we do not want him to go on the hill where Lorenzo lived, but we want him to live in the city near brother Brigham, because, if he does not, he will die. Some of brother Joseph’s Council want to wander off, saying that brother Brigham says they may go. Why? Because they want to. If the light of God was in them, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, they would know that their place is at headquarters. We want such men to come and be one with the Prophet, and believe and understand for themselves.

If you offend your brother, you have to make reconciliation. You might as well baptize a dog, as baptize a man or woman who will not make reconciliation for the offenses they have committed. Some women will say, “What is the difference, suppose I offend my husband, if I can only lie to brother Brigham, and tell him a first-rate tale, and make out that my husband is a poor curse? I will get as many blessings as I want from brother Brigham, and from others that I can make believe that I am a good woman.”

I may not have used their words exactly, but those words portray their practices. That woman who offends her husband, if he has on him the power of the Priesthood and does right, I would not give a groat for all the blessings she will get from the Holy Ghost. You may as well baptize a dog, or a skunk, as such a woman, until she makes reconciliation with that man of God whom she has offended.

I sometimes talk about the old stereotyped edition of “Mormons.” Is it that I do not love our old fathers in Israel? No, for I know their labors, toils, and anxiety, and I love them; but many of them feel that they have done enough. Men have to be rewarded according to their works; if a man ceases to work, there is no more blessings for him. He is lariatted out, as Orson Pratt lariatted out the Gods in his theory; his circle is as far as the string extends. My God is not lariatted out.

I do not want the old men to grow dull. Was father Adam dull in his old age, when he blessed his children, and predicted what would befall them down to the latest generation? Will a man, fired up by the fire of the Almighty, be dull? No. I do not want the old men to think that they have done enough, but to exert themselves to the last, and not to believe in a God that is lariatted out, nor be lariatted out themselves, and say, “I have worked ten, fifteen, or twenty-five years, and I do not want to work anymore, my rope is long enough now.”

Do not imbibe that principle, but keep advancing and advancing in the knowledge of the truth, in the light of the Almighty which brightens up your intellects, enlightens your minds, and makes you feel the fire and power of God Almighty in your earthly tabernacles. We want our fathers in Israel to wake up and bless their children, to bless the young men and the Church of God, and let the fire of the Almighty be in them. We want the presiding Patriarch to freely call upon the Prophet, brother Brigham; and we want the heads of the different departments of the kingdom of God to come up and strengthen the hands of the Prophet.

The old men, those men who have been in the Church twenty years and more, are ready to run from the man of God that holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven. If you was full of the Holy Ghost you would not do this, but you would be round about us, instead of being all the time with your wives. It is the greatest piece of nonsense that was ever planted in a Gentile breast, for a man to tie himself down to be at home day and night with his women. Where would this kingdom go, if brother Brigham and his Council were to do so? It would go to hell, across lots, in double quick time. Do not let your wives bind you up with green withes and strong cords as Delilah did Sampson, and make you powerless. Break asunder the cords, the ropes and cables that bind you, and come forth, ye old men, out of your shells, and break your lariats and your stakes, and begin to drink of the fountain of life, with God and His servants.

I might say to the young men wake up from your sleep, that you may have the blessings of God poured out upon you. And if the women want to know what I think of many of them, let them read the 32nd chapter of Isaiah; I had better read part of it for you. “Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.”

I want to say to many of our old women, and to hundreds and thousands of our young women, that the life of God Almighty is not in you; you are at ease, and careless, and dull, and blind, and you do not understand the rights that God Almighty wishes you to enjoy. I want such women to humble themselves in sackcloth and ashes, until they get the Holy Ghost. I want every mother and daughter in Israel to serve their God, have the light of God in them, instead of pride, foolery, nonsense, and everything that is light and vain. Rise up, ye careless women that are asleep in Zion, and betake yourselves to mourning and lamenting before God, until the light of heaven shall shine upon you, until the light of God shall chase away your pride, and your abomination, and your sins, and be round about you, and until the eye of heaven smiles upon you and blesses you forever. I want you to be blest and saved, that your children may rise up and be blest. I want the women to understand that there is something in Zion for them to do, instead of going to sleep. There is a work upon you; you have made covenants and sacred obligations, as well as the men, and we want you not to falsify those obligations, but to keep the law of your husbands, and listen to them, and know that they are your head.

A man is a president to his family. If the Church has a head, which is Christ, then is the man the head of his family. Some men are not the heads of their families, but their wives walk on them, their daughters walk on them, and their sons walk on them, and they are as the soles of their shoes.

Talk of some men’s being the heads of their families. It makes me think of the old deacon, that went to teach a man and his wife who were quarrelsome; said he, “Do you not know that you and your husband are one flesh?” “You don’t say that, do you, deacon?” “Yes, the Lord has made you one.” “Lord God,” said she, “if you were to pass by here when me and my old man are quarreling, you would think there were fifty of us.” This is often the case in Israel; instead of the men being the heads of their families, they are as sole leather under their feet.

I want the women to understand, when they have a good husband, one that does his duty, that he is president over them and that they have made covenants to abide the law of that husband. Talk about women leaving their husbands! I would be far from taking a woman that would leave a GOOD man. A woman that wants to climb up to Jesus Christ, and pass by the authorities between her and him is a stink in my nostrils. I have large nostrils, and I often talk about smelling, for my olfactory nerves are very sensitive. I want women to know their places and do their duty; but there is a low, stinking pride in a woman, that wants to leave a good husband to go to another. What does it matter where you are, if you do your duty? Being in one man’s family or the other man’s family is not going to save you, but doing your duty before your God is what will save you.

Because I am one of the Council of the First President, will that save me? No, but if I am saved, I shall be saved because I do my duty as a man of God. Shall a man be saved because of some particular Quorum to which he belongs, or a woman be saved because she is in some particular family? No, that is foolery. Men and women are saved because they do right. It is nonsense for a woman to suppose, that because she is sealed to some particular man she will be saved, and at the same time kick up hell’s delight, play the whore, and indulge in other evil acts and abominations.

Even some mothers in Israel actually suppose that if their daughters are sealed to a certain man they will be saved, no matter what they do afterwards. That is damned foolery; and I want men and women to understand that salvation is based on a better foundation, that it is made up of righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost.

We want you to understand that the power of the Holy Ghost should be in you. We want fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and the whole Church renovated and made one. Do you suppose that I can be saved by standing alone, or that brother Heber can, or by attempting to use our Apostleship independent of brother Brigham? We have sense enough to know that we have no power, only as we are one with him. Or can the Twelve, or anyone else, have any power, only as they are one with brother Brigham? No. In the same way no woman can be right, only that woman who is one in spirit with her husband. We should then be one in understanding, in power, in the gifts of God and in the light of the Gospel, and do right all the time. May God Almighty wake up the fathers, the mothers, the sons and the daughters, and bless you all and keep you in the path of your duty, and save you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, October 12, 1856.

I can say amen to what was said this forenoon by brothers Spencer and Grant, and also by brother Brigham; for it is true: and I presume there was not a Saint in the congregation but what realized the truth of their sayings.

I am satisfied that it is the good pleasure of our God that a reformation should take place in the hearts of all Israel. I do not believe that there is any man or woman here so good but what they can be a little better. There are good people; there are those that we call the best. My feelings and exertions for this people and for all the house of Israel are, and have been to the end, that we may be all of that class which we denominate the best.

The spirit of reformation has been upon me all the while; but for the last six months that spirit has in a more particular manner moved upon the Presidency of this Church, and they have cried unto you as with the voice of an earthquake, and commanded you to repent and forsake your follies. Their voice has been like the voice of thunder unto this people, calling upon them to repent and turn unto the Lord their God.

But what is the use of persons being baptized until they first confess and forsake their sins, and make restitution where they have injured anyone? If persons have lied, it is their duty to repent and retract their false statements, and confess their lies. If any have stolen, it is for them to repent and steal no more; also to restore fourfold, where it is required. I have my doubts whether a man or woman can be saved upon any other principle; for this was the doctrine of Jesus, the Son of God, and it is the doctrine taught in these latter days.

Where sins have been committed, there must be an atonement made to satisfy the demands of justice; and when justice is satisfied, mercy claims the subject. Have these requirements been complied with by this people? Many of you have broken your covenants and lost that spirit to a great extent, that you might and ought to enjoy; for you ought to be in favor with God continually, that you might have the power of his Spirit to be with you.

Brother Brigham is not responsible for this people any further than they will follow his counsel. When they observe his counsel, doing just as he says in all things, then he is responsible. The only way that you can make him responsible is by observing his sayings in the most strict manner possible. Am I responsible for the acts of my wife or wives? Only on condition that they are subject to my counsels. You can readily understand that their disobedience releases me from responsibility for their conduct.

When brother Brigham predicts that certain things will happen if the people persist in a certain course, that prediction will be fulfilled, except the people make a retraction and an atonement sufficient to satisfy the demands of justice; for that is what God requires. When that is done, the sins of the people will be remitted. I speak of this, that you may understand that your rebaptisms must be agreeable to the order laid down. It is not simply a man’s saying, “Having been commissioned by Jesus Christ, I baptize you for the renewal of your covenant and remission of your sins,” but you must be subject to your brethren and fulfil the law of God.

Supposing you have sinned against your brethren, or in some way offended them, will your sins be remitted, unless you go and make the proper acknowledgments? No, they will not. You have got to pay the debt; and sin cannot be remitted until you confess it and make satisfaction to the party aggrieved. You may try another course as much as you please, but you will find it to be just as I have told you.

If I have offended brother Brigham in any way whatever—rebelled against him, lied about him, or sought to abuse him, what is the use of my going to the water to renew my covenant, until I have made satisfaction to him? The proper way would be to go to him and say, “Brother Brigham, I lied against you willfully, under the influence of an evil spirit;” or, “I have ill-treated and wronged you, and know that I must make satisfaction, and I am ready to do anything that you say.” Satisfaction must be made to the one injured, or baptism will be of no benefit: the Holy Ghost will not ratify that act until I have paid the debt. Then brother Brigham would say, “I forgive you, and pray my Father, in the name of Jesus, to forgive you also.” Then our Father in heaven would forgive you, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost would forgive you. And if you get pardon of those you have injured, and of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, you are free and ready to begin a new life.

You have heard brother Brigham say that if we sin against the Father, we must confess our sins to him, and get pardon from him; and if we sin against the Son, we must ask pardon of him, for he will not pardon you without you do ask him; and if you sin against the Holy Ghost, you cannot get pardon, for that is a sin which cannot be forgiven. You must do that which is right, and get the forgiveness of the Father and the Son; then they and the Holy Ghost will take up their abode with you. That is my faith, and that is a part of “Mormonism,” as I understand it.

If men and women make a practice of lying, stealing, and doing of the things forbidden in the law of God, they need not go into the water until they have sincerely repented and will covenant and promise that they will not do those things again. Some of you make a practice of telling little lies, of deceiving and berating each other, of disputing with each other, and with the servants of God. Is that right? You all know that it is not, and that God will punish you for it. Does the Son know when you do these things? Does the Holy Ghost know? Do the angels know? I answer, they do know, and they are displeased with such acts, and will not associate with you in consequence of them.

Some quietly listen to those who speak against the Lord’s servants, against his anointed, against the plurality of wives, and against almost every principle that God has revealed. Such persons have half-a-dozen devils with them all the time. You might as well deny “Mormonism,” and turn away from it, as to oppose the plurality of wives. Let the Presidency of this Church, and the Twelve Apostles, and all the authorities unite and say with one voice that they will oppose that doctrine, and the whole of them would be damned. What are you opposing it for? It is a principle that God has revealed for the salvation of the human family. He revealed it to Joseph the Prophet in this our dispensation; and that which he revealed he designs to have carried out by his people.

What a joy it would be to me if my family were in such a state of mind that an angel would come and tell me, “On such a day I will meet with you, and your wives, and your children, if you will sanctify yourselves.” Would not that be a joy and a consolation to me? Do I disbelieve such visitations? No, no more than I disbelieve that an angel came to Joseph and Oliver, to Abraham of old, and to many others.

Let us take a course that will be pleasing to our Father, and lay aside our follies and our sins, and obtain favor with our God, that his angels may come and associate with us. They would do so now, if you would believe and practice that which is laid before you day by day. And if you will strictly follow the leaders of this people, you never would want for clothing, nor for any of the comforts of life; for if it must needs be that we be protected and delivered from our enemies, God would cause a famine to scourge them, and would rain manna down from heaven to sustain us, as he did to the children of Israel. But he never will do that, until it is necessary to our salvation and deliverance.

Now, there is no necessity for such a display of his power, neither will there be, until we are brought into the midst of certain trials, as Joseph Smith and his brethren were, about twenty-two years ago. I refer to the time when he and some of his brethren went up to Missouri; and those who went up then believed “Mormonism” in their hearts. There were two hundred and five who volunteered to go and redeem their brethren. And how was it in those days, when we were in that strait? Hosts of the people in Missouri were up in arms against us, both behind and before us, on our right and on our left. How did God defend us then? He sent a hailstorm fierce enough to stop their progress. The hailstones were so large that they cut their horses’ bridles, broke their gunstocks, and cut holes in their hats: the storm had such an effect upon them that they would not any longer pursue us. The waters of the river rose forty feet in one night, and the whole region was flooded. In that way the Lord defended us, when we were a small company, and when he knew that we should be overcome, if he did not stretch forth his hand for our benefit.

Let us arise, every man and every woman, and lay off our sins; and wherein you know that you have sinned, repent and ask forgiveness, and then cease sinning from this time henceforth and forever. Many murmur and are disaffected, after being privileged with the great blessing of deliverance from the oppression of the world. Many who have been gathered by the P. E. Fund murmur against those who have gathered them. When you become disaffected with brother Brigham and brother Heber, what is your course? You will associate with those poor murmuring devils whose hearts are as corrupt as hell itself, and thereby partake of their spirit; and it is a spirit that suits you: it is one of your own kind and your own class. Now, you know that you are more apt to sympathize with the ungodly than you ought to be, and that you are too apt to think that brother Brigham, brother Heber, and brother Jedediah are rather hard upon such characters. We are only hard upon sin and ungodliness.

Do not be baptized and then take an unrighteous course, but repent of and forsake all sin. I have nothing in my heart to preach to this people but faith and repentance, and to teach them to have confidence in God, in brother Brigham, and in each other, and to cultivate, nourish, and cherish that confidence; also to cherish, comfort, and to sustain brother Brigham from this time henceforth and forever.

The more I do for this cause, the more God will love me—the more he will bless me, and he will give me power over the Devil and over all his imps. Can I do too much for God and his cause? Can I do too much for brother Brigham? No; for the more I respect him as the delegate of God, the more God will honor me and my acts. I know that these things are true; also that some of you are afraid that you will love him too well. I will tell you how much you should love him: you should love him enough to strictly observe his counsels. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” This was a test; for whoso loved him would keep his commandments

I have thought a great many times upon the condition of this people, and I would that they all should turn unto the Lord; but I have fears that many will not reform; and I am inclined to think that they will feel the rod of the Almighty, unless they do repent.

Go to work and build up and establish each other; wives establish your husbands, husbands establish your wives, and wives and husbands establish your children in righteousness, and God will be with us forever; he never will forsake us in times of trouble. Cast in your Tithes and offerings into the storehouse of the Lord, and you shall have a blessing that you have not room to contain.

The Father, and the Son, and all the servants of God of every dispensation that ever was on the earth, are engaged in inspiring those brethren who now faithfully hold the Priesthood in the flesh. You are aware that the Lord said that in the last days he would have laborers who would labor with their might to gather up the wheat for the last time; and this is the last time. You need not ask who administer to brother Brigham; for I will tell you: They are Moses and Aaron, Elijah, Jesus, Peter, James, and John, brother Joseph, Michael the Archangel, and the hosts of the righteous behind the veil: they are all engaged in this great work.

God have mercy upon you, and give you his Spirit to understand all things aright, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Remarks by H. C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, October 5, 1856.

There is a little matter of business I wish to lay before this congregation this morning, and I do not know of anything that will test the people only to lay before them their duty, which gives them a chance to step forward and act therein.

We have not as yet any durable location; we are merely probationers in this present state, and we shall always be so, until we obtain a permanent exaltation, by following in the footsteps of our God. He is our Father and our God, and His Son Jesus Christ is our Savior, and the Holy Ghost is to be our comforter, and will comfort all those who will prepare their tabernacles as fit temples for him to dwell in.

When the Holy Ghost dwells in us it will enable us to discern between right and wrong, will show us things to come, and bring things to our remembrance, and will make every one of this people prophets and prophetesses of God.

We have acknowledged brother Brigham to be our leader, and he holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven here on the earth. Whether people believe it or not, he is God’s representative in the flesh, and is the mouthpiece of God unto us.

Brother Joseph Smith many a time said to brother Brigham and myself and to others, that he was a representative of God to us, to teach and direct us and reprove the wrongdoers. He has past behind the veil, but there never will a person in this dispensation enter into the celestial glory without his approbation.

Brother Brigham is brother Joseph’s rightful successor, and he has his Counselors, and together they are an earthly pattern of the divine order of government. Those men are God’s agents, His servants, and are witnesses of your covenants, which you will have to fulfil. And what you do not fulfil in this year you will have to do in the next; and what are not then fulfilled will have to be in some future time.

Some people think that, because they have passed through a great many troubles, have been to the nations to preach the Gospel, and have been robbed and plucked up several times, that will make an atonement for their sins. What you have passed through has nothing to do with atonement for sins. If you have sinned you have got to make an atonement for that sin, and the trials you have passed through in doing your duty are not the atonement. Trials are to test you, to prove whether you will do those things that are right. Some try to make out that their trials will answer as an atonement, but I tell you that they will not. If you commit sin there must be an atonement to satisfy the demands of justice, and then mercy claims you and saves you. But, as brother Grant has said, many of our old men think, because they were in the Church in the first beginning, that they can now lay upon their oars, that is, that they can sit down in the ship and not use the oars anymore. But God requires every man and woman to be faithful; and if they have sinned, they have got to make an atonement for that sin, and your trials do not make that atonement.

God says that we shall be tried in all things, even as was Abraham of old. He was called upon to offer up his son, and was found willing to offer him up, but, as the sin was not sufficient to require the shedding of his son’s blood, a lamb was provided, and its blood atoned for the sin that Abraham’s son was to be offered up for, and saved the son.

If you are ever saved, you have got to take a course to draw near to the throne of God; and how can you draw near to the throne of God, except you draw near to those men who are placed as His representatives in the flesh? The same principles, the same order, the same Priesthood, the same gifts, and the same powers are instituted, established and organized in our day as they were in the days of Jesus, and all the reason that people do not see it is because of their traditions; the veil of darkness is over their minds, and they cannot see it.

With all the instructions that are given to you by brother Brigham, brother Heber, and brother Jedediah, many of you will go home and find fault with them; and you will have your contentions and your animosities, when you should take a course to sustain their words, for you cannot sustain them without sustaining their words, nor can you serve God and slight their counsels. If you expect the favor of God, favor His servants and sustain them. This is plain doctrine, and you will find it so, and I am not ashamed to teach it to you.

When brother Brigham points out a course, it is for this people to rise up and go to and carry out His purposes with their might; and until that is done this kingdom never will prosper as it should, worlds without end.

Now I will come to the business, and tell you what is wanted. Our brethren and sisters are on the Plains with their handcarts, and there is snow on the ground, and many are barefooted, and destitute of comfortable clothing, and we want some men and teams to fix up this day, and be ready to start for them tomorrow. We want horse and mule teams, if they can be had; but if they cannot, we want ox teams.

We do not wish you to take out loads, though it will be well to put in a couple of hundred pounds or so of forage, grain, &c., to two span of mules or horses, or to two yoke of cattle, with a light wagon, and go speedily and take those people into your wagons and bring them here, doing as you would wish to be done by in the same circumstances.

Would not all of you, if you were out on the Plains, say that if you were the good people in the valleys you would go out and help them in? Would you not all feel so? But you are not there, and you do not fully realize their feelings.

Now manifest your faith by your works. You will not, probably, have to go any further than Fort Bridger before you meet some of them, and you can go and return in a week, or may be in two weeks, and may be in twenty days.

“O, dear,” says one, “I have not got up my winter’s wood.” Well, you will not get it up by staying here, but if you will help in those on the Plains and do all other things that you are required to do, God will give us a summer all winter; and if you do not do so, He will give us winter all summer.

Our God can change the seasons and drive away the storms, the tempest and the snows, to favor this people, if they will do right; and if you wish to be favored of God, favor us and this people; favor your brethren, and do as you are told.

Brother Dan Jones has been talking to you about the clay in the hands of the potter. If you get hold of a lump of clay that is snappish and willful, and not willing that you should twist it into any shape or form, what is the use of working it? You throw it back into the mill and let it be ground again, and then take it out and make of it a vessel unto honor.

Perhaps some do not really believe that when a man is thrown back into the mill, or goes into the spirit world, that he ever will be redeemed, but he will, if he has not sinned against the Holy Ghost. He will be ground and worked up until he becomes passive, and then God, through His servants, will redeem him, and make him a vessel unto honor.

A great many will go to hell, and the very men that are preaching to you now will visit you and offer you salvation, after you have laid there, perhaps, thousands of years, for you must stay in the mill until you are passive and obedient.

Jeremiah, at the command of God, went to the potter’s house where the potter was molding the clay, and when he went to turn it on the wheel it was refractory and rebellious; and he worked at it and sweat over it, but after all it was rebellious, and fell down on the wheel.

What did he do then? He cut it off from the wheel and threw it back into the mill, and after he had ground it awhile, he took it out and made of it a vessel unto honor; so of the same lump he made a vessel unto dishonor, and one unto honor.

Did the potter make it dishonorable? No, the vessel made itself unto dishonor; and the next time it was pliable and passive, and the potter made of it a vessel unto honor, because it was honorable and submissive.

I wished to make these few remarks, because they touch upon things that are on my mind all the time. And if you wish to be Saints, for God’s sake be Saints, and if you wish to be devils, be devils, and get out of this place; and let those that will be Saints, be Saints; and let them commune together and carry out the purpose of God.

I would rather have three hundred men and women that are perfectly amenable to the authorities of this Church, than a numerous people that are rebellious; and I could do more to bring about the purposes of God, and do it ten times quicker, with a few faithful persons, than with hosts of the wicked.

You know this, every one of you. I can accomplish more work with one man that is amenable to me, and will do as I tell him, than I can with twenty who are disobedient; so I can with one woman. I had rather have one woman that is humble, than twenty that are not; and she is more honor and glory, and happiness and heaven to a man, than twenty disobedient ones.

You that have but one wife know this pretty well but we who have scores, know it better; we are further advanced in the experience of this life.

Now, brethren, what do you say? This is the word of the Lord to us, that we rise up and gather up our teams and start forthwith, not with loads, except feed; take hay and deposit it in different places, so that you can have some when you come back, and bring in those brethren and sisters, and you will have a pleasant time, and God and His angels will go with you, and you will be prospered, upheld, and sustained.

That man that drops down his head under his wife’s arm, and says, “I guess they don’t see me;” and that wife that says, “O, my husband, I cannot spare you, I cannot sleep alone, for when night comes I shall get cold;” O, the poor little things.

I say that those who will take counsel and prepare themselves to go back on this mission shall be blest; and if a man has but one yoke of cattle, let him put that on with those of some other person.

I now want every man that will actually go and help, and not say he will go, and not go, to rise up.

[One hundred and fourteen teams were volunteered, and reported ready to start forthwith.]