Discourse by Elder Wilford Woodruff, delivered in the Salt Lake Assembly Hall, at the Priesthood Meeting, Sunday Evening, July 4th, 1880.

As this is the priesthood meeting of the elders of Israel and those bearing the priesthood, I feel I would like to say a few words in connection with what Brother Taylor has said. I look upon our condition or our position, as a people, that we are called to a certain work. When we send men upon missions, or to perform any branch of business or labor, of course we expect them to perform it, and the Lord expects them to do the same. Now I look upon the elders of Israel here tonight, and in this Church and kingdom, as upon a mission. We have been ordained to a mission, and we have our time set to do it and to perform it. Not that I know exactly how many days or years we are going to spend in it. But this mission is required at our hands, not at the hands of Brother Taylor, Brother Joseph, or Brother Brigham alone, but it is required at our hands by the God of heaven, and we are performing a work and laying a foundation which we have got to meet on the other side of the veil. It does not make any difference to what position we are called or or– dained. If we are called to the office of a bishop we should fulfill the duties pertaining to that office. I know it has been considered a very hard office, and one to which a good deal of time has to be devoted. Yet there are a great many bishops who don’t spend much time in it, while others are true to their calling. A bishop’s calling is an important one. He is called to be a father to the people of his ward. And when labor is laid upon us to perform we should not ignore that labor or lay it aside. There is an account kept, whether we keep one or not. There are a good many revelations which show us that this is the case. Your history goes before you. All of you will find it when you get to the other side of the veil. Every man’s history—his acts—are written, whether he has kept a record here or not. This is plainly manifested in the revelation known as the “Olive Leaf.”

As I view it, we are not placed here as elders of Israel, apostles, or bishops, merely to get rich in gold and silver, and the things of this world. We have a labor laid upon our shoulders. Joseph Smith had, Brigham Young had, the Twelve Apostles have, we all have, and we will be condemned if we do not fulfill it. We shall find it out when we get to the other side of the veil. It is through this neglect of duty that so many have left this Church and kingdom of God. There is hardly a tithe of the people who have been baptized in water for the remission of sins that have died in the faith. In the United States there are tens of thousands of apostate Mormons. Many a time in my reflections I have wished I could fully comprehend the responsibility I am under to God, and the responsibility every man is under who bears the priesthood in this generation. But I tell you, brethren, I think our hearts are set too much upon the things of this world. We do not appreciate, as men bearing the holy priesthood in this generation should, the mighty responsibility we are under to God and high heaven, as well as to the earth. I think we are too far from the Lord. I do not think we live our religion as we ought to. I do not think our hearts are set upon building up this kingdom as they should be as Latter-day Saints. Now, do not think I am your enemy because I tell you these things. I feel we have an important work to perform, and others will continue the work when we have passed away. I look around and view the work of time. I look around and find that eight of the Twelve Apostles have passed into the world of spirits since we came into this valley; I expect to go there myself, I expect my brethren will; we shall all go there before many years are over. I do not look for anything else; and I will say that for the last year or two in my reflections I have felt that I have no other business on this earth but to try to build up this kingdom. I do not feel that I am justified in settling my heart upon the things of this world to the neglect of any duty that God requires at my hands. And another thing, when I look at this generation, when I think of over twelve hundred millions of people who dwell in the flesh, many of them ripening for the judgments of God, a generation that is ready to receive the wrath of God upon their heads—when I consider these things, I know that if I neglect to bear my testimony before them, if I neglect to bear my testimony to this generation when I have an opportunity, I shall feel sorry for it when I go into the spirit world.

That is the way I feel with regard to this work. God requires that we bear record of it to this generation; and when I think of the extent of this generation, the greatness of it, when I consider that this is a generation and dispensation when God has set his hand to establish a kingdom, the great and last kingdom, and the only kingdom that the Lord ever did establish in any age of the world, to remain on the earth through the millennium, when I think of these things I can realize the greatness of this work. The Lord never had prophets in any age of the world who could stand in the flesh and live, and build up the kingdom of God. The world has always made war upon them and destroyed them, with the exception of Enoch who was taken up to heaven with his city. Now, if we could realize that we have the kingdom of God upon the earth today, with the promise of God our Father, that it will stay upon the earth until the coming of the Son of Man—if we could realize this and realize our responsibility, it seems to me that we would all have a desire to magnify our calling.

As I was going to say, with a generation like this, with the nations of the earth as they are today, having the power to build up the kingdom of God to stay here, having the power to rear temples to the Most High God, against the wrath and indignation of a thousand million people—I say, having this power, and being sustained by the Lord, we certainly ought to be willing to do our part of the work. We have borne testimony—I have, my brethren have, the elders of Israel have—to this generation for many years. We have borne testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the Book of Mormon and of the prophets of God who has been raised in this our own time, and those testimonies will rise up in judgment against this generation and will condemn those who reject them.

This kingdom is in our hands to bear it off. The God of heaven is with us. He has sustained us. He turns away the wrath of man. He binds the hands of our enemies and breaks every weapon that is formed against Zion. He has established his people in these valleys of the mountains.

I would say to bishops, and to all men in authority, we should have an interest in carrying on this work. We should labor to get the Spirit of God. It is our right, our privilege, and our duty to call upon the Lord, that the vision of our mind may be opened, so that we may see and understand the day and age in which we are living. It is your privilege, and mine too, to know the mind and will of the Lord concerning our duties, and if we fail to seek after this, we neglect to magnify our calling.

As Brother Taylor has said, here we are at headquarters. We are an ensample for all the other Stakes to look at. We should not consider anything we are called to perform a labor. Anything we are called upon to do we should do with a will. I look back to the days of our early missions. Brother Taylor, Brother Brigham, myself and others, had to go our ways sick with fever, ague, and the power of death surrounding us; had to leave our wives and children without food, without raiment, and go without purse and scrip to preach the Gospel. We were commanded of God to do it, and if we had not done it we should not have been here today. But having done these things, God has blessed us. He has sustained the faithful elders of this Church and kingdom, and he will continue to do so until we get through.

I wanted to express my feelings in relation to these matters. I reflect upon our position. I realize that we have a testimony to bear, and that we shall be held responsible for the manner in which we perform our duties. As apostles, seventies, elders, priests, etc., we are accountable to the Most High God. If we do our duty, then our skirts will be clean. We are watchmen upon the walls of Zion. It is our duty to warn the inhabitants of the earth of the things that are to come, and if they reject our testimony, then their blood will be upon their own heads. When the judgments of God overtake the wicked they cannot say they have not been warned. My garments, and the garments of thousands of others, are clean of the people of this generation, as also the garments of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and those of the elders of Israel who have died in the faith. We have borne our testimony, and when the judgments of God come, men cannot say they have not been warned. I consider our position before this generation is of vast im– portance to us and them. I do not want, when I go into the spirit world, to have this generation rise up and condemn me, and say I have not done my duty.

There never was a generation like this. There has never been a people like this. There has never been a work like this since God made the world. True, there have been men who have preached the Gospel; but in the fulness of times the Lord has set his hand to establish his kingdom. This is the last dispensation. He has raised up men and women to carry on his work, and as I have often said, many of us have been held in the spirit world from the organization of this world, until the generation in which we live. Our lives have been hid with Christ in God, and the devil has sought to kill us from the day we were born until the present hour. But the Lord has preserved us. He has given us the priesthood, he has given us the kingdom and the keys thereof. Shall we disappoint our heavenly Father? Shall we disappoint the ancient prophets and apostles who looked forward to this day? Shall we disappoint Joseph Smith, and those brethren who have gone before, who laid the foundation of this work and left us to labor after them? Brethren, for God’s sake do not let us set our hearts on the things of this world to the neglect of the things of eternal life. Do not let the bishops feel it is a hard matter to carry out any of the counsels given by those who are called to direct all these things. Bless your souls, if you lived here in the flesh a thousand years, as long as Father Adam, and lived and labored all your life in poverty, and when you got through, if, by your acts, you could secure your wives and children in the morning of the first resurrection, to dwell with you in the presence of God, that one thing would amply pay you for the labors of a thousand years. What is anything we can do or suffer, to be compared with the multiplicity of kingdoms, thrones and principalities that God has revealed to us?

Well, we have got the kingdom, and we must bear it off. It won’t pay you nor me to apostatize. But then there is this danger, you know. Brother Joseph used to counsel us in this wise: “The moment you permit yourselves to lay aside any duty that God calls you to perform, to gratify your own desires; the moment you permit yourselves to become careless, you lay a foundation for apostasy: Be careful; understand you are called to a work, and when God requires you to do that work do it.” Another thing he said: “In all your trials, tribulations and sickness, in all your sufferings, even unto death, be careful you don’t betray God, be careful you don’t betray the priesthood, be careful you don’t apostatize; because if you do, you will be sorry for it.” We received a great deal of that kind of counsel, and I have remembered it from that day until the present.

But I do not wish to detain you. I felt to back up the testimony Brother Taylor has given. I take it to myself. I can make nothing by neglecting any duty. I have never committed a sin in this Church and kingdom, but what it has cost me a thousand times more than it was worth. We cannot sin with impunity; we cannot neglect any counsel with impunity, but what it will bring sorrow; and the only safe way is to round up our shoulders and do our duty, and thus bear off the kingdom. None of us have a long time to stay here. When I look around and reflect upon my brethren that are gone, I ask, Where are they? Where are they gone? Here is Brother Taylor, myself and others who form part of the early organization of this quorum, who have traveled with the Church for a great many years; but Brother Joseph Smith and others have been gone for a long time—gone into the spirit world. While I reflect upon these things I often ask, What are their views toward us? How does the Lord look upon us as a people? I consider the Lord and the heavenly hosts are watching us. I know they manifest great interest in our welfare and in the course we pursue. I do not want to miss salvation. I want to go where Brother Joseph is. I want to go to my heavenly Father, and to his Son Jesus Christ, and to the old prophets who lived in their generations.

Let us try to live our religion. Let us seek for the Holy Spirit, that it may dwell in our bosoms day by day. Bless your souls, we have all we want of this world’s goods. Who ever saw a people so well off as the people of Utah in these valleys of the mountains? Who has given us these things? Our heavenly Father. He has blessed the land for our use. This donation that has been made, some may call it a sacrifice; but Brother Taylor had a desire to stretch out the hand of kindness to the oppressed of the Latter-day Saints. We want them to have the benefit of this. We should therefore labor with a will. No matter how long you are a bishop, your work will be closed in the flesh by and by. Where are many of the bishops of this Church and kingdom who held office thirty years ago? Gone; and the bishops who are here tonight, others will supply their places by and by. We will all pass away in our turn, and the faithful will come forth at the coming of the Son of Man, which is but a little while.

I feel anxious that we may not forget God; I feel anxious that we may not forget the position we occupy before him; for I will say this concerning myself: if ever I had any satisfaction or happiness, I have had it in “Mormonism.” If there is anything to me or about me, it has been given to me in “Mormonism.” If I have ever received any blessings; if I have ever had power to testify of the things of God, and been the means of bringing any into the Church and kingdom of God, it has been by the power of God, or by that which is termed “Mormonism,” the Gospel of Christ. I know it is the power of God that has accomplished these things. It has been by the power of God that we have received all we are in possession of—our riches, our gifts, our wives and our children. How many of you have had sealed upon your heads kingdoms, powers and principalities in the world to come? Who can compare these blessings with gold and silver and the things of this world? Or what is to be compared with the gift of eternal life?

I pray God, our heavenly Father, to bless you, to bless all those who bear the holy priesthood; that the blessings of God may be over you. I feel that we as a people have got to rise up and clothe ourselves with the power of God. There must be a reformation, or a change, in our midst. There is too much evil among us. The devil has got too much power over us. A good many that bear the name of Christ and the holy priesthood, are getting cold in the things of God. We must wake up; we must trim our lamps, and be prepared for the coming of the Son of Man. May God bless you. May he guide and direct us all. May he keep us in the hollow of his hand. May he sanctify us and prepare us to inherit eternal life, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Wilford Woodruff, delivered in the Salt Lake Assembly Hall, at the Semi-Annual Conference, of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, Saturday Afternoon, July 3rd, 1880.

I have listened to the instructions given here this afternoon by my brethren, as well as the remarks of Brother Cannon, this forenoon, with feelings of a great deal of interest. When we talk of our duties as Latter-day Saints, I think many times some of us, perhaps all of us, more or less, fall short of comprehending and understanding the responsibilities which we are under to God. I believe there never was a dispensation or a generation of men in any age of the world that ever had a greater work to perform, or ever were under greater responsibility to God, than the Latter-day Saints. The kingdom of God has been put into our hands. We have been raised up as sons and daughters of the Lord to take this kingdom, to lay the foundation of it, to build upon it, to carry it out in its various branches until it becomes perfected before the heavens and before the earth as God has foreordained it should be. And those principles which have been referred to by the brethren in regard to our duties, we cannot safely ignore them nor turn aside from them. I will say as one of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, from the time I was first acquainted with this organization until today, we have never felt ourselves at liberty to stay away from our meetings unless we were sick or circumstances hindered us in some way or other. I can say that for myself, and I believe I can say the same for my brethren. We have always felt duty bound to attend our meetings, and if we do not attend the question might arise, what has become of the Twelve Apostles? Where are they that they do not attend their meetings? It would be a very proper question to ask. And if this responsibility rests upon us in the capacity which we occupy, does it not rest upon other men? I think it does. I do not believe the Lord ever required Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or any of their counselors to undertake to build up this kingdom alone. He never required them to build these Temples alone. They were required to perform their duties, that is true. Joseph Smith was called of God, inspired of God, raised up of the Lord, ordained of God long before he was born, to stand in the flesh, as much as Jeremiah or any of the ancient prophets, to lay the foundation of this Church and kingdom. He performed his work faithfully. He labored faithfully while he tabernacled in the flesh, and sealed his testimony with his blood. Other men were called also to build upon the foundation which he laid.

We have in days that are past and gone been under the necessity of going forth to preach the Gospel in the world. We have had this to do. We have been called to do it. We have been ordained to do it. We have been commanded of God to do it, and so have hundreds of thousands of the elders of this Church and kingdom. We have all some responsibility, more or less, resting upon us, whether as regards going on missions or anything else. I remember Brother Joseph Smith visited myself, Brother Taylor, Brother Brigham Young and several other missionaries, when we were about to take our mission to England. We were sick and afflicted many of us. At the same time we felt to go. The Prophet blessed us as also our wives and families; and I was reading a day or two ago his instructions from my journal. He taught us some very important principles, some of which I here name. Brother Taylor, myself, George A. Smith, John E. Page and others had been called to fill the place of those who had fallen away. Brother Joseph laid before us the cause of those men’s turning away from the commandments of God. He hoped we would learn wisdom by what we saw with the eye and heard with the ear, and that we would be able to discern the spirits of other men without being compelled to learn by sad experience. He then remarked that any man, any elder in this Church and kingdom—who pursued a course whereby he would ignore or in other words refuse to obey any known law or commandment or duty—whenever a man did this, neglected any duty God required at his hand in attending meetings, filling missions, or obeying counsel, he laid a foundation to lead him to apostasy and this was the reason those men had fallen. They had misused the priesthood sealed upon their heads. They had neglected to magnify their callings as apostles, as elders. They had used that priesthood to attempt to build themselves up and to perform some other work besides the building up of the kingdom of God. And not only did he give us the counsel, but the same is given in the revelation of God to us. I have ever read with a great deal of interest that revelation given to Joseph Smith in answer to his prayer in Liberty jail. I have ever looked upon that revelation of God to that man, considering the few sentences it includes, as containing as much principle as any revelation God ever gave to man. He gave Joseph to understand that he held the priesthood, which priesthood was after the order of God, after the order of Melchizedek, the same priesthood by which God himself performed all his works in the heavens and in the earth, and any man who bore that priesthood had the same power. That priesthood had communication with the heavens, power to move the heavens, power to perform the work of the heavens, and wherever any man magnified that calling, God gave his angels charge concerning him and his ministrations were of power and force both in this world and the world to come; but let that man use that priesthood for any other purpose than the building up of the kingdom of God, for which purpose it was given, and the heavens withdraw themselves, the power of the priesthood departs, and he is left to walk in darkness and not in light, and this is the key to apostasy of all men whether in this generation or any other.

Our responsibilities before the Lord are great. We have no right to break any law that God has given unto us. The more we do so the less power we have before God, before heaven and before the earth, and the nearer we live to God, the closer we obey his laws and keep his commandments, the more power we will have, and the greater will be our desire for the building up of the kingdom of God while we dwell here in the flesh.

We have no right to break the Sabbath. We have no right to neglect our meetings to attend to our labors. I do not believe that any man, who has ever belonged to this Church and kingdom, since its organization, has made anything by attending to his farm on the Sabbath: but if your ox falls into a pit get him out; to work in that way is all just and right, but for us to go farming to the neglect of our meetings and other duties devolving upon us, is something we have no right to do. The Spirit of God does not like it, it withdraws itself from us, and we make no money by it. We should keep the Sabbath holy. We should attend our meetings.

This kingdom is advancing. It has got to advance, and somebody has got to build it up. Somebody has got to labor in it. The God of heaven has had a people prepared before the world was made for this dispensation. He had a people prepared to stand in the flesh to take this kingdom and bear it off; and the very spirit of the prophets and apostles, who have gone before us, has been manifested in the lives of faithful men and women from the organization of this Church until today, and will continue until the coming of the Lord, as there are a great many men and women who will live their religion and carry out the purposes of God on the earth.

It is our duty as apostles, as elders and as Latter-day Saints, to contemplate, to reflect, to read the word of God, and to try to comprehend our condition, our position, and our responsibility before the Lord. If our eyes were opened, if the veil were lifted, and we could see our condition, our responsibility, and could comprehend the feelings of God our heavenly Father, and the heavenly hosts, and the justified spirits made perfect, in their watchcare over us, in their anxiety about us in our labors here in the flesh; we would all feel that we have no time to waste in folly or anything else which brings to pass no good. All of us, as elders of Israel and as Latter-day Saints, bear some portion of the holy priesthood, either the Melchizedek or Aaronic. It is a kingdom of priests, and there is work enough for this people to magnify their calling. The Lord has agreed to sustain us, and to break every weapon that is formed against us. He has promised to sustain Zion, and when the Prophet saw this Zion of God in the mountains, his soul was filled with joy and he cried, “Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.” Again the prophet says, “Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Zion has been before the face of the Lord since the creation of the world! Our heavenly Father has protected this people. We have been favored from the day we set our feet in the valleys of the mountains, notwithstanding the tribulation and opposition we have had to contend with. All the designs of the wicked and ungodly to stop this work have been thwarted. The hand of God is over Zion. He is our Comforter. He sustains us, and we have every encouragement on the face of the earth, as Latter-day Saints, to be true and faithful unto him the little time we spend in the flesh.

Our responsibilities are great; our work is great. We not only have the Gospel to preach to the nations of the earth, but we have to fill these valleys, towns, cities, etc., and we have, among other important things, to rear temples unto the name of the Lord before the coming of Christ. We have got to enter into those temples and redeem our dead—not only the dead of our own family, but the dead of the whole spirit world. This is part of the great work of the Latter-day Saints. We shall build these temples and, if we do our duty, there is no power that can hinder this work, because the Lord is with us; and certainly our aim is high! As a people we aim at celestial glory; we aim at the establishment of the kingdom of God. We have been raised up for the purpose of warning the world; to preach the Gospel; to go to the meek of the earth and bring them to these valleys of the mountains, that they may be delivered from the power of sin and Satan. Our numbers are many compared with former dispensations. Nevertheless, our numbers are few when compared with the twelve or fourteen hundred millions of inhab– itants who dwell in the flesh. Still, with the help of God, we have power to redeem the world. This is our work. We are obliged to labor and to continue to while we are here, and when we have finished our work, our sons, the rising generation, have got to take this kingdom and bear it off.

Eight of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are in the spirit world today who were in the flesh when we came here, and so they pass away, one after another, when they finish their work. Do you suppose that in their minds and feelings they realized they had done too much? I think not. Just so with those who remain in the flesh. There is no time to throw away, and I would to God that the elders of Israel could fully realize and comprehend the great work that God has put upon their shoulders—the building up of his kingdom.

This kingdom has continued to increase and spread. When we came here thirty-three years ago we found this place a barren desert. There was no mark of the white man here. It was a desert indeed, hardly a green thing to meet the eye. You can see today for yourselves. The inhabitants of Zion are a marvel and a wonder to the world. They occupy these valleys of the mountains from Idaho to Arizona. The valleys, as it were, are filled with Latter-day Saints. And who are these Latter-day Saints? They are the people whom the God of heaven has raised up in fulfillment of promise and revelation. He has carefully gathered them together by the power of the Gospel, by the power of revelation, and placed them here in the valleys of the mountains. Has there ever been any power formed against this people that has been successful? Nay; and this people will never see the day when our enemies shall prevail, for the very reason that God had decreed that Zion shall be built up; the kingdom that Daniel saw shall roll forth, until the little stone cut out of the mountain without hands shall fill the whole earth. The people of God shall be prepared in the latter days to carry out the great program of the Almighty, and all the powers of the earth and hell combined cannot prevent them. When I see the view that the world takes in regard to this great latter-day work; when I hear it questioned as to whether God has anything to do with it; when I see the feeling of hatred that is manifested towards us, to me it is the strongest evidence that this is the work of God. Why? Because we have been chosen out of the world and therefore the world hates us. This is a testimony that Jew and Gentile and the whole world look at. Then if this is the work of God what is the world going to do about it? What can this nation or the combined nations of the earth do about it? Can any power beneath the heavens stay the progress of the work of God? I tell you nay, it cannot be done. I do not boast of these things as the work of man; it is the work of the Almighty; it is not the work of man. The Lord has called men to labor in his kingdom, and I wish the elders would look upon this subject as it is and realize our position before the Lord. Here we are a handful of people chosen out of some twelve or fourteen hundred millions of people; and my faith in regard to this matter is that before we were born, before Joseph Smith was born, before Brigham was born—my faith is that we were chosen to come forth in this day and generation and do the work which God has designed should be done. That is my view in regard to the Latter-day Saints, and that is the reason why the apostles and elders in the early days of this Church had power to go forth without purse or scrip and preach the Gospel of Christ and bear record of his kingdom. Had it not been for that power we could not have performed the work. We have had to be sustained by the hand of God until today, and we shall be sustained until we get through, if we keep the commandments of God, and, if we do not, we shall fall, and the Lord will raise up other men to take our place. Therefore, I look upon it that we had a work assigned to us before we were born. With regard to the faithful leaders of this Church and kingdom, beginning with Joseph Smith, how many times have I heard men say in my travels—Why did God choose Joseph Smith, why did he choose that boy to open up this dispensation and lay the foundation of this Church? Why didn’t he choose some great man, such as Henry Ward Beecher? I have had but one answer in my life to give to such a question, namely, that the Lord Almighty could not do anything with them, he could not humble them. They were not the class of men that were chosen for a work of this kind in any age of the world. The Lord Almighty chose the weak things of this world. He could handle them. He therefore chose Joseph Smith because he was weak, and he had sense enough to know it. He had the ministration of angels out of heaven. He had also the ministration of the Father and the Son and of the holy men who once dwelt in the flesh.

We have been obliged to acknowledge the hand of God. From out of the pit have we been dug. We have been taken from the plough, the bench, the various occupations of life, having limited knowledge of what the world calls learning. The Lord has called this class of men as elders, and inspired by the power of God they have gone forth and warned the world, and those of this generation who reject the testimony of these elders will be under condemnation, for the elders will rise up in judgment and condemn them. The building up of this kingdom rests upon our shoulders—not upon the shoulders of Brother Taylor and the Twelve Apostles alone, but every man and every woman who has heard this Gospel and gone into the waters of baptism will be held responsible for the light and knowledge they received.

This is my testimony to you today. You have got the kingdom of God here. It has grown and increased, and will continue to grow and increase. I look at this building; I look at the tabernacle here; I look at the temples that are being built; I see what is going on in the mountains of Israel, and I ask what is it? It is the work of God. I acknowledge his hand in it. This is the reason why we are inspired to build these temples. Why we labor to build them is because the day has come when they are needed. Joseph Smith went into the spirit world to unlock the prison doors in this dispensation or generation. He stayed here long enough to lay the foundation of this kingdom and obtain the keys belonging to it. The last time he ever met with the quorum of the Twelve was when he gave them their endowments, and when they left him he had a presentiment that it was the last time they would ever meet. He had something to do on the other side of the veil. He had a thousand to preach to there, where you and I have one in the flesh. And this is the great work of the last dispensation—the redemption of the living and the dead.

We ought not, as elders of Israel, to treat lightly the blessings we enjoy. We ought not to treat lightly the holy priesthood, or attempt to use it for any other purpose under the whole heavens other than to build up the Zion of God. The counsel that has been given this forenoon upon this matter we should lay to heart. The eyes of all the heavenly hosts are over this people. They are watching us with the deepest anxiety. They understand things better than we do, for our veil is our bodies, and when our spirits leave them we will not have a great way to get into the spirit world. They know the warfare we have with wicked spirits and with a wicked world, but what encouragement we have when we read the revelations! We live in a generation when the Lord has decreed that his kingdom shall be preserved. The prophets of every other dispensation have been called to seal their testimony with their blood. My faith is that those of this dispensation will not be called to do this. Joseph and Hyrum, it is true, were called to lay down their lives. Why? I believe myself it was necessary to seal a dispensation of this almighty magnitude with the blood of the testator for one thing, and for another thing the people were worthy that put him to death, and will have the bill to pay as the Jews had to pay for the blood of the Messiah; but as far as the leaders of this people and the people generally are concerned, I think the Lord intends we should live at peace. With regard to Brigham Young, we all know the disposition there was on the part of his enemies to take his life. I never believed, however, that he would die a violent death. Neither do I believe that we shall be required to go forth and stain our swords in the blood of our fellow men in our defense. It has been decreed that the wicked shall slay the wicked. Now, I give you my views regarding these things. I speak the sentiments of my own heart and what I believe. The judgments of our God will be poured forth, but the elders of Israel will not be called upon to slay the wicked. The wicked will slay the wicked. When I read the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, I feel that it is with us as with the generation that lived in the days of Ezekiel. In those days the Lord told the prophet to tell the people that what he said he meant to fulfil. And so it is in the day and age in which we live. All things will be fulfilled. The judgments of Almighty God will be poured out upon the wicked. The harvest is ripe, and I know the farmer has got to cut his crops when they are ripe, otherwise they will go back into the ground and rot.

When I see the wickedness and abomination that prevail in Babylon, covering the earth, as it were, like a mighty sea—when I see these things I feel to ask myself the question, how long can these things rise up in the sight of heaven and not have their reward? In my own mind I can see a change at our door. In the face of the revelations I cannot see how it can be otherwise. The signs of heaven and earth all indicate the near coming of the Son of Man. You read the 9th, 10th and 11th chapters of the last Book of Nephi, and see what the Lord has said will take place in this generation, when the Gospel of Christ has again been offered to the inhabitants of the earth. The Lord did not reveal the day of the coming of the Son of Man, but he revealed the generation. That generation is upon us. The signs of heaven and earth predict the fulfillment of these things, and they will come to pass.

Therefore, let us try to live our religion. We have the kingdom of God. There is no question about this. There was none with Joseph Smith when the angels of God ministered unto him, and we had a living testimony of this work from that day to this. What is the greatest testimony any man or woman can have as to this being the work of God? I will tell you what is the greatest testimony I have ever had, the most sure testimony, that is the testimony of the Holy Ghost, the testimony of the Father and the Son. We may have the ministration of angels; we may be wrapt in the visions of heaven—these things as testimonies are very good, but when you receive the Holy Ghost, when you receive the testimony of the Father and the Son, it is a true principle to every man on earth, it deceives no man, and by that principle you can learn and understand the mind of God. Revelation has been looked upon by this Church, as well as by the world, as something very marvelous. What is revelation? The testimony of the Father and Son. How many of you have had revelation? How many of you have had the Spirit of God whisper unto you—the still small voice. I would have been in the spirit world a great many years ago, if I had not followed the promptings of the still small voice. These were the revelations of Jesus Christ, the strongest testimony a man or a woman can have. I have had many testimonies since I have been connected with this Church and kingdom. I have been blessed at times with certain gifts and graces, certain revelations and ministrations; but with them all I have never found anything that I could place more dependence upon than the still small voice of the Holy Ghost.

I know this is the work of God. I know God is with this people. I am anxious for them. I am anxious for the rising generation, for the young men and young women, for I know this kingdom has got to rest upon their shoulders. When I see the evils that exist in Salt Lake City, I realize they are in danger. Our responsibilities as parents are great. We have not only to set an example ourselves, but we must pray for them, and counsel them, and I am satisfied that the Lord will prepare our young men and young maidens, the sons and daughters of this people, so that they will take this kingdom and bear it off. The kingdom will never be thrown down or given to another people.

I thank God I live in this day and age of the world. I thank God that I heard the Gospel. I thank the Lord I have been made partaker of the holy priesthood in connection with the Gospel, and all the fears I have had have been about myself and friends. I never had any fears about the kingdom of God. I do not have any today. I realize and understand, as well as I know any– thing, that this kingdom is ordained to stand. It will grow and increase. Zion will arise and put on her beautiful garments. The only fears that I have are with regard to myself, my family, my wives and my children. We are surrounded with temptations which have a tendency to lead us away. We have got to guard against them; we have got to increase our faith and live nearer and nearer to the Lord.

I pray God to bless you and bless this people, and bless those who are called to watch over us. We have to watch as well as pray. We have to guard the Church and kingdom of God. By and by our mission will close. We will soon pass away and shall reap our reward. We are living in the last dispensation. Joseph Smith, I expect, will sound the sixth trumpet. He will be at the head of this dispensation; or, if he does not blow the trumpet of this dispensation, I do not know who will. Somebody has got to do it, and it must be somebody holding the keys of the various dispensations of the world. No other angels are coming from any other world to administer in this dispensation; those men will minister who dwelt here in the flesh.

May God bless us and help us to keep his commandments, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, June 27, 1880.

If I were to consult my natural feelings today, it would afford me much greater pleasure to sit still and listen and look at the faces of this congregation than attempt to speak. But this, doubtless, would be a disappointment to very many, and might not be understood. Therefore, I arise this afternoon to make a few remarks—such as may suggest themselves to me—to my brethren and sisters who are present. I shall not attempt to describe to you the emotions, the feelings which I have in being once more reunited with you, for you have heard them expressed by others so frequently, and also by myself, and many of you have experienced them yourselves, that I am relieved from the necessity of restating them in your hearing. I may say, however, that I am exceedingly thankful for the opportunity of returning once more to our home and finding circumstances and surroundings so favorable to the people of these valleys as they are at the present time, and also that I can, to a certain extent, return as the bearer of good tidings; that I can speak favorably concerning our present and our future prospects; that is, so far as my information extends.

When I left here last November, it seemed to me that the elements were charged with threatenings to us as a people and to our liberties. I have had some experience, of several years’ duration, in public affairs; that is, political affairs, and have had occasion to notice the signs of the times; but I can say now that at no time did affairs appear more threatening to us than they did when I went to Washington the latter end of last November, or beginning of December. You probably can recollect the circumstances which existed at that time.

The greatest enemies we have had to contend with for many years have been those who should, from their intimacy with us, from their knowledge of our labors, from their familiarity with our proceedings, have been our friends—those who reside in our midst. It has been the case for several years that all the excitement, all the ill-feeling, all the manifestations of hatred which have come to the surface or been exhibited outside of the Territory of Utah concerning the people called Latter-day Saints, or “Mormons,” have had their origin in this Territory, and have been stirred up by those who reside here. There has not been in Congress, there has not been throughout the country on the part of the public press, or on the part of public men generally, much of a disposition to take or to adopt harsh measures against the people of these mountains. But there have been those residing in this Territory who have seemed to be uneasy lest we should be treated too kindly, or be viewed too favorably by those who are outside of the Territory, and there has been apparently a great dread on the part of a few individuals, lest there should be a disposition manifested by Congress and by those in authority to recognize us as fellow citizens, and to extend to us those rights and privileges to which we are entitled—I mean our rights to become a State, to be admitted into the Union, to receive recognition, the recognition of our numbers, of the good government of this Territory that has been maintained for thirty-three years; of the peace which has prevailed and the developments which have been made, all of which have entitled us to recognition and to admission into the Union as one of the States, and because this fear has seemed to exist in the minds of some individuals, they have done all in their power to misrepresent the people of this Territory, that is, the majority of the people, circulating all manner of falsehoods, representing the people as disloyal, as not being fit to be entrusted with the full powers of citizenship; they have endeavored to create the impression throughout the Union that if the Territory of Utah should be admitted as a State, it would be impossible for any person but a “Mormon” to live within its confines; that property would be unsafe, that life would be in jeopardy; that there would be an unbearable condition of affairs here; the “Mor– mon” Priesthood, as they say, would have such extraordinary power, and wield it so despotically and so much in the interest of their own people and to build up their hierarchy, that it would be impossible for any person of independent views, who did not act with them, to reside in this Territory in peace. These views have been so industriously circulated that a great many people have almost thought that this would be the case. However, I may say in relation to this that these statements do not receive the credence they once did. It is not a new thing for these misrepresentations to be circulated; they have been harped upon for many years. There is one thing, however, that has helped to show their falsity, and that is this great railroad that has been constructed across the continent, which has facilitated intercourse with the world, which has enabled hundreds and thousands of the people of the East and West to visit our Territory and see for themselves. This has been one of the best means of educating the public mind correctly in relation to Utah and its people that I know of; it has done more to dissipate this cloud of misrepresentation that has overshadowed us for so long a period than anything else I know of. It is more difficult at the present time, in consequence of this, that is, this speedy means of intercourse, to circulate those falsehoods and have them receive credence than in past years. I am thankful that this is the case, I have done all in my power to urge public men to visit Utah. I have said to them, Come; Come to Utah, come to Salt Lake. If you are going to California, don’t miss visiting Salt Lake City. I have known that the effects of such visits have been beneficial to the parties who make them, as they tend to enlighten their views concerning us, beneficial to us, as they are the means of informing intelligent men and removing a vast amount of prejudice which exists regarding this people. And I have this to say, that I do not know today a public man in either branch of Congress, who has visited Utah Territory, who is not—that is, so far as the rights of the people are concerned—the friend of Utah. This is saying a great deal, it is a broad statement, but I make it without scarcely hinting at a qualification, for it is true. During this past session—and it has been the case for several sessions—measures have been introduced by men who apparently have a monomania concerning “Mormons” and “Mormonism.” Measures have been introduced by persons of this kind, who have been anxious, apparently, to make that a hobby, hoping, I have thought, that they would gain favor with their constituents by doing this. When such measures have been introduced, and I have needed assistance respecting them, the men to whom I have gone in the Senate and in the House, have been men who have been in Utah Territory, have come down by the railroad to Salt Lake City, and have seen the city and the people. They have not been converted to “Mormonism.” They have not gone away believing that it is right for a man to have more wives than one. That does not follow as a consequence of their visit. But they have seen a people who—notwithstanding that they may consider them mistaken in some of their religious views and practices—are honest, industrious, persevering and orderly, and who behave themselves as good citizens should, and their sympathies have been aroused in behalf of the people, the more so because of the previous misrepresentations which have been made respecting them. They have been so thoroughly undeceived by their visit, that it has had a reactionary effect in many instances upon them, because of the statements that had been made to them previous to coming here. Therefore, you can see that I am warranted in saying as I do so frequently to my friends in Washington, Come; come West; and if you do come West, be sure and stop at Salt Lake City. It is not such a country as California. We have not so many attractions in Utah as you will find in California, but your trip will be incomplete without you visit Utah, and see Salt Lake City and its surroundings.

Of course, there are those who are ready to attribute all sorts of bad motives to those who come here and who are disposed to be favorable after their visit. I have stated this to officers. There have been a number of gentlemen appointed to offices here, with whom I was on very familiar terms in Washington. We could visit, we could meet together, we could associate together, and nobody would wonder at it or attribute any bad motives to either party. But I have said to these gentlemen when they have been appointed to office in Utah Territory—Now, I shall continue to be familiar with you as I am here if you wish it, but let me say to you that as soon as you get inside of the limits of our Territory, if you and I are very familiar, somebody will raise the story that the “Mormons” have bought you, that they have got you in their hands, and it would hurt your influence. Is not this a strange condition of affairs, that in a Territory of the United States citizens cannot associate together without a lot of mis– erable creatures here raising the story that there must be some corrupt motive in this association? And they have endeavored in this way to deter public men from doing their duty when they have come here. I remember one friend who came here, and in riding around he was seen in the presence of President Young. He came here as one of a committee going further West, and he was opposed in the public press here, till he became so indignant that he got copies of all the papers and mailed them to President Grant, to show him the assaults made upon public men, when they come to Utah, by a certain class who are here.

We have these things to contend with; we shall probably have them to contend with. We have lived through them so far, and we shall continue to prosper and live through them in the future. I have no doubt about that. I merely refer to these things to show the character of the opposition that is manifested towards us, and towards those who are friendly to us. But, as I have said, there is a better understanding gaining ground everywhere respecting this people called Latter-day Saints, and I expect it will continue to be the case, until we are known and understood in our true light; and it is a remarkable fact that those who have fought against us, and sought in the manner to which I have made allusion to heap all kinds of obloquy upon us, have not succeeded at that business, they have not succeeded, it has not paid them. They may have thought while doing this that it would injure us; but it has not injured us, it has advertised us, it has made us more widely known. There are public men whom I have met in my life who would rather have evil spoken about them than not be no– ticed at all. They would rather have newspapers attack them and tell that which is not true concerning them than to maintain silence about them and their movements. In this way we have certainly had the benefit of advertising now for a great many years, and people have known us either for good or for evil in a great many quarters of the earth where, if it had not been for this publicity, we might not have been known. It has been of great advantage to our missionaries in foreign lands. For instance, I have been very much pleased to hear by letter and otherwise through our missionaries in Europe, concerning the effect of Secretary Evarts’ circular which he sent abroad respecting emigration to Utah Territory. I do not suppose that he would have given that circular the publicity he did, or even written it at all, if he had been conscious at the time that it would have been so good an advertising power for the “Mormon” missionaries as it has proved. I am told that a great many journalists and public men of various kinds have had their attention drawn to us and to our doctrines, and to this organization in these mountains, in consequence of that circular, who probably would not otherwise have known anything about us. So that, as we have been taught, all things work together for good to all the people who serve the Lord. Everything is overruled for good. We have been told this afternoon, by Elder Cummings, respecting the wonderful organization that sprang up immediately upon the death of the Prophet, in New England. It had only been a very short time before this that the doctrine we believe in—the vicarious submission of the people to the ordinances of life and salvation had been taught.

Well, in all these things we behold the hand of God, and in witnessing His hand acknowledge it. It is the great strength—as I have, I think, told you very frequently—of the Latter-day Saints. We believe in God. We believe in Him as He is. We believe that He is a Being who hears and answers prayer, and who protects and blesses those who put their trust in Him. If I did not have that faith, you would not find me go to Washington as your representative. I would not go there for all that could be piled up as an inducement. But I go there, not strong in my own strength, but strong in the strength of that God whom we worship, and whom we know controls all the affairs and all the destinies of the children of men to suit His own purpose and to bring to pass His own designs. I know further, that the prayers of this people here, and of the thousands of others who live throughout all these mountains, which ascend every night and morning unto the God of Sabbaoth, from the humble habitations and from the humble hearts of the people, are heard of God, and are answered, according to the faith and good desires of the people who offer them. What else is there that could have sustained or preserved us, or could have delivered us as we have been so wonderfully delivered up to the present period? Is there any other power that could have done it? I am satisfied that there is no power beneath the heavens—no power of man, no combination of men, no wisdom or shrewdness or cunning of men, could have effected such great deliverances as have been wrought out for this people called Latter-day Saints; nothing of this kind could have been brought to pass but by the power of God. He who created the heavens and the earth, and who placed man upon the earth, and who sent His son Jesus in the meridian of time to die for man, the Redeemer and the Savior of man—no power but His could have brought about that which we witness and preserved to us that liberty which we now enjoy and for which as a people we should feel so thankful. Take the entire history of this people from the inception of the Church, its first organization, until today; you trace it from its beginning at Fayette, Seneca County, in the State of New York, and through its travels, through the journeyings, the mobbings, drivings, and persecutions to which the people have been subjected: you trace it through until this day of grace, June 27th, 1880, the anniversary of the death of the Prophet Joseph, and his brother Hyrum, and if a man can do so and not acknowledge that there is a God in heaven that overrules the affairs of the children of men, then he is in a worse condition than I can conceive it possible for a thinking man, who has ever had any of the light of truth in his heart to be in.

Let others then do as they please concerning these matters. Let others say that there is no God, that the universe is governed by unalterable laws, that there are no special interpositions of Providence among the children of men, that God governs the universe, governs the earth and the inhabitants of the earth by great unalterable laws, that there is no variation in these laws, that God does not operate to deliver men except they do it by their own wisdom and by their own management, that every man reaps the fruit of that which he does, and that his fate is unalterably fixed, and a great many have that idea—let others, I say, think as they please concerning these matters; but let us, as a peo– ple, cling to the old faith, to the old doctrine that has come down to us through the Bible, that God is, that He is today as much as He ever was, and put our trust in Him. Let us train up our children to the faith that He is a God who hears and answers prayer, so that they will have faith in Him, that in times of trial, in times of difficulty, when they are encircled by danger and it would seem as though there were no possible way of escape from the danger with which they are threatened, they can humble themselves and call upon God with a faith that cannot be overcome, to deliver them and to give unto them those blessings which they need. It is the greatest comfort that a human being can have to be in close communion with his Father in heaven or her Father in heaven. If children grow up with that sort of faith, you will find many of the things Elder Cummings has alluded to, such as the healing of the sick, and the works that were done in ancient days by that same sort of faith, will be done, as they are done, in our households and in our communities.

I have given expression to a few of my feelings. I am thankful to find you in such favorable circumstances. I say to you, live the doctrines that you profess. Be Latter-day Saints, not in name, but in word and in deed. Be an example in your lives. Live the religion you profess. Be meek, be gentle, be kind. If others revile you, revile not again. How easy it is to revile back when a man calls you something that is vile and low; how natural it is to say something equally sarcastic, equally severe, in return. Let us study to control our tongues in our households. Let no father give utterance to any word that he would blush to have any person of the world hear. Let no mother do such a thing. Let every child be taught to respect and reverence not only their parents, but old age. Let us endeavor to raise up a generation who will respect age. One of the great and growing evils that exists today in our land is the disrespect that is manifested by the young to age. Let us train our children to be respectful and to honor the gray hairs of the aged, to honor their parents that the great promise that was made in olden times may be bestowed upon them, namely: that their days may be long in the land.

I pray God, my brethren and sisters, to bless you and let the peace of heaven descend upon and abide with you in your homes and in your habitations, which I ask in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Remarks by President John Taylor, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon June 27, 1880.

I am pleased to have the opportunity of listening to our brethren who have just returned. It is always interesting to hear from those who have been absent, with whom we have been acquainted for years. It is pleasing to listen to their views and ideas pertaining to us as a peo– ple, as contrasted with those of others. In regard to the opinions of men, I would say, however, although we are desirous of pursuing a proper and correct course—it is to us a matter of very little moment what their opinions may be concerning us. The truths of God in every age of the world have been opposed by a certain class of men. That they should be so at the present time is nothing remarkable or strange. And furthermore our trust is not in man but in the Lord. It is to Him that we are indebted for any light, any truth, any intelligence that has been communicated unto us. We have not received our religion, the doctrines that we profess, the ordinances that we administer in, nor any knowledge that we have of God, or the things of God, from the world, neither from its divines, its scientists, its philosophers, nor from any class of men in existence. We have received them not of man, nor by man, but through the revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently we are dependent upon Him for our guidance and direction; and while we wish to treat all men with respect, all authorities and all men holding positions under government, at the same time we feel that our strength, our power, our might, and our sustenance does not exist with them, but the Lord, and that we are dependent upon Him alone.

In speaking of our Priesthood, we knew nothing about it till God revealed it. In speaking of our doctrines we knew nothing about them till God revealed them. And furthermore, in speaking of the ordinances we administer in, whether for the living or the dead, we knew nothing about them till God revealed them; nor did the world, nor do they today. Concerning our temples, what do the world know about them? Nothing. If they had them built today for them they do not know how to administer in them, nor what they are for. The world generally is in darkness. God has revealed the Gospel to enlighten the world, and He has sent us forth not to be taught of the world, but to be their teachers and to show them the paths of light and life, and for this purpose He has organized His Church, His kingdom and His Priesthood; for this purpose He has stretched out His hand to protect us in the valleys of the mountains.

In regard to the position in which we are situated here, what have the world had to do with it? What have those people had to do with it that are so very much interested in our welfare as Brother Cannon has remarked? If they think they can benefit the world, it is very wise that they should go and try as we have done, show the same zeal, interest and welfare for mankind that we have done, travel the thousands and hundreds of thousands of miles without purse or scrip for the benefit of mankind that we have done, and then we will believe them a little quicker. But there are a great many men who think it much easier to tear down than to build up; much easier to oppose good principles than it is to establish and maintain them. All this, however, makes very little difference to us. We care very little about such things. We are engaged in a work in which God has set his hand, and we shall continue to do it, and another thing, there are no persons on this side of heaven or hell that can prevent it. They have tried and they will try, but will be frustrated, for God has set his hand to accomplish a certain work, and that work will be done, and by the help of the Lord, we will try and help Him to do it. The main thing we have to attend to is ourselves, to our morals, to our religion, to the training of our children, to the cultivation of our lots, to making our homes pleasant and agreeable, to promoting the welfare of the human family, that is, all that will permit us to do so. Whom do we interfere with? Whom do we calumniate? Whose religious rights are interfered with by us? They have their churches here. They are not molested; I hope not; I do not hear of it; I hope they are not, for our opinion is that we ought to treat all men aright, believing that matters of religion are matters of conscience. Our opinion is that we ought to treat our government aright, and be loyal, patriotic, just, honorable and law-abiding, honoring all good principles, sustaining all honorable men, and thus endeavor to promote peace, union, and happiness among mankind. Our motto is, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and good will to– ward men.” If people do not offer us that, we cannot help it. It is because they do not know any better. In the meantime, however, we will pursue the even tenor of our way. Let us be virtuous, honest, true and faithful. Let us treat one another aright, and God will bless us. We will serve the Lord and obey his laws, and Zion will roll forth, the kingdom of God will progress and no power can stop it. The things that have been spoken of by the Prophets will all be fulfilled. The knowledge of God will grow and increase, while the wicked will be rooted out, until “the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever,” when liars, hypocrites, deceivers and corrupt men will be destroyed and swept away as with a besom of destruction.

May God help us to be faithful and true to our trust, that we may be saved in His kingdom, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, June 20th, 1880.

I will call the attention of the congregation to a few verses, contained in the 50th Psalm, and the first six verses: “The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfec– tion of beauty, God hath shined. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints to– gether unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself.” It is very evident that the Psalmist, when writing these words, must have been inspired of the living God; for the events, here foretold, are clearly set forth in many other parts of the sacred scriptures. Two very important events are announced here; one is, the gathering of the Saints—those who have made a covenant with the Lord by sacrifice—and another is the coming of the Lord, not his first coming, but his second advent, when a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him; when he shall, in other words, come in his majesty, in his power, in great glory, or, as the apostle Paul expresses it in one of his epistles to the Thessalonians, “he shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” There seems to be connected with this advent of the Lord from the heavens, great power; his arm is to be made manifest before all people. Preparatory to this great event, there will be a universal gathering of the Saints from the four quarters of the earth. It is one of the signs preceding the second advent. It is clearly foretold by many of the prophets. David alludes to it, not only in this Psalm, but in many parts of his Psalms. The Spirit of God seems to have moved upon him to portray more or less the great work of the gathering of the Saints in the last days. Many suppose that he will come and find the Saints scattered all over the world, not gathered into any special country, but it is evident that those who have taken this view of the subject don’t understand the Scripture writings. Nothing is plainer in all the sacred Scriptures than the gathering of the people of God. The apostle Paul, in the first chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians, prophesies “that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth.” It seems to be a new dispensation, a dispensation that is characterized by the words “fulness of times.” When these times shall be fulfilled: when the day shall come for this great preparatory work to take place, the Lord will signify it by speaking from the heavens; or, as it is here stated, in the fourth verse of this Psalm which I have just read, “he shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me: those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” From this we draw the conclusion, that when the dispensation shall be fully ushered in: when the time for the great preparatory work shall take place, the heavens will no longer be sealed up, but the Lord will again speak, will call to the heavens, call upon his angels, call upon the ancient prophets who have died and gone the way of the whole earth, and are dwelling in the heavens, to do the work assigned to them, in the great and last dispensation of the fulness of times, in bringing about the gathering and restitution of his people upon the face of the earth. David, in the 107th Psalm, has very clearly portrayed this wonderful and great event. Perhaps it may be well for us to read the exact words. He commences the Psalm thus: “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy.” Now notice the gathering—“And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south.” It seems to be a gathering from the four points of the compass, out of all lands. You might inquire if the prophets have said anything special in relation to the country where these Saints, or people of God are to be gathered. Let us read the next verse. After gathering them out of the different countries and lands, from the east, west, north and south, the Psalmist says, “They wandered in a wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way,” etc. Now this cannot refer to any former dispensation of gathering. When the children of Israel in ancient days were collected together as a body, they were not taken from the east, west, north and south, but they were taken from one little country—the land of Goshen in Egypt. From there this handful of people, about twenty-five hundred thousand were taken, and in the course of time were permitted to inhabit the land of Canaan. But this gathering that is here spoken of informs us that they are to be gathered out of all lands. Who? The redeemed of the Lord—people who have heard the message of redemption, obeyed the ordinances of redemption, received the Gospel of redemption, and were the people of God, the people of Christ; they were the ones that were to wander in the wilderness, after they were thus gathered, and that wilderness would be a solitary way. Now, in gathering from Egypt to the land of Canaan, they wandered, it is true, in a small wilderness, on the east side of the Red Sea, but instead of bringing them forth where there was no city or habitation, he brought them forth to large and populous cities. The first city that they came to, after crossing from the east side of Jordan to the land on the west side, was the great city of Jericho, which the Lord delivered into their hands; and then there were numerous other cities that are mentioned in the Book of Joshua, which were delivered into the hands of the people. The children of Israel gathered out of one land; but this latter-day gathering was to be a people called “the redeemed of the Lord;” they were to go into a wilderness country. They were called, in many parts of the Scripture writings, “the people of Zion,” and “the Zion of the latter days.” The Lord calls them by this special name in the 51st chapter of Isaiah, and these are the words that are used: “For the Lord shall comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.”

When I was a boy. I was inclined to attend very frequently the meetings that were held by the different denominations in the State of New York, my native State. I often heard this prophecy of Isaiah sung, by those who were singing anthems of praise to the Lord, “The Lord shall comfort Zion,” etc., but little did I know, in my boyhood or youth, what was meant by these predictions of Isaiah. It seems that the people of Zion are to be gathered out from all lands, from every nation under heaven, from the four points of the compass, and are to be brought into a solitary place, a wilderness, and when they arrive in that solitary place or wilderness, they will, at first, be greatly afflicted, sorely distressed, so much so that they will be under the necessity of crying unto the Lord, and he will deliver them from their distress. “They found no city to dwell in,” says David. Now, this was the case with the Latter-day Saints, whom the Lord commanded to gather together. When we started forth over the great desert plain, where there were no settlements, no cities, no towns, traveling hundreds of miles without any track to guide us, it was a “solitary way,” and rendered more terrible by the wild beasts that roamed over the plains. We could hear the sound of the wolf in his howlings; we could hear the sounds of the buffalos in their bellowings, but the sound of the human voice, from any village, or town, or settlement was unknown for hundreds of miles.

We commenced this journey in the year 1846, leaving the great Mississippi River in the cold month of February. After a portion of us had crossed the river in boats, the river was frozen over, and the rest of the company crossed in wagons on the ice. We had no grass to sustain our teams. Our teams depended upon the cottonwoods, and barks of trees, and a little corn that we could occasionally get by sending down to the settlements, and purchasing it for that purpose. We wandered in the wilderness “in a solitary way,” and when we had traveled some fourteen hundred miles, we found no city to dwell in, just precisely as the Psalmist said would be the case. We entered this valley in the month of July, 1847, having been detained during the winter, by sending over 500 of our people—young and middle-aged men—to help the United States in their war against Mexico. That detained us during the winter, so that we could not journey any further than Council Bluffs, or the regions a little above Omaha, where we built up a temporary residence. The next spring we started off, traveling over the plains “in a solitary way,” and entered this valley just about where Fort Douglass is now established on the bench; we called it Emigration Canyon. We came down here upon this plot of ground in the month of July, and commenced planting a few potatoes. It was very late to put in any corn, but we wished to try the soil to see whether there was any virtue in it. We found it, however, like an ash heap. It seemed as though there had been no rain upon the land for years. We could dig down a great depth in many places, where this city now stands, without finding scarcely any moisture, but we succeeded by taking the water from the creek—City Creek we call it—in flooding a small portion of ground, and put in our potatoes, and planted corn, a few beans, garden seeds, etc., to see if there was any virtue in the soil. What were the results of our first crop? We found that there was fruitfulness in the soil; but of course it was too late for anything to be matured. The same fall, or autumn of 1847, several thousand of the Latter-day Saints followed up our track. They came upon the land in the fall of the year, bringing with them a little breadstuffs to sustain them during the winter, and also our farm utensils, and everything in the shape of wearing apparel that could be brought. We had not much to bring, for we had already been driven four or five times in the United States, from our houses and from our lands; much of our bedding was burnt; our stores torn down, and the goods carried into the streets and destroyed. Hence, we had not much to bring with us: but we came trusting in our God, and we found that the Lord really fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, and made the wilderness to blossom as the rose, made the desert to bloom like the Garden of Eden—literally fulfilling that which our Gentile religious denominations had been singing in my ears, when I was a youth. Very pleasant song to those who did not understand it, but much more pleasant to those who do understand and are fulfilling it. We made great calculations in laying off this city. We did not lay it off merely one square mile, as if we were doubtful as to whether there would be any inhabitants to occupy it, nor two miles square, but we laid it off, covering an area of about five square miles. We expected that there would be a great emigration. Upon what did we found our expectation? Was it upon our own natural judgment? No; we founded our expectation upon that which God had spoken in the modern revelations which he had given to us as a people. He told us, by revelation, before our prophet was martyred, that we would have to leave the United States: go beyond the Rocky Mountains, and seek our home in the wilderness, and that we would have a great people gather with us. We believed his words; we laid out this city accordingly; and now all that remains for us or strangers to do, in regard to the fulfillment of these expectations, is to ride from one end of this city to the other, and see if there is much spare ground: see if the lots are not pretty generally occupied, and the city pretty well filled with inhabitants. “And he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein.” At first, before the joy and gladness came, this other prophecy was fulfilled: “Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them,” then they cried unto the Lord in their afflictions, and the Lord heard them, and delivered them out of their distress. It is not necessary for me to enumerate all our privations, such as the shortness of provisions, and how many had to live on the roots that sprang out of the ground; how many had to boil up the hides of their cattle that had transported them across the plains; it is not necessary to enter into all these particulars. I do not know that it is necessary for us even to speak of a great trial of our faith, that we had after we had been here many months. We planted our crops in the spring, and they came up, and were looking nicely, and we were cheered with the hopes of having a very abundant harvest. But alas! it very soon appeared as if our crops were going to be swallowed up by a vast horde of crickets, that came down from these mountains—crickets very different to what I used to be acquainted with in the State of New York. They were crickets nearly as large as a man’s thumb. They came in immense droves, so that men and women with brush could make no head way against them; but we cried unto the Lord in our afflictions, and the Lord heard us, and sent thousands and tens of thousands of a small white bird. I have not seen any of them lately. Many called them gulls, although they were different from the seagulls that live on the Atlantic coast. And what did they do for us? They went to work, and by thousands and tens of thousands, began to devour them up, and still we thought that even they could not prevail against so large and mighty an army. But we noticed, that when they had apparently filled themselves with these crickets, they would go and vomit them up, and again go to work and fill themselves, and so they continued to do, until the land was cleared of crickets, and our crops were saved. There are those who will say that this was one of the natural courses of events, that there was no miracle in it. Let that be as it may, we esteemed it as a blessing from the hand of God; miracle or no miracle, we believe that God had a hand in it, and it does not matter particularly whether strangers believe or not.

We found no city here to dwell in. What did we do? Went to work and began to build a great city. This also was foretold in this same Psalm, “He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry ground; A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings.” We found that when we came and began to irrigate the land, and the rains began to descend from the heavens, the earth began to take on a fresh appearance, and the dry ground became like water springs. “And there he maketh the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation.” Now when the Israelites went into Canaan they found cities already prepared, but we had to prepare our own city, “And sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase. He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; and suffereth not their cattle to decrease.” Now, the Latter-day Saints who have been here, since the arrival of the first companies in the year 1847, can rea– lize how much the Lord has multiplied this people. We are as it were overrun with children. If strangers will take the opportunity of going to some of our oldest towns, and through our various settlements, they will find vast numbers of children, perhaps more children in our country than in any other country in the United States of the same population. This is very clearly spoken of here, “He blessed them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; and suffereth not their cattle to decrease.” Again he says, in the 41st verse, “Yet setteth he the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock.” Those that are acquainted with some of our poor men, and when they go and look at one man’s family; for this is in the singular number—“he maketh him families like a flock”—when we see one man’s family like a flock, we may know the Lord has fulfilled this prophecy in regard to the gathering of the Saints in the latter days. “The righteous shall see it, and rejoice: and all iniquity shall stop her mouth.” The latter part of the sentence is not yet fulfilled, but the fore part is fulfilled; the righteous hath seen these “families like a flock,” and the people greatly multiplied upon the face of the land. “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.” That is, they are the children of the light. They can see that the Lord our God is fulfilling that which he had purposed to fulfil, when the day for the gathering of his Saints should commence. They can see that that which has occurred corresponds with that which was predicted. Again, they can see how the righteous prosper and flourish; how their cattle increase, and how the Lord has made this wilderness, this desert, this waste country, like the garden of Eden.

Paul, I have no doubt, saw this dispensation of the “fulness of times,” or he never would have predicted the great gathering that should then take place, namely “all things in Christ”—notice that expression; not those who are out of Christ, not those who have not been baptized into Christ; but “all things in Christ; both which are in heaven and which are on the earth; even in him.”

This forcibly puts me in mind of the parable of our Savior concerning this great latter-day gathering. In the 24th chapter of Matthew he speaks of his second coming “in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory,” and how the Gospel should be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, before he should come in his glory. In the next chapter, in order that his disciples might fully understand his sayings, he goes on to explain that at that particular period the kingdom of heaven should be likened unto ten virgins; not the former kingdom that was to be built up, when he came on the earth in the flesh; that was not likened unto ten virgins; but at the time he should commence the great work of gathering, that wheresoever the main body of the kingdom is gathered together, from the four quarters of the earth, preparatory to his second coming, then, at that time, should the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps and went forth—(signifying that they did not remain in their native lands) to meet the Bridegroom. It was a literal gathering out; and after they had gathered out, taking their lamps with them, they began to be sleepy, and it is written, “they all slumbered and slept.” It was a time to sleep, a time of drowsiness; it is called midnight; but when all was silent, and when probably the world outside was not looking for anything very great, was careless and indifferent, a voice was heard in the depth of this silence, saying, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” Then all those virgins awoke, both the wise and the foolish. The wise ones trimmed their lamps, and had some oil left; but the lamps of the foolish had gone out, because there was no oil in them. It seems that they had been so careless, that all the Spirit of God—which may be compared to the oil that gives brightness to the lamps—had gone out of them, and their lamps would not burn. “Well,” said they, “what shall we do? We have been expecting the Bridegroom as well as you that are wise; we believed the Gospel, but really we have been too careless; the spirit has been withdrawn from us; there is no oil in our lamps; cannot you give us some? Won’t you sell us a little?” “Oh, no,” say the wise ones, “we almost fear we have not got enough for ourselves; if you want any, you had better go and buy of those who want to sell.” Hence, five that had gathered were foolish, and five were wise. The wise entered in with the Bridegroom, and the door was shut before the foolish ones could get in. But they afterwards arrived and begged to be admitted; and the question was asked. “Who are ye?” “We have been here among your people for a long time. Have we not cast out devils at a certain time? Have we not been on missions? Have we not healed the sick and done many wonderful works in your name?” What is the reply? “I know you not.” Why? Because they have apostatized; they have lost the oil out of their lamps; they failed to be prepared for the coming of the Savior. Therefore they were bound, as it were, hand and foot, and delivered over to the wicked world, to suffer the same punishment as those that would not receive the truth, and perhaps even greater.

There is another parable concerning this gathering dispensation. You recollect the Savior, in speaking of the end of the wicked world, in a parable, calls it a time of harvest. Before the time of harvest, there seemed to be a gathering together, and by and by, after this gathering, the tares were plucked out from among the wheat, and cast out in bundles, ready to be burned; but those that were not tares, those that were really wheat, were the ones that were prepared to enter in and partake of the blessing of the Lord. This was spoken, not concerning the former dispensation, but that dispensation immediately preceding the end of the world.

In another very plain parable, concerning the gathering in the last days, the kingdom of heaven is compared—that is the kingdom which should exist in the last days—to a net that should be cast into the sea, and gather of all kinds, both good and bad. They are brought up to the shore, not left in their native ocean or native waters, but brought up to the shore. The bad are cast away, and the good were cast into the vessels. Now, this had reference also to the end of the world. This had reference to the great and last dispensation, when the servants of God will go forth, being commissioned of the Lord of Hosts to gather out his Saints, those that have made a covenant with him by sacrifice, and in the gathering out of these Saints from all the lands of the earth, and from the four quarters thereof, they will gather up a great many that are not good, that will not stand the test; but the bad will be cast out, those who have not on the wedding garment, they will be cast away, and bound hand and foot, as it were, until the end shall come, that is, the final judgment, which will be more than a thousand years after the time of the coming of the Savior.

This same great gathering is characterized also by Daniel, as a stone cut out of the mountain without hands. This stone is represented as a kingdom, and its location is represented as a mountain, showing that there is to be a kingdom of God set up in the last days by the gathering together of his people in an elevated region of country, called a mountain. By and by that stone will roll forth, until the kingdoms of this world are broken in pieces, and as the Prophet Daniel said, the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but shall stand forever; all those other earthly kingdoms, that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, will vanish away, like a night vision, or, in other words, become “like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them.” There are many politicians that are trying to foretell the future. They speak of what this government, and that government, and the other government will be, several hundred years hence, or perhaps in ages hence, as though they could see and understand, naturally, the condition of the various governments and kingdoms of the earth, for a long time to come; but Daniel, who was filled with the Spirit of the living God, saw that all these earthly governments—with the setting up of which God had nothing to do particularly, that is, their founders were neither prophets nor revelators so as to found them upon the principles of the everlasting Gospel—were to vanish away, like the chaff of the summer threshingfloor. And you know how that vanishes, especially when the wind blows strongly. So shall it be with all the governments, kingdoms, powers, republics, and empires upon the face of this globe, except one government, namely, that government which the God of heaven shall establish in the latter days upon the mountains. This is the work of God. It is God that causes these kingdoms to vanish away. It is our God that will cleanse the earth from wickedness. “A fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.” He it is that will speak and the wicked shall melt away. He it is that will cause violent whirlwinds to go forth and destroy this, that, or the other city, according to his own will. He it is that will send forth pestilence and plague, and will perform all that has been spoken by the mouth of his prophets, concerning the destruction that is to take place in the latter days.

To prove still more clearly the nature of this great latter-day work of gathering, read the writings of John the Revelator. He saw the introduction of the Gospel in the latter days. He saw “another angel” should bring it. He saw that it should be published to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. He saw that following that angel there would come great and terrible judgments. He saw that after that angel should come with the Gospel, there would come a voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remem– bered her iniquities.” This voice from heaven, this new revelation, that was promised by the mouth of John the Revelator, and the sound to all is: “Come out from among these nations. Come out from the four quarters of the earth. Come out from Great Babylon, ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great,’ that you may escape the desolation and plagues that will soon overtake her.” Read concerning the coming of that angel with the Gospel. Read the declaration that that should be the hour of God’s judgment. When the Gospel is preached, it is the last message to the human family, the last warning voice that they will hear before the coming of the Lord. If they receive it, they will flee out from the nations; if they receive it not, then know assuredly that the hour of God’s judgment is come, and God himself will judge the people, as written in this 50th Psalm.

But we will not detain you longer. May the Lord bless you. May he pour out his Spirit upon all the faithful of the Latter-day Saints, and if there are any unfaithful ones, numbered with the people of God, may the Spirit of the Lord strive with you, until you shall repent of your unfaithfulness, and become pure, upright, virtuous, and holy before the Lord, that you may be entitled to his Holy Spirit. And if there be any strangers present, this afternoon, who desire to know the truth, we would ask them to search the sacred Scriptures, call upon the name of the Most High God, and he will show you whether these Scriptures are true or not; he will reveal to you whether he has sent his angel from heaven or not; he will give you a testimony that is greater than the testimony of men, provided you will go humbly before him, and call upon him, with all your hearts. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, June 13th, 1880.

I shall endeavor to occupy a few moments of time, and perhaps I may continue my remarks until it is time to close the meeting. I wish I enjoyed better health; I should then feel more like speaking. But as it is, I feel willing to exert myself as far as possible, and also to bring my mind to bear upon the great subject of salvation, and the principles that pertain to eternal life and happiness in the world to come. It is difficult, sometimes, for a person who does not feel well in body, to concentrate his mind upon those subjects which will be edifying and instructive to the people.

It gives me great joy and pleasure, at all times, when I have the opportunity to express myself in regard to the great and important work, which our Father in heaven has seen proper to commence in our day. We have been made partakers, in a measure, of the spirit of the living God, pertaining to this last dispensation. This spirit, when received, and when we give it our attention, and bring our minds to bear upon the object of its operations, is calculated to instruct and impart much information and knowledge to both male and female who are in the possession of it. The Spirit of God is a spirit of revelation. It always was a spirit that revealed something to the human family, when mankind were in possession of it. There have been, however, many ages since the commencement of the world, when the children of men have so far wandered from the Almighty, so far departed from his ordinances and precepts, that the spirit of revelation has not had place within them. The world may be considered in a woeful state of darkness and unbelief, whenever this great and glorious gift is withdrawn from the children of men; for without this gift, without this spirit, without revelation from the Most High, it is utterly impossible for the human family to be saved in the celestial kingdom of our Father and God. Perhaps some may think that this is a very broad statement. They will refer back to the last sixteen or seventeen centuries, and will say, that our fathers have not enjoyed the spirit of revelation, during that time, and if your statement, Mr. Pratt, be true, our fathers are not saved in the celestial kingdom of God. I do not say that our fathers will all be sent to an endless hell. I have made no such assertion. I do not say that they will receive no happiness, no glory, no reward in the world to come; I have made no such assertion; but understand my assertion, that if the world have not been in the possession of divine revelation directly to themselves, during this long period of time, then there have none of them been saved in the celestial kingdom of our Father and God. Now I hope that you have understood me. There is quite a difference between being saved in some kingdom, where there is some glory, some happiness, and being saved in the kingdom where our Father resides. There is only one way to obtain this kingdom—the kingdom that is represented, in its glory, by one of the most brilliant luminaries that shines in yonder heavens, namely, the sun. We are told by our Savior that those who obey his commandments shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father. The Apostle Paul informs us that there are in the eternal worlds many different kinds of glory. In the 15th chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, he says that, “there is one glory of the sun; and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.” They do not all rise to the same glory, nor to the same happiness, nor to the same fulness, nor to the same kingdom; but they arise from their graves, and come forth—those who are counted worthy of any kind of glory—to receive that which they are worthy of, all that they have lived for, and nothing more.

Our Father who dwells in yonder heavens, and his Son Jesus Christ, inhabit the highest degree of glory in eternity. They are possessed of all the fullness of glory. They have a fullness of happiness, a fullness of power, a fullness of intelligence, light and truth, and they bear rule over all other kingdoms of inferior glory, of inferior happiness, and of inferior power. Their glory is like that of the sun, or at least, the sun being the most conspicuous body with which we are immediately acquainted, in regard to its glory, it is referred to as being typical of the highest degree of glory in the heavens. The Gospel is intended to exalt the children of men to that same degree of glory, where our Father and where his Son reside. Hence it is said by our Savior, just as he was taking leave of his apostles in ancient times, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” There is a mansion where he dwells. Where this mansion is located in the midst of the vast surrounding space, has not been revealed to us. It may have been revealed in former ages of the world; but to us, as Latter-day Saints, we have no revelation concerning its location. But there is a location, where these two glorious personages dwell. It has a location, just as much as our earth has a location in the solar system. But when I speak of our Father and our God being located in a glorious mansion, or celestial world, I do not wish to be understood that he is confined to that location. Do not misapprehend the subject. He is not confined to that particular locality, in the midst of universal space. He has power which we are not in possession of. He has power to waft himself from that particular locality to other dominions, other worlds, other creations; and to do this with an immense velocity. Of course, to accomplish this must occupy time. There are some, however, so foolish in their ideas that they suppose that it does not require time for the Almighty to go from world to world, or for any celestial messenger to do so. But this is a grand mistake. Time is included in all motion. Time is included between the event of a heavenly being leaving the celestial abode, where he dwells, and going to some other abode at a distance. How great this time may be is not revealed; but I have an idea that it is much swifter than any velocity with which we are familiar; I mean the velocity with which our Father and God can convey himself from the celestial abode where he dwells to some other kingdom. I believe it be much swifter than that of the common light which shines from the heavenly bodies of our system, or from the distant bodies of the stellar system. Now, light travels with immense velocity—185,000 miles in one beat of the pulse, or in about one second of time. We might suppose that that is about as swift as any being would want to be wafted.

But suppose that our Father, in the heavenly world where he dwells, should feel disposed to visit one of the vast dominions of his great creation as far distant as the nearest fixed star. If he could go no faster than light is transmitted through space, it would take him three and a half years to perform the journey. And to go to one that was situated some ten or fifteen times further off, it would take, of course, ten or fifteen times longer. And to go to some which are as far off from him as the distant creations that are just visible through our most powerful telescopes, it would take him six hundred thousand years to perform the journey, provided his velocity was only equal to that of light. I draw the conclusion, therefore, that God is not confined to the velocity of light, or to any other velocity with which we are acquainted—that he can go with immense velocity, perhaps thousands and hundreds of thousands of times swifter than that of light, if he feels disposed so to do. It is out of the question for us to suppose that God does not travel in going from creation to creation. That he could be momentarily and instantaneously in two creations at the same time is something that I never could comprehend, although it is believed in by some of the religious professors of the present day. They believe that God, in his person, can be in infinite space all at the same moment. That is not our doctrine. It is not my doctrine, at least. He may be, by his power, by his intelligence, by his spirit, in infinite space, working throughout all the vast dominions of space, according to laws he has ordained and instituted.

Having said so much, in regard to the locality of our Heavenly Father, and of the celestial beings who dwell in the same abode, or in the same mansions where he resides, let me now say a few words more in regard to his presence being everywhere. I cannot, for a moment suppose, and I do not believe that any intelligent being who exercises his intelligence, independently of the traditions of the children of men, can suppose, that a person can be everywhere present at the same instant. “But,” inquires one, “when a good man dies, passes out of this body of flesh and bones, it is said that he is in the presence of God. Does this mean that he has actually gone from his tabernacle, perhaps millions and millions and unnumbered millions of miles, to the abode or mansion where Jesus is, because he is in the presence of God?” No; I do not look at it in this way, I look at it in this light: if this world in which we dwell had the veil withdrawn from off its face, and the veil taken away from our faces, I consider that we would see the Lord, however far distant he might be; hence we would be in his presence; and on the other hand, those who dwell in his abode, however distant, can see us; for there is no veil over his face, no veil over the celestial abode of our Father and God, and there being no veil over him, nor over the beings that dwell in his abode, they can behold the most distant creations, which they have made. Now, this is my view. I do not say this is the view of the Latter-day Saints, but my own individual views, in regard to these matters. If then we pass out of these bodies of ours, and the veil is taken away, we are in his presence, just as much as we would be if we were wafted to the mansion where he dwells: I have no doubt, but what we will be wafted (if we are worthy) to that mansion, in due time; but I say, that we are in the presence of God, while our spirits are yet here upon the earth; because the veil is removed and our eyes can pierce eternity, and eternal things.

Now, we have some examples of this, Latter-day Saints: and I sometimes wonder, when we have such plain examples as are to be had in this book which I hold in my hand, (The Pearl of Great Price) I sometimes wonder that people should be so limited in their ideas and in their views, concerning the future state of man (I mean the glorified man), as to suppose that he will be confined in his vision to some particular locality, and that he will be something similar to what we are here in this mortal life. Now, even mortal men, before they obtained immortality, have enjoyed this spirit of seeing things that were naturally supposed to be utterly impossible. Who that is acquainted with this book (the Pearl of Great Price) has not read with great and deep interest, the words of that great man, Moses, before he was sent down to Egypt to redeem the Israelites? Who is there among the readers of the Latter-day Saints who cannot comprehend, in some measure, how the vision of that man was enlarged, while he was yet here in a state of mortality? He went up into the Mount to pray to the Lord. The veil was removed. The glory of God rested upon Moses, and great and important things were made manifest to him. All things were not revealed; for he was incapable of receiving all things while yet a mortal being. But the Lord saw proper to reveal some things; and Moses sought to know some other things, but the Lord would not grant it and told him that no man could behold all his works, except he beheld all his glory; and no man could behold all his glory and afterwards remain in the flesh upon the earth; that is, in the state of mortality. But, said he, “Moses, my son, I will show unto thee some of the works of mine hands. I will reveal unto you concerning the heaven that is over your head, and this earth upon which you dwell.” And as the Lord talked with Moses, the Spirit of God being upon him, his eyes were opened, the veil was taken away, and he saw the whole earth, not merely the surface of it, but the interior of it; every particle of it was before the eyes of Moses. This, then, shows that there is within each of these mortal tabernacles a spirit, and this spirit, when lit up by the Holy Spirit from on high, has certain faculties and powers, far beyond that which we are able to develop naturally here upon the earth. We cannot, by our own natural powers, discern one foot underneath the surface of the earth. We cannot discern through anything that is opaque in its nature—anything that will not admit the natural light to be transmitted through is substance. But still, we have the faculties within us; we have the power; there is merely an obstacle, or obstruction, in the way; and when this obstruction is removed it shows the godlike powers that are planted within the tabernacles of men, by which they can behold and pierce those portions of creation that are not discernable by the natural man. This Moses obtained during the few moments that he was thus enwrapt in vision. He obtained more information in those few moments than could be imparted in all the universities and colleges that ever existed, since the creation of the world to the present day. We may study the ponderous volumes that are published by the learned, and it takes a long time to grasp the information that some very learned men have received. But oh, how different is the method of receiving revelation, when it comes from the Most High! In a moment, as it were, those faculties of ours that have been lying dormant ever since we were born into this world—those faculties which are enshrouded with the darkness of a fallen creation—those faculties, when once illuminated, when once touched by the finger of the Almighty, can pierce the creations of the Almighty, so far as he permits us to behold.

These things encourage me. I am in hopes, when I get to the other side of the veil, that it will not be so difficult for me to understand the different laws of science, and the different laws and branches of education that are taught in this little creation of ours. I am in hopes that when my spirit shall launch forth out of this mortal tabernacle, and go into the eternal world, that I shall not, at that time, require Lord Ross’s great six feet telescope; I am in hopes that I shall not need any of the telescopes, or other instruments invented in the nineteenth century; but I am in hopes there will be a telescope prepared for me, by which I can see the vast creations of the Almighty, and comprehend, in a short period of time, more than could be unfolded to the children of mortality in a thousand years.

I mention this in order to bring before the Latter-day Saints a principle which, I think, we should all, more or less, reflect upon. How encouraging it is to think we are not always going to be bound down to this slow process of gaining knowledge, and information, and wisdom, pertaining to the works of the Almighty! How glorious it is also, to reflect upon the celestial host, who dwell in the fulness of celestial glory, where there is no veil, and where they have their bodies; for some of them have been raised from the grave to immortality, and are clothed upon with all the fulness of the attributes of the Father. I say, how glorious it is to reflect upon the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of knowledge that will then be unfolded to the children of men! These things, as I said before, inspire my heart with joy. I do not confine my hopes to the volumes of works on science, with which I may come in contact here in this world; I do not confine my hopes to the slow process of advancing in knowledge and intelligence that the children of this world have; but I look forward to that higher school—that great university which will scope in boundless and eternal space, that will scope in the most distant creations that we can imagine in the vast field of eternity, in which we will be able to comprehend those laws by which the various creations are governed; not understand them as we now comprehend some few laws, but understand them in all their perfection and fulness, being like unto our Father and God, made like unto him, fashioned like unto his glorious body, and become indeed “sons of God.” Shall I go still further and say Gods? Are we not the children of our Father? Will not the children ascend to the same height, to the same glory, to the same celestial world, and to the same fullness of the attributes of their Father? Are not our children, take them as a body, qualified to come up to all the perfections and attributes of their fathers, who came on the earth before them? It seems to be a general law that children will grow up and possess all of the perfections of their parents, provided that they take the necessary steps, and are favored with long life, and have the natural intelligence that is common to man. If, then, this seems to be a natural law in regard, not only to man, but also to all animated creation—that the children come up and possess the perfections of their fathers before them—may we not reason, by analogy, that our Father who begat us—our Father who dwells in yonder celestial world, intends to make us one with him, that we shall receive the same fulness with him, that we shall partake of light, and truth, and knowledge, and advance from grace to grace, as the revelations in the Book of Covenants state, until we shall receive a fulness of all truth? Then will not this make us, in one sense of the word, sons of God? Will it not make us Gods also, according to the word of God? “But,” inquires one, “how can two persons possess the same attributes without quarreling with each other?” That is not the order of heaven. That is not the pure law that God has ordained, that there should be quarrels with those that have the same degree of intelligence; but the law is that they shall become one, as “I and my Father are one, so that these my brethren may also become one in us as we are one.” That is the law; and if they are one there will be as much unity between his children who are exalted to that high condition in the celestial glory, as there is a unity and oneness between the Father and his only begotten Son. Have they any quarrel? Have they any difficulties? Have they any difference of views? Does one intend to carry on one government, and another a different kind of government? No; whatever is the will of the Father, is the will of the Son; whatever the Father is prepared to do, throughout all his vast dominions, the Son is in accord with him; and whatever the Father desires to perform and accomplish, his children who are made like him and one with them, will take hold and perform the same work, with all that unity and oneness which exist between the Father and the Son. In the celestial glory they are made equal in oneness, in power, in knowledge, and in all perfections; and the Lord their God is with them, and they are one with him, to carry on all his purposes, and will be one with him throughout all the future ages of eternity.

I thought perhaps the time was expired; but I will say a few more words in regard to this great glory, this high destiny prepared for the sons of God. I told you that our process of gaining information would be very rapid—would be immense in its growth, and that we should have the faculties within us developed to the highest degree. But now let us for a few moments, look into this high state of perfection. When our faculties are thus developed, and when we have all the wisdom that I have been speaking of, that dwells in the bosom of celestial beings, in the eternal worlds, what will we do with this wisdom? Will we fold up our arms, and remain throughout all the future ages of eternity, in perfect indifference and laziness, without anything to accomplish or perform? No; we will have works assigned to us to perform in the eternal worlds, that will be proportionate to all the fulness of that glory and knowledge which we are endowed with. Did the sons of God in ancient times, come forth and assist in the formation of this little creation of ours? Did they all shout for joy when the materials were brought together, and when the foundations of the earth were laid? Did they all feel happy and sing a song of rejoicing, and with great joy; did they look upon the works which they were performing? Yes. Jesus was there—the Firstborn of this great family of our Father in heaven. He had the superintendence of this creation. He had the power, because the power dwelt within him, to build this earth of ours, the same as you give to your superintendent power to build your temples, about which Brother Rich has been speaking. It is said that the worlds were made through our Lord Jesus Christ. But do you suppose that he alone made them? No; he had the sons and daughters of God with him. And there were prophets in those days, before our earth was made. They shouted for joy when they saw the nucleus of this creation formed. Why? Because they could look into the future, and by the spirit of prophecy, behold the designs and purposes of the great Jehovah in regard to the creation which they were then in the act of forming. Did they not understand that they would have the privilege of coming forth and peopling this earth? Yes. Did they not understand that they were to pass through a probation on this earth, the same as we are now passing through, in order to prepare them for a still higher exaltation and glory, with immortal bodies of flesh and bones? Yes; they understood these things, hence their joy, when they saw the creation being formed for them. I mention this, in order to show to the Latter-day Saints that the great work that will be entrusted to those who are prepared, will be proportionate to the wisdom, intelligence and understanding that will be imparted to those who enter into the fulness of the glory of the celestial kingdom. They will not remain in idleness to all eternity. They will have a work to perform. They will form worlds under the direction, no doubt, of those that may be ap– pointed to superintend works of such vast magnitude. Furthermore, when they have formed these worlds, they will set them in motion in the midst of universal space, in some location, where they can continue their mission, and where all necessary things shall be fulfilled and accomplished during the days of the probation of these various creations. There will be laws given to govern these new creations, the same as there are laws given to govern the creations with which we are surrounded. The inhabitants upon these creations will be visited from time to time by those that have taken part in the great work of their formation. The inhabitants thereof will be dealt with according to law. They will be intelligent beings. They will have their agency, and they will pass through their probation the same as the people are now passing through their probations here in this world. Everything will be accomplished according to laws that shall be ordained when these creations are made. Will they visit these creations? Yes; for they will have the same power of locomotion, the same power to pass through space (almost in the twinkling of an eye) that our Father has—that his Son Jesus Christ has—that all celestial beings who are exalted in his presence have, and possessing the power, they will visit from creation to creation; they will impart knowledge and understanding to their children in these creations. They will visit them with the light of their countenances, and the children of these creations will be made glad in their hour, in their times, and in their seasons, by the light and countenances of the celestial beings who, from time to time, organized them. These are the high destinies that await the Latter-day Saints, if they are faithful. These are the high destinies into which many of the Former-day Saints have already entered. These are the great, and choice, and exalted blessings in store for all who will keep the commandments of our Father and God. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Wilford Woodruff, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, June 6th, 1880.

I have a desire to be heard in what I say to this assembly. I know the difficulties there are in speaking here. It requires not only attention, but quietude among the people.

I feel disposed to read a few verses from the good old book the Bible—some of the sayings of Isaiah and Ezekiel. [The speaker then read from the 12th chapter of Ezekiel, from the 21st to the end of the chapter.] I have (the speaker continued) a few reflections upon my mind that I would like to lay before the Latter-day Saints, especially those who bear the holy priesthood. Among the lessons which we are learning in our day and time is this one truth: that we all of us need the spirit of revelation in order that we may teach mankind of the things of God. I do not believe myself there ever was a man lived in the flesh on the earth, in any day or age of the world, no matter what his position, calling, name, or age might be—I do not believe any man ever had the power to do the work of God, to build up his kingdom or to edify the souls of men, without inspiration and revelation; for the Lord has never called any man in any age of the world to do any of this kind of work, whether to preach the Gospel, to prophesy, or to declare the word of the Lord to the inhabitants of the earth, or to administer in any ordinance in any temple or in any tabernacle, without the holy priesthood. There are no ordinances acceptable in the sight of God of any force after death or in the eternal worlds except those ordinances that are performed by men bearing the holy priesthood. Our heavenly Father himself has officiated by this principle in the creation of all worlds, in the redemption of all worlds, and in all the work which he has performed; it has all been done by the power of the Godhead and the holy priesthood, which is without beginning of days or end of years. This priesthood has power with the heavens. It has association with the heavens. The heavens are connected with this priesthood, let it rest upon the shoulders or head of any man, whether it be Jesus Christ, or those fishermen, or the ancient patriarchs or prophets or Joseph Smith, or any other man who is called of God as was Aaron, by revelation, and prophecy to bear record of the name of God in any age of the world. Therefore, I occupy the same position myself. I know I need the Spirit of God. I know you do. I know any man does who rises on this stand, and attempts to teach the people. You give a man the inspiration of Almighty God and the eternal truths of heaven and he can instruct and edify the children of men upon the principles of life and salvation; without this he cannot do it. And in order to present to my brethren and sisters and friends the subject that I have on my mind, I will just refer a little further to some words of the Lord to the Prophet Ezekiel, [The speaker again referred to the Book of Ezekiel, and quoted from the 9th, 14th and 33rd chapters, all of parts quoted having reference to the dealings of God with the wicked.] Continuing, Elder Woodruff said: Now, having quoted all these passages of Scripture, I want to say to my brethren the apostles, the high priests, the seventies, the elders of Israel, who bear the holy priesthood, upon whose shoulders the God of heaven, in this day and generation has placed the responsibility of the Melchizedek and Aaronic priesthood; has placed the responsibility of this great and last dispensation, the fulness of times, and the building up of the great kingdom of God which Daniel saw by revelation, vision and inspiration in his day and generation as proclaimed by all the prophets and apostles who have written in this book, in the stick of Judah as well as in the stick of Joseph and other revelations given to us through the mouth of the prophets and apostles in our day and generation—I want to ask in the face of all this—and I take it home to myself—what position are we in before high heaven, before God the Father, before his Son Jesus Christ, before the heavenly hosts, before all justified spirits made perfect from the creation of the world to this day? What condition are we in as the servants of the living God, men holding the holy priesthood into whose hands the God of Israel has given this kingdom. Are we disseminating the mighty flood of revelation and prophecy in these records and these books which are now to rest upon the generation as in the days of Noah and Lot? In this respect are we justified in the sight of God, in the sight of heaven, in the sight of angels, and in the sight of men? Can we fold our arms in peace and cry, “all is peace in Zion,” when, so far as we have the power of the priesthood resting upon us, we can see the condition of the world? Can we imagine that our garments will be clean without lifting our voice before our fellow men and warning them of the things that are at their doors? No, we cannot. There never was a set of men since God made the world under a stronger responsibility to warn this generation, to lift up our voices long and loud, day and night so far as we have the opportunity and declare the words of God unto this generation. We are required to do this. This is our calling. It is our duty. It is our business. We have had to perform this work for the last 50 years of our lives. When the Lord called Joseph Smith to lay the foundation of the Church he called him in fulfillment of many revelations given in other dispensations to men. He was preserved by the hand of God to come forth in the last days, even in the dispensation of the fulness of times. He was a prophet of the living God. He was a prophet, seer and revelator. The Lord called upon him to do the work for which he was ordained before the foundation of this world. He did all that was required of him, and he was surrounded with thousands of men who were acquainted with his life, and with the Spirit and power of God which rested upon him, and who sustained him in life and in death. We know he was a prophet of God, and we know he brought forth the stick of Joseph, the Book of Mormon, which was given unto him by the angel of God. This Church and kingdom has been organized by the command of God and by the revelations of heaven. It has continued to grow and increase, and has been upheld by the Lord Almighty, from its organization until the present hour. And when I look at this Tabernacle and think of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the tops of the mountains;” when I look at these everlasting hills and the land given by promise to Father Jacob and his posterity; when I see this barren desert peopled by 150,000 Saints of the living God who have been gathered from nearly every nation under heaven through the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—what can I say about it? Can I say it is a dream? Can I say that it is all a vision? Can I say that this work is of man and not of God? Can I say these are revelations and prophecies which belong to some other generation? I tell you no. This is the kingdom of God. Here are the Saints of God. These mountains are being filled with the Latter-day Saints from every nation under heaven, and with these things before me I know that it is my duty to preach the Gospel, to warn Saints and sinners wherever I have the opportunity. The Lord told Joseph Smith that he would prove us in all things, whether we would abide in his covenant even unto death, that we might be found worthy. The prophet sealed his testimony with his blood. That testimony is in force upon all the world and has been from the day of his death. Not one word of the Lord shall pass away unfulfilled. The unbelief in this generation will make no difference with regard to the building up of the kingdom of God. As it was in the days of Noah so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. Therefore, I desire to ask my brethren, the elders of Israel—and I ask myself at the same time—do we understand our position before the Lord? Ezekiel has passed away. He is in the spirit world. He has received his resurrected body and stands at the right hand of God with other prophets and apostles who lived in days gone by. They had their day and generation. All these patriarchs and prophets and apostles had a time to prophesy, to preach, to labor, and to administer in the ordinances of life and salvation. Now, in this last dispensation, ye elders of Israel, this work has been put into your hands. Therefore what shall we say, and what shall we do? Are we acting as watchmen upon the walls of Zion? If we are, are we justified in closing our mouths, in closing our ears, or in setting our hearts upon anything else excepting the building up of the kingdom of God? I do not think we are. In my view our responsibility is very great. We should live our religion. We should practice ourselves what we preach. We should treasure up the words of life. We should search the records of divine truth. We should seek to comprehend the day and age in which we live. This is the way I look upon our situation today. I do not look upon the revelations recorded in these books, touching the dispensation of the fulness of times, as something that will pass away unfulfilled. We live in a generation when great changes are about to take place. We live in a time when darkness covers the whole earth and gross darkness the people. The world are a great way from the truth. Infidelity overwhelms the earth, in fact it is a hard matter today to get either priest or people, sect or party, of any name or denomination under heaven to believe in the literal fulfillment of the Bible, as translated in the days of King James, which contains the revelations given from the days of Father Adam down to our own time, and which point out to us the signs of heaven and earth indicating the coming of the Son of Man. We live in the generation itself when Jesus Christ will come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. We live in the generation when the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been revealed in its fulness to the Gentiles, and when the Gospel of Christ will go to the House of Israel, to the descendants of Lehi, in fulfillment of that which is recorded in their records in the 9th, 10th and 11th chapters of the last book of Nephi. These prophets spake by the power of God and the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and as the apostle says, “No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” I feel therefore to say to my brethren who bear the holy priesthood, and I say it to myself and to all—I do not think we have much time to lie down and slumber. We have no time to speculate in trying to get rich, in try– ing to accumulate gold and silver. What we have got to do is to build up the kingdom of God. As apostles, high priests, elders, seventies and the lesser priesthood, we are bound together by this new and everlasting Gospel and covenant; we are called to perform the great and mighty work of building up Zion, of building temples wherein we may labor for the living and the dead, and we should live in that way and manner that we may be governed and controlled at all times by the Holy Spirit.

I know very well how the world look at these things. As I said before, the world is far from the Lord. We ourselves are too far from the Lord as a people. We ought to draw near to the Lord, and labor to obtain the Holy Spirit, so that when we read the revelations of God we may read them by the same Spirit by which they were given. Then we can understand their purport when given to the children of men.

The Lord has said by the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah, that he would proceed to do a marvelous work and a wonder; and when I look at the rise and progress of this Church, when I behold the great work the Lord has performed, it was a marvelous work and a wonder indeed. There never has been, in my view, any generation in which the same amount of prophecies and important events have to be fulfilled as in the generation in which we live. Joseph Smith, an illiterate boy, was raised up by the power of God. His teachers were the angels of heaven. He was administered unto by the Son of God. He received the Aaronic priesthood of John the Baptist, who was beheaded for the testimony of Jesus Christ. He received the apostleship and Melchizedek Priesthood under the hands of Peter, James and John, who were also put to death for the word and testimony of Jesus Christ. He made use of these ordinances by the commandment of God. He organized the Church and kingdom of God; he did that which all the wisdom of the sectarian world could never have comprehended. He established the only church on the face of the earth according to the ancient order of the Church of Jesus Christ, with apostles, prophets, teachers, gifts, helps, governments, baptism for the remission of sins, the laying of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost—an organization which has not existed on the earth from the day the ancient apostles were put to death, and the holy priesthood taken from the earth, until the present. This Church has continued to rise. It is the only true church upon the face of the whole earth. Its history is before the world. It has continued to grow and increase from the day it was organized until the present time. This is the Zion of God. We see an embryo of it in these valleys of the mountains, and it is designed by the Most High God to stand on the earth in power and glory and dominion, as the prophets of God saw it in their day and generation. This is the kingdom that Daniel saw, and it will continue to roll forth until it fills the whole earth. These are eternal truths, whether the world believe or disbelieve them, it matters not, the truths cannot be made of non-effect. This is certainly a strange work and a wonder. There has been every exertion made to stay it. Armies have been sent forth to destroy this people, but we have been upheld and sustained by the hand of the Lord until today.

And now I desire to bear my testimony. I have no fears, my brethren and sisters—and I say the same to our nation, to all kings, queens, emperors, presidents and governments of this world—I have no fears with regard to “Mormonism,” and the ultimate triumph of the kingdom of God; because the Lord Almighty has said that the nation and kingdom that will not serve him shall perish and be utterly wasted away. If this had not been the Zion of God it would not have stood so long as it has done. This kingdom, however, has not been organized by the power of man but by the power of God, and whatever God undertakes to do he will carry out. I have therefore no fear of this kingdom. It was ordained to come forth before the world was made; and the Lord never undertook a dispensation of this kind without due preparation before he commenced. He had material in the spirit world who would in time be raised up to carry on this kingdom. I have no fears about this work being accomplished, but I have fears about many of the Latter-day Saints; because if we have the holy priesthood upon our heads and do not live our religion, of all men we are under the greatest condemnation. We have baptized a great many into this Church and kingdom—not many, certainly, when compared to the twelve hundred million inhabitants of the earth—but a great many have apostatized. What! Latter-day Saints apostatize? Yes. I tell you people will apostatize who have received the holy priesthood and Gospel of Jesus Christ, if they do not honor God, if they do not keep his commandments, obey his laws and humble themselves before the Lord; they are in danger every day of their lives. Look at the number of devils we have, round about us! We have I should say, one hundred to every man, woman and child. One-third part of the heavenly host was cast down to the earth with Lucifer, son of the morning, to war against us—which I suppose will number one hundred million devils—and they labor to overthrow all the Saints and the kingdom of God. They even tried to overthrow Jesus Christ; they overthrew Judas, and they have succeeded in overthrowing a good many Latter-day Saints, who had a name and standing among us, who undertook to build themselves up instead of the Kingdom of God. And when men having this priesthood—I do not care whether it was in the days of Adam, in the days of Moses, in the days of Joseph Smith, or in the days of Brigham Young, I care not in what day they lived—if they bore this priesthood and undertook to use it for any other purpose than the building up of the kingdom of God, then amen to the power and priesthood of such men.

The Lord will have a people to carry on his purposes who will obey and serve him. He has a good many people in this day and age of the world, who will be faithful unto death, whether called to seal their testimony with their blood or not. He has a people who will maintain his work while they are here. But here is the danger, ye Latter-day Saints, and the Savior saw it very plainly, and has left it on record in the earth: He compared the kingdom of God unto ten virgins, which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. “And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bride– groom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterwards came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” Now, those who have got oil in their lamps, are men who live their religion, pay their tithing, pay their debts, keep the commandments of God, and do not blaspheme his name; men and women who will not sell their birthright for a mess a pottage or for a little gold or silver; these are those that will be valiant in the testimony of Jesus Christ.

This is the way I feel today. I feel to warn my brethren and sisters, the Latter-day Saints, to live their religion, to trim their lamps, because as the Lord lives, his word will be fulfilled. The coming of Jesus is nigh at the door. These judgments that I have read will come to pass, and though Brigham, Joseph, Noah, Daniel and Job, or anybody else were in the land, they could not do more than deliver their own souls by their righteousness. The man that is righteous cannot save the wicked. We have got to live our own righteousness, that is keep the commandments of God.

We are approaching changes. There are judgments at our door. There are judgments at the door of this nation, and at the door of Great Babylon. How do the world feel today? How does our nation feel? Something similar to Belshazzar, the king. On the night that he drank out of the golden and silver vessels with his princes and his wives, he thought, “Well, I made this country. I made this city. I am the god of this country;” but when the Lord Almighty manifested his displeasure by the writing on the wall, the scene was changed. His kingdom was broken up and given to the Medes and Persians. His greatness, his gold and silver did not save him. In the same way the Lord in ancient days swept away great cities when they were ripened in iniquity. Jerusalem was overthrown in fulfillment of the words of the Lord. Jeremiah and Isaiah prophesied what would come to pass, and it was fulfilled to the very letter. So I say to the Gentiles, so I say to the Latter-day Saints. What the Lord has spoken concerning our nation, and concerning the nations of the earth, notwithstanding that the unbelief of the world may be great, notwithstanding that they may reject the word of God and seek to put the servants of God to death—will all be fulfilled. War, pestilence, famine, earthquakes and storms await this generation. These calamities will overtake the world as God lives, and no power can prevent them. Therefore I say to the elders of Israel, be faithful. We have had the priesthood given to us, and if we fail to use it right, we shall be brought under condemnation. Therefore, let us round up our shoulders and bear off the kingdom. Let us labor to obtain the Holy Spirit—and power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—which has been put into our hands, and inasmuch as we do this, the blessing of God will attend our efforts.

We have been here a number of years. We have preached the Gospel and labored to build up this kingdom. Many have been associated with this Church almost from the beginning. Many have been taken away. Joseph and Hyrum sealed their testimony with their blood. Many have passed to the other side of the veil, and many others of us will soon follow them; but I do not want when I get there to have it said, “When you were in the flesh you had the priesthood, you had the power to rebuke sin, but you were not man enough to chastise the ungodly.” Neither do I want my relatives to rise up and say, “You had the power to do a work for the redemption of the dead, but you have neglected these things.” I do not want these things to rise up against me. As for gold and silver, they are of very little account compared with eternal life. When we die we must leave the riches of this world behind. We were born naked and we will go out of the world in the same condition. We cannot take with us houses, gold, silver, or any of this world’s goods. We will even leave our tabernacles for somebody to bury. Our spirits must appear in the presence of God, and there receive our reward for the deeds done in the body.

Therefore, I pray God my heavenly Father to enable us to live our religion, to labor for light and truth that we may not work in the dark; to live nearer and nearer the Lord and be prepared for that which is to come, and eventually gain eternal life, is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by Elder John Morgan, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, May 23rd, 1880.

I am pleased to have once more the privilege of meeting with the Latter-day Saints, and I trust that while I shall endeavor to address you I shall have an interest in your faith and prayers, that what I may say may be in accordance with the mind and will of our Father in heaven and for our mutual good and benefit.

To an elder returning home from missionary labors the privilege of meeting with the assemblies of the Saints in their Sabbath day meetings is one that is very highly prized. We feel to rejoice in the privilege of returning to these peaceful valleys of the mountains, and of listening to the voice of the servants of God teaching the principles of the kingdom of God, and explaining the mind and will of our common Father and God in the heavens. I have often thought and meditated in regard to this privilege when away from home traveling in the midst of strangers, that when here we scarcely prize and realize the value of it. And doubtless this is true in regard to very many of the great and glorious principles of the Gospel. We must see the opposite, come in contact with the opposite; we have to taste the bitter before we can appreciate the sweet; we have to see and experience the condition in which the world is today to appreciate the situation the Latter-day Saints are in.

During the past year, since last I had the privilege of meeting with you here, I have been engaged in preaching the principles of the Gospel in the United States, more particularly in the Southern States. Our labors there have, to a greater or less extent, been crowned with success. The Lord has opened up our way. We have been enabled to reach many of the honest in heart, and the principles of the Gospel have been spread by the preaching of the elders, and by the distribution of books and pamphlets, until many thousands of people in that section of the country today are becoming acquainted with the principles of the Gospel, who, twelve months ago, although possibly aware that there were such a people as the Latter-day Saints in the valleys of the mountains, were ignorant in regard to the doctrines that they professed to believe in. I find that within the past twelve months quite a change has taken place in the senti– ments and minds of the people in the Southern States relative to the principles that we promulgate. I form my judgment in regard to this from their actions, and it is said they speak louder than words. Something like twelve months ago a spirit of persecution and mobocracy was prevalent throughout a great portion of the South, brought about, to a great extent, by inflammatory articles in the newspapers, misrepresenting us and our objects, and the denunciations hurled at us from the pulpit and from almost all directions, which resulted in the mobbing of a number of the elders and the driving from their homes of quite a number of families who had embraced the Gospel in their native land. In one particular instance an entire branch of the Church was driven from their homes, lost their property and their means and were forced to rely upon the generosity of the Latter-day Saints already gathered to the valleys of the mountains here to enable them to emigrate to where they could live in peace and safety. This character of opposition was very violent, very unpleasant to meet with, very unpleasant to have to deal with, but by the blessing of God and the perseverance of the elders, the obstacles were overcome, our work was pushed forward, and very many right-thinking, honorable men and women, while not conceding with us in a religious sense, came out and refused to endorse the action of men who were using violence, came out in the press, in private conversation, in public speech, and stated that while the Latter-day Saints might be wrong, the course that was being taken was undoubtedly wrong, that whatever the nature and character of their doctrines might be, mob violence, persecution, and unauthorized, ille– gal prosecution was not a proper means of overcoming the difficulty. Even the editors of many of the Southern papers conceded that the course that was being pursued was most unwise, and would have a tendency to bring dozens of converts to the “Mormon” doctrines where there had been one before, which proved true, as our labors have continually increased and grown, our numbers have been added to, and the spirit of emigration to gather out to where they could be protected in their religious belief has grown stronger day by day, until we scarcely need to preach in the Southern States the principle of emigration, so anxious are the people to escape from their surroundings.

The elders who have been engaged in the Southern States Mission have, almost without exception, proven themselves worthy of the trust that was reposed in them. They have endeavored to perform the duties devolving upon them as men and as the servants of God, not counting privation, slander, exposure, contumely as anything in comparison to the great work in which they were engaged.

The Southern people are naturally a kindhearted, hospitable, noble class of people, with the finer instincts of nature more fully developed than possibly among some other classes of people. They recognize the labors of our elders, and while they may not coincide with our views, yet they give us credit for the determination with which we press forward, and the earnestness and zeal displayed by our young elders in preaching the principles of the Gospel. Especially was this noteworthy in connection with the very many young elders who had never been upon missions before— young men who had been called from the various mutual improvement associations, unlearned in regard to the condition of the world, unacquainted with its customs, manners and habits—especially with this class was a deep impression made upon the minds of the people. That feeling of kindness, which is characteristic of the people there, seemed to feel after those boys, beardless boys as they were, as they stood up in their places, where they could obtain a church or a schoolhouse, to preach, and where they could not obtain a place, in the open air, by the road side, or wherever they found a man ready to stop and listen to them in proclaiming the things they had been sent to declare. It made a deep impression on the minds of the people, and, in a number of instances, while the violent feelings of men were raised against them, there were those who said, “We have boys of our own, and if our boys were in the place of these, separated from their homes and their kindred by thousands of miles, and there were those seeking to do them violence, we would feel to bless the hand that protected them.” And, as a general thing, there came a division, and the two contending parties were left to get through the struggle as best they could.

The Southern States Mission at the present time is divided into conferences, with a president over each conference, and traveling elders at appointed places laboring in the districts. Yet, with all that we can do, there are localities in the Southern States today, that have been asking for elders for some considerable length of time, which we have not yet been able to supply, owing to a deficiency in our numbers. I discover, in coming in contact with the people of the United States, that, notwithstanding the nation numbers forty millions of people—a vast innumerable multitude almost, compared to the Latter-day Saints who dwell in these distant valleys of the mountains—yet, if a company of eight, ten, twelve or fifteen elders should happen to pass through any of the large cities, en route to their fields of labor, they are visited by reporters, they are interviewed, and the interview is published far and near, causing considerable excitement in regard to this small company of elders going to their fields of labor; in fact two elders, going into a locality where the people are unacquainted with the teachings of the Latter-day Saints, and announcing themselves as Mormon elders, will create a really more genuine sensation than almost any other incident that could happen, and it is, doubtless, well that some of us, who are possibly a little more zealous than wise, should be restrained in regard to our anxiety to push the work forward. There is, however, an abundance of room for elders to labor throughout the entire Southern States. We scarcely ever preached in a place where we could not obtain a hearing. We scarcely ever visited a neighborhood—I do not recollect of any now—in the Southern States where I desired a hearing, but what I could both obtain a place to preach in and a good sized audience to hear what I had to say.

Many of the leading men of the Southern States, having visited Salt Lake City and been treated kindly by our people—having observed the thrift, enterprise and peacefulness of our homes, extended to us many kindnesses and many courtesies, notwithstanding that, with the mass of the people, it was quite unpopular to do so. The Governor of one of the leading States of the South, offered the use of the Senate Chamber—the representative hall of his State—to preach in, if I was prepared to use it, extending any courtesy I desired. Their leading papers freely noticed our meetings and published thousands of handbills to be distributed among the people, refusing any compensation whatever. Many of these incidents that come to my mind in regard to the courtesy and kindness of the people that we have been preaching the Gospel to, warms our hearts as elders of Israel, and we feel to do them good, to bless them, and benefit them all that we can.

During the past year, a little over 400 Saints have been gathered from the Southern States Mission. The principal part of these have emigrated to the neighboring State of Colorado, in San Luis Valley, 250 miles south and a little to the west of Denver, where the Saints have found a good valley, most excellent land and timber, water, grass, and all that is necessary to enable them to build up a settlement and locate themselves. I had the privilege of visiting them in their homes a number of times, and while they have had the privations that are incidental to the formation of a new settlement everywhere, yet they have been blessed and prospered. The people of the State of Colorado have, as a rule, treated them kindly, have welcomed them to their borders, have endeavored to benefit them, and assisted them in forming their settlements all they could. The railroad, that has been in process of construction for the past two years, runs down the center of the valley, within three to five miles of our line of settlement, so that we have easy railroad communication. Our rates for emigration are exceedingly low. The rail– road companies have extended to us many courtesies and kindnesses, and have sought to do what they could—apparently being moved upon by the right Spirit—to enable us to gather those who were unable to gather themselves, and to assist those who were but little able to gather. In the location of the settlement in the State of Colorado, there are now, I believe, 500 Latter-day Saints from the Southern States, which will possibly be augmented by 300 more this season, if deemed prudent to do so. In the first town that was located, all the lots have been taken up. Another location of similar dimensions is being occupied, while still another will be occupied some few miles distant from the first two in the course of the next two or three months.

The health of the Saints has not been as good as could have been desired, principally owing to the fact that in emigrating from the Southern States—a malarious district to those great, dry altitudes—the changes thus brought to bear upon them were calculated to produce sickness to a greater or less extent. The scourge of measles passed through the settlement in the month of April; some 160 cases. Our neighbors, at a railroad town nearby, where there were about an equal number of inhabitants that we had, with all the appliances of physicians and drug stores, lost quite a large percentage of their cases of sickness. In the town of Alamosa, some twenty miles distant from our settlement, where there were almost an equal number of cases, there was quite a large percentage of deaths. In about 165 to 170 cases that occurred in our settlement, I think there were but three or four deaths from measles. When I was talking to the Mayor of Alamosa, he called my attention to the disparity of deaths in that town in comparison with those that had occurred in our settlement, and asked me if I thought the location of the town of Alamosa unhealthy. I replied I thought not, that it was equally healthy with our settlement. He asked me to what I attributed the number of deaths. I replied that I believed they were attributable to the number of drug stores and physicians they had in it, that that was the cause, as I earnestly believed, to a greater or less extent, of the disparity of the number of deaths. With some 500 inhabitants in our settlement with quite a number of cases, some of them very serious, there has never been a physician called to prescribe one single prescription to any of these people, and I have an idea that if we were to look at them today we would find them equally healthy with those of the adjacent town where there are several physicians with two drug stores to draw their supplies from.

The people in the settlements are satisfied with their location. I heard but very little complaint, and what complaints I did hear were, I thought, almost entirely due to the inconvenience incident to emigration, to breaking up their homes, to disposing of their property, to riding distances upon railroads, landing at their destination wearied, to not being so carefully housed and protected for a limited length of time after their arrival, and to their being unacquainted with the country. I believe, however, that out of the 500 souls emigrated there have been but four turned back from the work and returned to their former homes. I heard no expression of a desire to return on the part of anyone when I was there. Wishing to test this as I was returning back to the States, I publicly made the offer that if there were any persons who desired to return back to their old homes, to lay down the principles of the Gospel and forego the gathering, I would see and accompany them back, and if there were any unable to go back with their own means, a fund would be raised for the purpose if desired. I received no applications, hence I was led to believe that the people as a rule were satisfied with their situation and surroundings.

Adjacent to our settlement there is a large number of Mexicans who live in plazas, as they term them, which are capable of accommodating from ten to fifty families in a plaza. These people have had rather an unpleasant and checkered history in the Territory of New Mexico and the State of Colorado. They have been looked upon to a certain extent as legal and lawful prey by the Christians surrounding, who have, to a greater or less degree, taken advantage of their innocence and of their ignorance in regard to the rules of business. To illustrate this, one man, a merchant with whom we deal, a man that I have always looked upon as in every sense trustworthy, made this statement to me. In speaking of the Mexican people, said he: “We cannot trade with them as we do with other people. They have been deceived and cheated until they come here and ask how many pounds of sugar we give for a dollar. We would not dare to tell them the exact number of pounds. If it is six, we have to tell them ten.” “Well,” I said “do you weigh out the ten pounds?” “Not much; we weigh them six or five and a half pounds as the case might be.” Such is the character of the dealings the Mexican people have had to contend with until today they have no confidence whatever in the white people by whom they are surrounded, and it is something almost unknown in their history, it is something strange for them to be placed in a position whereby they would be dealt with honorably and uprightly by white people. Said one of their leading citizens to me, Mr. Valdez, who was formerly a Judge in Old Mexico, a leading citizen in the State of Colorado, a Representative in the Legislature, and a man of considerable ability—said he to me, “The white people we have come in contact with heretofore, have endeavored to take every advantage of us, and when your people came here we expected they would treat us the same way. Last season we could have furnished you land to plow, teams and seed; but we were afraid that you would repeat the history of some other portions of our possessions, where we have furnished seed, land, teams and plows, and rented these things upon shares to people who came into our midst, and when the fall season came they not only claimed the land and crops, but our teams and plows, and we have failed to obtain any redress whatever; consequently we were afraid of your people.” But after some short acquaintance with us, after coming in contact with us a limited length of time, they learned to think better of us, and by their votes elected one of our brethren magistrate over a considerable portion of the county of Conejas, in which they lived. This brother told me he had been magistrate for eight months, had gained the confidence of the people, until today people outside of the precinct where he lives will bring their cases to him to arbitrate and adjudicate upon, and the people almost universally are willing to submit to his decisions. There is a kindly feeling between them and the Latter-day Saints. They are naturally a kind-hearted people. I noticed when our people were living in their plazas, as some of them did for a season, that when any of them took sick, the Mexicans were on hand to nurse them and to do what they could for their comfort. The Saints rejoice at the privilege of gathering where they can live in peace and quietness, and receive the instructions of the elders, and have their children taught. I believe about the first thing they did in the first town they started was to build a comfortable schoolhouse, and during the past winter they have had a school in session the entire winter, expecting that as soon as circumstances would permit a summer school would be commenced. A Sabbath School is in session regularly each Sabbath, and some six home missionaries visit the surrounding country where the Latter-day Saints are located, and instruct the Mexicans who desire to hear the principles of the Gospel.

In laboring in the States, we can see that there is a rapid change taking place. It may not be observable by the masses of the people. However, this change can be seen on the right hand and on the left. We hear men remark in regard to the change that is occurring politically, religiously and socially. We cannot blind our eyes to the fact that affairs in the United States are traveling at a rapid rate. We sometimes hear an elder, on returning home from his mission, ask one of the brethren, “How is everything moving?” His reply is, “very slowly.” He does not see with the eyes of the elder who is abroad preaching the Gospel. To my mind, the seeds of dissolution have been sown in the midst of the people, and they are springing up to an abundant growth. Men are fulfilling the Scriptures—“their hearts are failing them for fear of the things that are coming upon them.” The people of the United States are in doubt in regard to what is in store for our government. We hear quite loud expressions every hour of the day by men of all classes—governors, senators, congressmen and clergymen. I think one of the most eloquent sermons—eloquent for the sound of its words, not particularly for the principle it contained, but more particularly for its sound of words—I ever heard, was one in which the minister portrayed the condition of the United States, the fearful condition in which the government was today, the condition in which political affairs were, and strange as it may seem, after telling the people that there was not a political party in the United States that would receive Jesus of Nazareth. After telling the people of St. Louis (the city in which this sermon was preached) that if Jesus were to come to one of their wards and run for Alderman, they would outvote him by a large majority—after telling them all these things, he then commenced upon the other hand to portray the glorious spread of Christianity! It sounded strange to my ears, for one was a direct contradiction of the other; if one was true the other was false. Certainly Christianity could not grow and increase and spread and be engrafted into the minds of the people, and at the same time he who stood at the head of Christianity be rejected from the head to the foot of the whole body.

The situation to my mind as I have observed it—and I have tried to do so calmly and deliberately and without prejudice—is anything but agreeable. Men have ceased to try to hide this; and the present poli– tical contest that is waged so hotly even for the nomination of the man who shall fill the presidential chair is stirring up the people as I have never seen an election stir them up before. It seems as though they are not content with dividing into parties, but these parties are divided into fragments, the one contending against the other. A few years ago it was the Democratic party on the one side and the Republican party on the other. Today it has changed and materially altered in the Republican party. It is the anti-third term men, the Blaine men, Sherman men, etc., struggling one against the other in their own party until it seems as if the shadow is cast, of the time when every man’s hand shall be raised against his neighbor. Certainly these are indications of it—and we see the fulfillment of prophecy in these things. It is a most unpleasant report for a person to make of the situation of their country. We are not aliens to our kind. We love and revere and respect the constitution of our common country. We have a love for the old flag that floats over it, and it is with feelings of mortification, chagrin, and pain that we have to report back to the Saints here in the valleys of the mountains the fearful condition in which matters are today. One instance comes to my mind in connection with a matter in which the Latter-day Saints are interested. During the trial of the men—or one of them at least—who assassinated Elder Joseph Standing, I was astonished and surprised to listen to the testimony of the witnesses. The court would commence its session at eight o’clock and run till twelve and then adjourn for an hour and run till candle light, and when night came we would hear the bells ringing across the street calling the peo– ple to a revival meeting. I noticed that those men who had been upon the witness stand would pass over to the meeting, and for two weeks the revival was kept up calling men and women to Jesus after dark, and in the daytime came into that court and testified to things they knew were utterly false, and that they knew the people in the courtroom were satisfied were false. The thing was a talk and a laughing stock on the streets of Dalton. It seemed strange to me, and after I had had several days experience I asked the attorney General, a man that I looked upon as an honorable man, a man who sought to do his duty in that trial to the best of his ability—I asked, “how many men are there that came upon this stand that you can rely upon to testify to the truth?” His reply was, “If I get one in ten I am doing very well.” I thought that a strange comment indeed upon this boasted land of freedom, of free schools, churches, libraries, lecture associations and yet hold ourselves up before the world as a representative government for all other governments to copy after, for all civilization to follow, and for all Christians to model themselves from. It looks strange to me, and I scarcely could have believed it had not mine own ears heard and mine own eyes beheld it.

The sentiment and feeling of the better class of people in the South, and I may say the people of the United States are in favor of letting the Latter-day Saints alone, of letting them work out their own problem, and but for the religious influence that is brought to bear there would be but little said in relation to the work the Latter-day Saints are doing. But this religious influence has not changed in the least. The same influence that fought and contended against the Latter-day Saints in the State of Missouri, and that drove them to the valleys of the mountains; the same influence that cried out nearly 2,000 years ago, “crucify him, crucify him,” is still abroad in the land, and I think the worst treatment I have ever received at the hands of any class of men has been from men who can pray the longest prayers, preach the loudest sermons, and wear the longest face, and who profess to be going back to Abraham’s bosom. This class of men have always contended against the elders. They have sought to bring persecution upon them, and to vilify them upon every hand, and if we have difficulties they are to a greater or less extent caused by those who profess to believe in this Bible, and who preach, “glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will towards men.” But this, perchance, is but history repeating itself. Notwithstanding the difficulties and obstacles the elders have had to contend with in this and other directions, they have been blessed and prospered. They rejoice in the privilege of going forth to proclaim the principles of the Gospel, to bring Israel to a knowledge of the truth, and to gather the honest in heart home, that Zion may be built up and the kingdom of God established on the earth. The elders rejoice in this privilege. Our young elders who go abroad with fear and trembling in regard to their own ability are willing to pass through all kinds of difficulties, are willing to endure anything and everything that they may be instruments in the hands of God in proclaiming the principles of the Gospel. I heard but very few complaints from the elders. It is true that sometimes they are not situated as pleasantly as they would desire to be, but I heard very few complaints. They express very great surprise at the situation of affairs abroad. They say, “why, we did not dream that matters were as bad as they are. We did not dream that the world was so corrupt as it is both politically, religiously, and socially.” They seemed surprised, when walking through the streets of the religious St. Louis—whose editors, you know, write long homilies in the shape of editorials in regard to the terrible situation of affairs in Utah—to see, on a Sunday, just close by where these articles are published, saloons open, men and women drinking, and business going on just as though it were any other day in the week. “Why,” say these young elders, “in reading these articles back in Utah we were led to believe that these places here were really religious. But we find that such is not the case. We find they are allowing their charity to play leapfrog over their own wrongdoings, and in place of looking to the affairs of Utah, they had better attend to their own.” These things look strange to the young elders when they first come in contact with the world. In speaking with one of the officers of the State of Colorado, said he to me, “we trust that you people will assimilate with our people, that they will adopt our habits and customs and become one with us.” I told him we did not wish to make any rash promises about that, for, said I, “we would not wish to have drinking saloons on the corner of each block.” We would not like to have all kind of wrongdoings in our midst, and certainly here in this city of Denver, we would not wish to copy after the morals of this or your adjoining city of Leadville.

Some people seem to have an idea that the Latter-day Saints gathered here in the valleys of the mountains are samples of all that is wrong, all that is iniquitous, and I have sometimes been amazed at the situation we have been placed in. In one neighborhood where we stopped overnight, and had some talk with the folks in regard to the social conditions with which they were surrounded, one sanctimonious person, the next day, refused us the privilege of meeting in a log cabin schoolhouse, for fear we should corrupt the morals of the people! In another instance, a large number of people had gathered together in a meetinghouse to hear one of the elders preach. When he got through preaching he asked a gentleman who had been induced to come to the stand to tell the people what he thought of the doctrine that had been advanced. He very reluctantly did so in about these words: “I have listened with great attention to my young friend. I believe he is honest. I believe he has tried to tell the truth, and in fact he has told you the truth. He has read from the Scriptures;” but at this stage he drew up (evidently realizing that he had gone too far to please his friends) and concluded by saying: “but my dear, dying friends, I do not believe one word of it.” Notwithstanding that he had just told the people that the young man had told them the truth, and that he had preached according to the Bible. It sounded strange, even to his own people. Yet there is a class of people who, when we come down to the real facts of the case, will not, do not believe in the Bible, however much they pretend to do so. They believe certain parts of it, and disbelieve other parts. This spirit of unbelief is growing in the minds of the people, until in the United States today there are thousands of people who openly repudiate their belief in the Bible. Ingersoll, and various men of that stamp who are lecturing throughout the United States, take for texts the mistakes found in the books of Moses, and otherwise ridicule the word of Scripture. By this means they are undermining the faith and belief of the people in the Bible, and are creating infidels by thousands. We meet them on the railroads, we hear them from the lecture stand, we find them among all classes of people, lawyers, doctors, etc., and as I told one of them, a leading citizen of St. Louis, with whom I traveled a couple of days, I can understand opposition to preaching and praying from those who do not believe in this book, but it savors of hypocrisy coming from those who profess to believe in the teachings of Jesus and his apostles.

Well, these are some of the reflections that pass through our minds as elders in preaching the Gospel. We pray that the blessing of Israel’s God may rest upon his work, and upon the elders who are abroad preaching the Gospel, that they also may be permitted to return in peace, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder C. W. Penrose, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, May 1st, 1880.

We have met this afternoon, my brethren and sisters and friends, to worship God the Eternal Father, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, I trust under the influence of His Holy Spirit, and I pray that that Spirit may rest upon this entire congregation, and that I may be enlightened by its influence so as to be able to say something this after– noon which will edify and instruct the congregation. Having been called upon to speak to you I hope I shall have your attention and the benefit of your faith and your prayers, so that such subjects may be presented to my mind as will be profitable for us to ponder upon on this occasion.

We are partaking of the emblems of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world. We do this in remembrance of him, in remembrance of the atonement which he wrought for us and for all mankind who will listen to his voice and obey his commandments, and also to direct our thoughts to another great event in connection with the history of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which is yet to take place. We take this sacrament this afternoon not only in remembrance of the past but to direct our minds to the future. We partake of it to witness that we believe in the atonement wrought out by the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Calvary, and also that we expect his reappearance on the earth. We expect that he will come again, not the next time as the babe of Bethlehem, not the next time to be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but as the Lord of life and glory, as the King of Israel to sit upon the throne of his father David, to rule from the rivers to the ends of the earth; not to be brought unto the subjection of men, but to have all things made subject to him; not to bear his cross up the side of Calvary, but to come as a monarch, as a ruler of men, as the rightful Lord and King of this earth upon which we live. In partaking of these emblems this afternoon, then, our minds are carried back to the past, and carried forward to the future, and when we hold a piece of bread, blessed by the servants of God, in our hands, we take it in token and witness to God that we believe in him of whom this piece of bread is a representative. This bread is to us a representation of the body of Christ broken for us. When we drink of the cup we do so in remembrance of his blood and as a witness to God and to each other, that we believe in Jesus Christ. Not only that, but we also bear testimony before the heavens and one another, that we are willing to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ, and remember him, and keep the commandments which he has given unto us. So that in our public assemblies on Sunday afternoon—or the Sabbath day if you please to call it so—we come together to renew our covenants, to make manifest before God and one another our feelings and desires in relation to these matters, to witness to the heavens and the earth that we are called to be Saints, that we have come out of the world, that we have separated ourselves from that which is evil, and dedicated and consecrated ourselves to the service of God, to carry out his purposes on the earth, to be guided by his Spirit, to be prompted by the same motives that actuated our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, when he was a man among men, to renew our covenants before God, that we will serve him in all things, and that we will prefer the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, that we will prefer the Kingdom of God as He has set it up on the earth in the latter days above all other things; that we will place in our estimation first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness with the hope and belief that if we do this all other things shall be added unto us as we need them.

This, then, is a solemn occasion, and although we have the privilege of meeting as we do this afternoon every Lord’s Day, yet it is none the less sacred, and should be none the less solemn to us, and we should endeavor on this occasion to call in our scattered thoughts, to refrain from thinking upon the things of this world, our cares, our business, the affairs that belong outside of the Tabernacle, and concentrate our thoughts and our feelings and our desires towards God, and the things of God, so that his Spirit may brood over us, and that we may be refreshed thereby; that we may be spiritually nourished and fed; that when we leave our meeting place, we may go away strengthened and prepared to battle with the ills of life and with the evils of this world. I sometimes think that if we were deprived for a little season of the privilege of meeting together, and partaking of those sacred emblems, we would attach more importance to our meetings and to the ordinances of the Lord’s House. If we were deprived of the privilege of listening to the voice of the servants of God instructing us in our duties for a time, perhaps we would value their teachings more than we do. The absence of the music this afternoon from our large organ puts me in mind of this. I am sorry we cannot have music from the organ today. I like to hear the tones which come from that fine instrument, an organ built by the handiwork of the people of God, of this community, when played upon by a good musician. Perhaps if we are deprived of the use of that organ for a little while we will value it the more after the repairs are completed. So it is with our public gatherings; so it is with the various means of grace which are so abundantly bestowed upon us as the children of God. God has been very merciful to us in affording us so many privileges of instruction. All the time there is a voice saying, ‘this is the way, walk ye in it.’ There is no need for any man or any woman among the Latter-day Saints to go astray for the lack of instruction. We have our public meetings in our settlements on the Sabbath day, where the people come together to worship the Father in the name of the Son, where they can receive the outpourings of the Spirit in a collective capacity, as a congregation. We have our Sunday Schools to which we can send our little children that they may be taught in the way of life, and in the paths of holiness and virtue before the Lord. We have our Ward Meetings on Sunday evenings, where we can meet together in a ward capacity, and bear our testimony to the truth, or receive instructions from our Bishops and from the missionaries, who may visit us from time to time. And during the week we have many opportunities of assembling together, to hear the word of life, to talk to one another of the things of God, and be instructed in our various duties, both temporal and spiritual. Then we have the great privilege given us of God, that all the time we may draw near unto the throne of grace and receive for ourselves, individually as well as collectively, the power of the Holy Spirit to enlighten us in regard to the purposes of God, to strengthen us against sin, to enable us to cultivate the good that is in us, and grow up unto him who is our living head in all things, even the Lord Jesus.

This is the greatest boon that could be conferred upon mortals while dwelling in the flesh, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the spirit of truth, which reveals unto men the things of the Father and of the Son, which is a spiritual light to the inward being, which is the same to the spiritual nature of man as the light that streams from the sun is to the physical nature of man. As we are able to see the various physical objects of creation by the light of the sun, or as we call it, natural light, so by the aid of this spiritual light we can discern the things of God, and they can be made just as plain to our spiritual eyesight by the power of the Holy Spirit, as the things of the earth are made plain to our natural eyes by the power of the natural light that comes from the sun, or any artificial means which we may use or discover. The light which comes from God to enlighten the mind of man, to some degree is universally diffused like the light of the glorious sun. It is the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. There is no person born into this world who breathes the breath of life, but who at the same time receives a portion of this divine spirit, this divine illumination. This blessing is not confined to people who are called “Christian,” it is not continued to any particular branch of the human family. All people who live and move and have a being on the face of the earth are enlightened measurably, by this Spirit of truth which comes from God. It is the light and the life of the world at the same time. Just as we read in the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. Speaking in regard to Jesus, who is there called the Word, we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” * * * “That was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” This is that spirit of intelligence spoken of in the Book of Job. We read there that “There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” If we have any understanding at all, any intelligence at all, any natural intelligence born with us into the world, it is the gift of God. He that created the heavens and the earth, the seas and the fountains of waters; He that made the sun and his light thereof—He lighteth every man that cometh into the world. This is the same spirit which is called the Comforter, although it does not operate in the same degree as that spirit which is called the gift of the Holy Ghost, which we read about in the New Testament, in the promises of Jesus Christ to his disciples and to those who would keep his commandments; but all people born into the world receive a portion of divine light, and if they would grow up under the influence of that light and be actuated and guided by its whisperings all through their earthly career, it would lead them gradually up to the fountain of light, to “the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning;” it would lead gradually to God, so that they could commune with God while they remain in the flesh; they would grow up nearer and nearer to Him, for they would choose the good and refuse the evil; they would take into their nature that which would lead them towards God, and they would repel from them that which would lead downward, they would discern the strait and narrow path that leadeth unto life, and they would avoid the broad road which leadeth unto destruction, in which so many of the human family have walked from the beginning. It is because the people that dwell on the earth do not listen to the “still small voice” of that natural light which is born with them into the world, that they do not receive the things of God. It is because they love that which savors of darkness and of evil that they do not comprehend the things of God as they are in him, and that they are shut out from that communication which all people might have if they would walk in the right way.

We are placed here in a world of opposites. Just as it was symbolized in the Garden of Eden with regard to the tree of life and the tree of death, or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so it is here. All through the ages that are past, God has placed before his children good on the one hand and evil on the other, and it is the privilege of all men to choose the good or the evil, which they please. Their agency is free. God will force no man to heaven; he will allow no man to be forced to hell. We are placed here where there is a mixture of good and evil, of light and darkness, of truth and error, of sorrow and joy, of bitter and sweet, of life and death; life spiritual and death spiritual, and also life and death natural. Why are we placed here in a world of death, in a world of opposites? That we may be tested; that we may be tried, and that we may manifest to God and angels and the heavenly hosts, and to one another what we are fit for in the world to which we are hastening. We are all hastening to another sphere, and we shall all be judged for the deeds we have done while we have dwelt in this sphere. All will be judged according to their acts and opportunities, according to the light that they have received or the light that they might have received if it had pleased them to open their eyes to it, and everyone in the due time of the Lord will be placed where he or she is fit to be. We will find our own level. Just as water finds its natu– ral level. The time will come when every spirit will find its own level. We will all gravitate some day into the place where we belong, and that place will be determined by our condition, according to the opportunities we have had, and according to the manner we have availed ourselves of them, either in cultivating the good and rejecting the evil, or in rejecting the good and cultivating the evil. We are all responsible individuals. Every person who arrives at the years of accountability becomes a responsible being. He is responsible to the Being who created him, to God who is the Father of his spiritual nature; for although we are all living under various circumstances here upon the earth, although mankind is made up of different races, yet, so far as our spiritual nature, the real individual, is concerned, we are the sons and daughters of God, who is the Father of the spirits of all men, and he that “hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation,” has sent us his sons and daughters to dwell upon the earth in earthly bodies, some of us in one part of the world and some in another, but we are all the children of one Father, and therefore we are all brethren and sisters. And the time will come when our Father, who has sent us here for an experience, for a schooling, for an education, that we might understand the things that pertain to this lower sphere and grapple with evil and overcome it, will judge us with a righteous judgment, and we will all go to the place which we have fitted ourselves for by our earthly acts.

Now, the Lord, in the beginning of our temporal existence on the earth, placed within us this spirit of life and light, and if we would be actuated by that spirit and walk in the path that leads to the Father’s presence, we would get so near to him that we would learn of him personally. But all have gone astray, and when we take up the history of mankind and view it in the various ages and among the various races of men, we find that they have all been prone to do evil; that the great bulk of the human family, at any rate, have loved darkness rather than light; that they have loved error rather than truth, and that they have been led by the Evil One rather than by the spirit which comes from the Father. When Jesus Christ came upon the earth, he told the people that if he had not come among them, they would not have had sin, but now that he had come among them they had no cloak for their sin. Why? “Because,” said the Savior, “light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” And as Christ came in the meridian of time to reveal the Father to the children of men, so far as they could understand him, so at different times during the world’s history God has sent holy men, inspired of the Holy Ghost, men authorized of him to declare his word to the people that they might have life, that they might, if they pleased, choose the light and walk therein, or choose the darkness and walk therein.

But how has it been with those holy men? Have the people of the world generally received them? Have they welcomed them and their testimony? Have they hailed with joy the messengers from the Holy One, bringing light and truth and glad tidings of great joy? No. We find when we come to investigate the matter, that in all ages of the world the Prophets of God have been rejected of men. Jesus, the Son of God, had to say to the people in his day, “which of the prophets have not your fathers slain?” and He told the people of his day that upon them would come “all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom they slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” Why? Because they had the testimony of those previous Prophets, they had the testimony of those holy men who had come in former ages, and they could see, by reading the history of the past, how wickedly mankind had rejected the servants of God, and yet, when the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came right into their own midst they rejected him, and in rejecting him they also rejected the Prophets which were before him, who predicted his coming, and the blood of all was to come upon that generation. This is how it has been in all ages of the world, the Prophets have been rejected. If a man came who flattered the people, who spoke the enticing words of man’s wisdom, or according to the learning and science of the age in which he came, they would receive him with open arms, they would welcome him to their hearts, they would receive his teaching, they would feast and applaud him, they would clothe and feed him and make him rich. But if a man came with the word of the Lord, with authority from the Holy One, to minister in the name of the Most High, they would reject him and put him to death. Take up the Bible and read the history of the old Prophets. What was their fate? Why, just as Paul tells us in his epistle to the Hebrews. They were stoned, sawn asunder, be– headed, persecuted, counted as not fit to live save it was in dungeons and caves of the earth: they were afflicted, tormented and rejected.

Some people who live in these times say, perhaps, “Oh, but if we had lived in those days we would have received the servants of God, we would have hearkened to the voice of the Prophets, we would have rejoiced to hear the words of men sent of God, men holding authority from the Most High, men who could communicate with the heavens, we would have looked upon them as deliverers from our doubts, from our darkness, from our divisions, from our strife, from our lack of knowledge.” Would you? Are you sure of that? If you had lived upon the earth in the days when Jesus Christ came, how would you have told that Jesus was really the Christ? How would you have found it out? The people to whom he came rejected him. There was no special mark set upon Him by which mankind could discern that He was the Christ. There was only one way by which it could be found out whether Jesus was the Christ or not. And what was that way? Why, by revelation from God, and if you and I had lived in those times and did not believe in revelation from God, how should we have found out that Jesus, of Nazareth, was the Christ? We read that the disciples on one occasion were asked by Jesus Christ, “Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Now, how did Peter find that out, when those wise men, those Pharisees, those doctors, those lawyers, the expounders of the Mosaic law, the men that were looked up to by the Jews as lights of learning, men who had studied the holy Scriptures and made the teaching of them a profession, men who prayed long prayers on the corners of the street and had passages of scripture sewed upon the hem of their garments—how was it that Peter found out that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and the rest of the people could not find out? “And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” What rock? “Peter,” somebody will say. The name of Peter—Cephas, signifies a stone, and people think that Christ built his church upon Peter. Well, if he did, he built it on a poor foundation; for it was only a little while after this, in accordance with the prediction of Jesus, that Peter was put under a severe trial which caused him to deny the Lord that bought him. The people declared that Peter was along with those who were with Jesus, and he denied the accusation and swore that he never knew him. Well, it was upon this rock of revelation that the Lord would build his Church. It was by revelation that Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ. No man can find out that Jesus is the Christ except by that same spirit; no man can know that he is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Now, there may be a great many people say that Jesus is the Christ. How do you know? “Well, I believe it.” Why? “Because I have been brought up a Christian, and therefore I believe it.” But do you know that Jesus is the Christ? No, you cannot know unless you get a revelation from God to that effect. You may believe that Jesus is the Christ, you may have been trained up in that belief; but you cannot know it unless God shall reveal it to you. It is only by the power of the Holy Ghost, that this knowledge can come to the children of men, neither can knowledge come to anyone concerning the things of God, except by the same spirit.

Now this gift of the Holy Ghost, as I before remarked, is the greatest boon that can be conferred upon mortal men, because by it they can discern and comprehend the things of God, and without it they cannot. They may reflect upon them, ponder upon them, speculate about them; they may come to certain conclusions in their own minds by reason and logic, but they cannot obtain a knowledge of these things unless it is by the power and gift of the Holy Ghost, which is a spirit of revelation. How can this gift be obtained? It can only be obtained in the way that the Father has pointed out. The way is plain and simple, but there is only one way. The Lord does not confer his gifts just as people please. The God who governs the universe has a way of his own. He does not ask us how we want seed time and harvest regulated, or how the earth shall revolve upon its axis, or how it shall move around the sun. He does not ask us when we want warm weather, or cold weather, nor when we want the rain or snow to descend, or the clouds to move away and leave the sun to shine forth in all its splendor. He governs the universe by fixed laws that cannot be turned out of their way by the whims of men. And so it is in the spiritual universe. Earthly things are a pattern of heavenly things, and as there are laws that govern the physical things, so there are also fixed laws which govern spiritual things. There is a way by which this gift of the Holy Ghost as a spirit of revelation to make manifest the things of the Father and of the Son, and make them plain to mortal men in the flesh can be obtained. What is it? It is pointed out very clearly in the Scriptures, but strange to say the great bulk of the people who profess to believe in the Scriptures, do not take that way when it is made plain to their understanding. In the first place, according to the Scriptures, men must believe in God. They cannot come to him without they believe in him. Faith must be quickened in the human heart, and all people have power to believe. When a servant of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, preaches the word of life, those who are desirous of the truth will be stirred up into faith by the power of his testimony and his preaching, and the authority of the Priesthood he bears. That natural light that enlightens every man that comes into the world will be awakened. For light cleaveth unto light, and truth cleaveth unto truth; and as the light of the sun when it streams over the mountain tops wakens up the latent light in the earth, and as the warm rays pouring down waken up its latent warmth, so the testimony of the servant of God, by the power of the Holy Ghost, and the authority which he holds wakens up the natural spirit of intelligence born in every man and woman, and the testimony he bears will find an echo in their hearts, the truth he presents will be made plain to their understanding, and they will see as he sees. He bears testimony that God lives. Why? Because he knows. He knows it by communion with him through the power and gift and light of the Holy Ghost, and as he bears testimony to the people that God lives, and that he is sent with a message from him, they begin to believe. But if men believe in God, they must also believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, as the Redeemer of man; they must believe he is the Son of God, because all men come to God by Jesus Christ. His name is the key word of salvation. By him we have access to the Father, and we cannot come to the Father but by the Son. The servant of God also bears testimony that he knows that Jesus who died on Calvary is the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world, and that he is sent as a witness of this, to bear his testimony concerning these things. Then, having exercised faith in God and in Jesus Christ, a natural desire springs up to obey the commandments of God and of Jesus Christ. Those who believe see that they have transgressed, that they have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, and desire to put away their sin and cease to do evil. This is repentance. What is the next principle? Faith first. All things must spring from faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is the first principle, repentance comes next. I do not mean a mourning, a weeping I do not mean throwing one’s self into paroxysms of grief and anxiety of heart; I mean a fixed determination, by the help of God, to cease to do what is wrong and try to do what is right. That is the next principle. The next is to get remission of past sins. “Why,” some will say, “if man repents is he not forgiven?” Not at all. A man may contract heavy debt at a store, but his being sorry for having contracted the debt would not pay off the old score. Faith and repentance, then, are the first and second principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the first and second steps towards the attaining of that great boon, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. What is the next step? To be buried in water in the likeness of Jesus Christ’s death by a man holding authority from God to administer that ordinance, and to be raised up from the water by that person in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. This ordinance is for the remission of sins—not that water cleanses the man spiritually, not that the water washes away any sins the man may have committed. The blood of Christ alone cleanseth from all sin. That blood was shed for all humanity, but humanity will only obtain the full benefits flowing therefrom by obedience to the fixed laws that relate to the matter and pertain to salvation. We must obey the commandments of the Lord to obtain the blessings of the Lord. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Jesus Christ set the pattern. He went down into the river Jordan; he was baptized of John; he was raised up from the water, and then the Father testified that he was well pleased with him. The Holy Ghost descended in the sign of a dove, and the Father spoke from the heavens saying that He was well pleased. Now, here are the Holy Trinity all bearing witness to this ordinance—the Son in the water, the Holy Ghost descending, and the Father in the heavens uttering his voice saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Christ set us an example that we should follow in his steps. The man that baptized Jesus Christ had a right to baptize him, he had authority from God, and if he had not that authority the baptism would have been void, just like the baptisms in the so-called Christian world today. Any man pretending to be an official who is not a bona fide official, cannot perform a valid official act, all his acts are void, and any man who baptizes another—even if he uses the form, the formula, all exactly right according to the pattern—if he has not authority from the Father, and the Son and the Holy Ghost to baptize, the baptism he performs is nothing but a bath. Why should he use the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost? Does he not imply that he has authority from the Trinity? And if he has not authority from the Trinity, then the baptism is without effect; it is as though it never was. Christ was baptized by John, a man called of God, a Prophet of God, a man holding authority to baptize. Jesus Christ also received his authority from God. We read that He “glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest, but He that saith unto Him, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten Thee. * * * Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Christ received his Priesthood from the Father. Christ bestowed that same authority upon his Apostles, saying to them, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” Now here is the pattern: Those who believe and repent must be taken down into the water and be buried from their old lives, must put off the old man with his deeds, must be buried in the likeness of Christ’s burial and raised up again in the likeness of Christ’s resurrection. Then, when they come forth from the water, if they have believed, repented, and been baptized by a man sent of God to baptize—then, “though their sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” They are cleansed, they come forth to a new birth, they are born of the water, and every time they partake of the holy sacrament they witness to God that they will continue in his ways, and walk in his paths, that they have put on Christ, and that they will remember him to keep his commandments in all things. Now when people are thus properly cleansed, and purified and made white, like unto newborn babes on entering into the world, without blemish or spot, then their tabernacles are fit to receive the Holy Ghost. How does it come? Like the remission of sins, it comes according to fixed laws; it comes through the laying on of hands of men appointed by the Almighty to administer. They lay their hands upon the baptized believer and they confirm upon him the Holy Ghost? Can a man confer the gift of the Holy Ghost? No; man is but the minister; the Holy Ghost comes from God; but this is the plan set and fixed in the economy of the heavens whereby people dwelling upon the earth shall receive this gift. Faith, repentance and baptism, then the gift of the Holy Ghost, by the laying on of hands.

Now, if you will take up the New Testament, you will find that this is the plan the Apostles followed in every instance wherever they went to preach the word of the Lord. They called upon people to believe in Jesus whom the Jews crucified, and to be baptized for a remission of their sins, then have hands laid upon them for the reception of the Holy Ghost. They had authority to baptize, but they did not always have authority to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost. Philip went down to Samaria and preached the word of the Lord, and a great many were baptized, but they did not receive the Holy Ghost, although they believed in Jesus and were baptized. They could not receive that gift until someone came down from Jerusalem, having authority, but when Peter and John came down and laid their hands upon them, then the Holy Ghost fell upon them. When people received this Holy Spirit in olden times, what were its effects upon them? We read here in the New Testament that people had an inward witness that they were accepted of God. That was the blessing every man and woman in the Church enjoyed in olden times. It was no longer a matter of speculation; they had the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Lord, which revealed the things of the Father and Son to them, and they could say like Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “God has revealed it to me, and I know it. I am no longer in doubt. My faith has grown to knowledge. I know that thou livest, I know that Christ is thy Son, and I know that I am on the path which leads to thy presence.” What else? All those who received this spirit received the same spirit. They were no longer Sectaries, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, or of any other sect; they were “all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free,” and they had “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one hope of their calling.” Hence you see one of its effects was to make all see eye to eye. They were no longer divided in their opinions in regard to these matters, but were united, seeing alike and understanding alike. Now, some will say it is impossible for people of differently constructed minds to see and know alike. Why? If they will only reflect a little, they will see that this is not the case. How many people will dispute that five times four make twenty? Is there anybody that disputes that? In that case all people understand alike. And so in regard to any of the principles of mathematics when understood. Now, if we can agree in regard to these things, why not in regard to spiritual things? If we are all influenced by the same spirit, why should we not see eye to eye? There is a day to come when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and when no one shall need say to his neighbor, ‘Know ye the Lord,’ for all shall know him from the least to the greatest.” All shall see and comprehend alike, being baptized by one spirit and having the glorious boon of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, which reveals the things of God, and makes them plain to the human mind. The gifts of the spirit are enumerated by St. Paul, in the 12th chapter of Corinthians. “To one,” he says, “is given the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge; to another faith; to another the gifts of healing; to another the working of miracles,” etc.—different gifts to different persons, all by the same spirit. What else? “Why,” says the Apostle Paul, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance.” These are some of the fruits of the spirit, and according to the amount of the outpouring of that spirit upon the different individuals, so will be their possession of these various gifts internally and externally. If a man having the Holy Ghost prays that he might have the gift of tongues, and sets his heart upon it, he will get it. What! In this age of the world? Why, certainly, if the Holy Ghost has not changed.

“Oh,” says one, “I do not believe in any such thing. There is no revelation nowadays. There is no administration of angels; that is all visionary, all nonsense. There is no prophesying nowadays by the gift of the Holy Ghost; there is no communion with the Eternal Father now. Jesus Christ has been shut out from the gaze of men for centuries, and they will not see his face again. Why do people talk in that way? Because the Holy Ghost has ceased to work among the children of men. Hundreds of sects and thousands of preachers, but no holy Ghost. Hosts of men claiming to be sent, but not one of them with authority from the Almighty. Trained to be preachers, paid to be preachers, desiring to be preachers, but no communion with the heavens, and therefore no authority from God. In fact they have repudiated the very idea of such a thing, and a man who declares that he has communion with the heavens and authority from God simply gets laughed at, and the cry is “Away with him, he is an impostor, let him be put to death,” just as they did in the days of Jesus and in the days of the old Prophets.

Now in our own time, in the generation in which we live, a young man came forth bearing testimony that he had had a vision in which he beheld the Father and the Son; and the Lord told him that the world had gone astray and that the time was near at hand when the Gospel should be restored in all its fullness, attended by all its ancient power, gifts and blessings. Afterwards he testified that divine beings had come down from on high and ordained him to the authority which they held when they were men in the flesh. He testified that John the Baptist the same who baptized Jesus, came and ordained him to the same Priesthood that he held, and sent him as a forerunner to prepare a people before the second coming of the Redeemer. Afterwards he testified that Peter, James and John, who held the keys of the Apostleship in early times, came and ordained him to the same Apostleship which they held, and sent him forth to administer in the same way that they were authorized to administer when they were in the flesh. What was the consequence? All the world was turned against him, and particularly men professing to be ministers of the Gospel. “All such things,” they said, “are done away with, do not listen to him, he is a vile impostor.” But in spite of this he bore his testimony, and people who had been looking for the restoration of the everlasting Gospel received his ministry. His words penetrated their hearts; they repented, were baptized, and had hands laid upon them for the reception of the Holy Ghost. But did they get the Holy Ghost? So they say. They testified to having received the various gifts—the gift of tongues, the interpretation of tongues, prophecy, etc.; the lame were made to walk; the ears of the deaf were unstopped; the eyes of the blind were opened. They say, “I know that Jesus is the Christ; I know that Peter’s testimony is true, and I know that this man, who is cast out as an impostor, is a Prophet of God; the Holy Ghost so testifies to me. I am not dependent upon his testimony. God, my Father, has revealed this to me, and I know it.” The work went on. Men were ordained with the same authority and went to the different nations, and wherever they went the same effects followed—Jew or Gentile, bond or free, Scandinavian or German, Italian or French, English, Scotch, Welsh or Irish, all received this testimony; were baptized into the same spirit, and received the same gifts. This is why we are here dwelling together in these mountain valleys. We have all received the same Gospel, the same testimony. Our testimony to all the world is we know that God lives; we know that Jesus is the Son of God; we know that the atonement was wrought out for us and all the world who will receive it; we know that we have received a remission of our sins; we know that the Lord has brought us up out of the miry clay and placed our feet upon a rock and put a new song in our mouths of everlasting praise to God and the Lamb. We are all looking forward to the second coming of Jesus, and the time is not far distant when he shall come and reign from pole to pole and from shore to shore. He will come to take vengeance on those that know not God, and obey not the Gospel; to cleanse the earth as with the besom of destruction, and to subdue all things to himself.

Well, what did they do with this young man who bore this testimony that the Gospel in all its ancient purity and power had been restored to the earth? What did they do with him? They hunted him from place to place, from city to city, persecuting him on the right hand and on the left. So-called ministers of the Gospel preached all manner of falsehoods against him. They stir– red up the populace against him, and time and time again he was taken by wicked hands and cast into prison. Some forty-nine times he was accused of various crimes, but no conviction could be had. At last they got him into Carthage jail. A guard was placed around the prison to make his friends believe that he was safe, and just as soon as this idea was established, the mob with their faces blackened burst into the prison and slew the Prophet and his brother Hyrum, who died for the truth and for the testimony of Jesus, the last words the Prophet was heard to say were, “O Lord, my God.”

Joseph Smith, a Prophet of God, was rejected of men like unto the ancient Prophets. He came to a wicked and perverse generation. He came to a people who had turned away from God and followed after the ways of men. He came to a people who worshipped God with their lips, while their hearts were far from him. He came to a people who loved darkness rather than light, and therefore they did the deeds of others who were in the same position in previous ages—they slew the Prophet of God. His blood stains the soil of Illinois, and of the United States, his blood smokes up to God with the blood of Abel, and with the blood of all the martyrs, and will be laid at the door of a wicked and corrupt generation; for although all did not imbrue their hands in his blood, yet they consented to the deed and were ready to say, “served him right, we are glad he is out of the way.” The same spirit is manifested toward our leaders today. The world would like to see them slaughtered too. What harm did Joseph Smith ever do the world. He bore testimony of these things to those who pro– fessed to believe in this book (the Bible) and who hug it to their bosoms and sing:

“Holy Bible, book divine, Precious treasure thou art mine,” And they rejected the very truths contained in that book, that this man, a Prophet of the Lord, proclaimed by the power of the Holy Ghost.

We Latter-day Saints have gathered from all parts of the world to these valleys of the mountains, occupying a country north, south, east and west, for about 500 miles. Christ said that one of the signs of his coming would be that “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” This Gospel is being preached as a witness unto all nations and the end is approaching. What else did he say in connection with this “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Isaiah saw them coming “as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows;” and through him the Lord has said, “I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.” We have come from the nations of the earth to the tops of the mountains to erect a house to the God of Jacob, that we may learn of his ways and walk in his paths. God once more speaks to men on the earth; Jesus Christ has revealed himself, and the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the spirit of truth, makes manifest the things of the Father and of the Son. “The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple,” and we partake of this sacrament to keep us in remembrance of this and to prepare ourselves, for the day is near at hand.

I bear my testimony to you, my brethren, sisters and friends, in all sincerity and soberness, before God and the angels, the heavens and the earth, that I know this work is true. I am not dependent upon another person for this knowledge. I know for myself I have received this Gospel in my heart; I have obeyed its ordinances; I have received of its spirit: I know that God lives. I know that this work will roll on. I know that the Gospel will be preached to every creature. I know that the honest and truth-loving, who dare meet the frowns of men, who dare face popular opinion, will come out from the sects and parties of the earth and from the different nations and countries, and be baptized into this Church and receive the Holy Ghost, and thus be drawn near to God, and prepared for the advent of the Lord. They will come from all parts of the earth. This work will roll on. No government, or kingdom, or power, or president, or ruler, or monarch, can stop its progress. It is not the work of man. It is the work of the great God. People marvel how it is this people can be brought together in hundreds and thousands, and be so united. They think they are under the influence of some scheming men, and that we are in a state of bondage. It is all nonsense and folly. The power that binds us together is the power of the Holy Ghost, the power of the Comforter, the power of the spirit of revelation. This power is in our hearts. The union that binds us together is brought about by the same power that binds together the waters of the great sea. This sea of humanity, composed of people of all nations, has been acted upon by the power and gift of the Holy Ghost. That is where our unity comes in; it is our obedience to law and to truth, not to man. People very much mistake the character of the Latter-day Saints, if they think we are a lot of serfs. We have come out from amongst the various nations against the opposition of our friends and kindred and stood up for the right. We have crossed the great deep and traversed the broad plains for our religion. When I crossed the ocean, it took thirty days to accomplish the voyage, and thirteen weeks to cross the plains. I am the only one of my family who received the Gospel. I came here because I knew it was true and that I might learn more of the ways of God. I came to throw in my lot with the people of God for life or for death, for time and for eternity, with all my powers bodily, mental, physical and spiritual. In giving my testimony I merely speak the testimony of hundreds and thousands that inhabit these mountain valleys.

Well, now we are here, what do we intend to do? We will find out the law of God as fast as we can and by the help of God we will live it. We will try to carry this Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth, east, west, north and south. We are willing to go any number of miles to any nation, bearing our own expenses generally. What for? To preach this Gospel, and bear testimony that God has spoken from the heavens. But some may say, “You are a very bad people. You marry many wives and are raising up a host of children.” Well, we are no worse than the father of the faithful, Abraham, the friend of God, and if you do not like men who have more wives than one, I am very much afraid that when you get to the gates of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, on which will be inscribed the names of twelve men who were the sons of four women by one man—and if you should pass through the gates into the celestial city, and find Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, with their wives and children as the beginning of their everlasting glory and dominion, that you will say, “I want to go somewhere else, let me get out of this city, it is inhabited by polygamists.”

Before I sit down let me say, my friends that those in this community who have married more wives than one have done so from pure motives. But some people cannot comprehend that. This generation is so corrupt and so licentious that some cannot understand how a man can marry one wife from pure motives. Now if you can understand the feelings and motives with which a virtuous man marries the wife of his youth, “for better or worse,” then you can comprehend the motives of the Latter-day Saints when they marry more wives, for the same promptings that actuated them in the first place, actuate them in the next. God Almighty has given us a revelation concerning this matter. We marry our wives under divine direction and divine sanction, and under the same holy Priesthood which has power to administer baptism for the remission of sins and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and “whatsoever it shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever it shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” I have no time, however, to dwell on this subject, but I will just say that our marriage is celestial marriage for time and all eternity—like that with which Adam was married to Eve in the Garden of Eden when they were immortal beings, and when there was no one to unite them but God. Christ died also for them and though they were divided by death they will come forth and be united again as glorious resurrected beings. As our hymn says:

“Come to me; here are Adam and Eve at the head, Of a multitude quickened and raised from the dead; Here are worlds that have been, and the worlds yet to be; Here’s eternity—endless: Amen. Come to me.”

After that pattern are we married for time and all eternity, and we expect when we come up in the resurrection of the just, if we have been worthy, to receive our wives to our bosoms, and our children to the family circle; that they will be the beginning of our exaltation and glory; that then the blessing of Abraham pronounced upon us shall be fulfilled, and of our increase there shall be no end. The Lord will multiply our seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore. And when we enter this holy order of marriage, whether it be with one or two, or more wives, we marry in this order and in the fear of God, and under the direction of his spirit and for holy purposes, and not for the gratification of lust, and those that say we do are either very much mistaken or they willfully lie. There are people who are constantly and persistently lying about us, but of them I do not wish to speak for fear that I should get angry, and I feel too happy to reflect upon them. I rejoice in knowing that my sins have been washed away by the blood of Christ, through obedience to his commandments. I rejoice in knowing that the Holy Ghost is in my heart and guides my footsteps; that I can call upon God and receive an answer to my prayers; and that I know he loves to hear and answer the prayers of his servants. I bear this testimony to you this afternoon, and as a servant of the Lord I say to all who have not obeyed the Gospel, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by authority of the holy Priesthood, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call, and if you reject this testimony and commandment and love darkness rather than light, you must give an account therefore in the great day of judgment.

May God bless this congregation, and fill his Saints with his Holy Spirit continually, that we may roll on the glorious work of God, and that we may live for the truth, and if necessary die in its defense. May peace and blessing be multiplied upon you, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by Elder C. W. Penrose, delivered in the Salt Lake Assembly Hall, Sunday Afternoon, April 25th, 1880.

The Latter-day Saints are often accused by the people in the Christian world of being very much deluded. Our religion is counted a delusion and a snare. I was thinking, however, during the meeting this afternoon about the great number of Christian preachers who today are standing up in various parts of the world informing the people who listen to them that simple belief on the Lord Jesus, who died on Calvary, is all that is necessary to save them and exalt them in the presence of God the Father. And it seems to me that if there is one delusion more pernicious than another it is that very doctrine, which seems to be a fundamental principle of all the various Christian sects. You will find, go where you will in the Christian world and listen to any of the great preachers of the day, that this is the common topic of discourse. Jesus Christ is preached—which is quite right, I am very glad that he is—as the Savior of the world. So we testify as Latter-day Saints. In connection, however, with this great truth which is proclaimed to the inhabitants of the earth by men professing to be sent of God, is preached the great error that mere belief in the work which Jesus Christ wrought out is sufficient for the salvation of the people. The inhabitants of the earth are informed that it is not by any works of righteousness which they may perform that they can gain any favor whatever in the sight of God, but it is the righteousness of Christ alone which is acceptable to the Father and which they can gain the benefit of if they simply believe in him.

When we search the Scriptures and read the sayings of Jesus Christ, and of his servants whom he sent forth to preach the Gospel, we do not find any such statement as this. We find, it is true, that the apostles of the Lord Jesus preached Christ and him crucified to the world wherever they had an opportunity; they directed the attention of the people, Jew and Gentile, wherever they went, to Jesus of Nazareth who was slain on Calvary as the Redeemer of the world, and faith in him was declared to be absolutely necessary. But we do not find that in proclaiming faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to that generation they informed the people that a mere belief in Christ was all that was needful; we find that, in addition to teaching the principle of faith in God and in his Son Jesus Christ, they taught the people it was necessary to observe certain rules, and commandments, to obey certain forms and ordinances, to comply with certain conditions that they might obtain the benefit of the shedding of Christ’s blood. We find by searching the New Testament, which contains some of the teachings of the apostles and some of their letters to the churches, that the doctrine was held forth by them that “the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin.” We find that this applied, as they taught it, not only to what is called original sin, but also to actual sin. The sin which our first parents committed in the Garden of Eden is called original sin; and the sins committed individually by the inhabitants of the earth, are called actual sin, for “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” The apostles sent forth to preach the Gospel by our Savior himself, taught the people that through the shedding of Christ’s blood remission of sin might come to all and that mankind might be redeemed from sin, original and actual. But we find this distinction in their teaching in regard to original sin, and their teaching in regard to individual sin; that the blood of Christ redeems mankind from the effects of the fall and will eventually bring up all who died in Adam—“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”—but that while people had nothing whatever to do with the sin which Adam committed and therefore have nothing whatever to do with the work of atonement for that sin, yet for their own sins there is some action required on their part that they may obtain redemption therefrom, inasmuch as the blood of Christ was shed for original sin unconditionally, but for the remission of actual sin conditionally.

God, when he placed our first parents in the Garden of Eden put before them a certain tree, the fruit of which he said, “they should not partake of, if they did they should surely die.” They partook of that tree in disobedience to the divine commandment, and planted the seeds of death in their bodies, and that death has passed upon all their posterity. “It is appointed unto men once to die.” This act of our first parents introduced death into the world. Death came by sin, and death has passed upon all the posterity of Adam and Eve. Jesus came in the meridian of time as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” to bring mankind up from the effects of the transgression of our first parents. Hence he is called “the Second Adam,” and we are told that as in the first Adam all die, even so in Christ, the second Adam, shall all be made alive again. And he himself proclaimed that the time should come, “in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation,” or in the words of the inspired translation, “they that have done good, in the resurrection of the just, and they that have done evil, in the resurrection of the unjust.” It is through the transgression of Adam that we have to suffer what is called the temporal death. Through that transgression our spirits have become separated from our bodies; our immortal spirits held by these mortal tabernacles must be taken out, and our bodies must return to the ground and crumble into dust; but by the atonement wrought out by the Lord Jesus Christ the time is to come when all who lived in the body shall live in the body again. Christ was raised from the dead and became “the firstfruits of them that slept;” afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming will be brought forth. This is the first resurrection. “Blessed and holy,” says the Apostle John in his vision, “are they that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of his Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” After that John saw, that “the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to his works.”

The atonement wrought out by the Lord Jesus Christ for original sin will apply just as far as the effects of the sin are felt. As all the posterity of Adam died through that sin, even so all the posterity of Adam will be raised up again through the atonement. “But every man in his own order,” says the apostle, “Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming;” and then after the thousand years have passed away, the rest of the dead, as John said, will be brought forth and judged each one according to the deeds done in the flesh. All must give an account unto the great eternal Father. We are responsible for the acts done in the flesh, for like as it was in the case of our first parents, good and evil, truth and error, are placed before us, and every individual is left free to choose the good and refuse the evil, or to choose the evil, and refuse the good, as he pleases. Both are set before us and, if we yield to either, it will lead us in either direction. There is, however, a spirit in man, born in him, which comes from God, the fountain of light and truth. This light is planted in the breast of every man and every woman who breathes the breath of life. It is the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and if people would listen to the whispering of that still small voice, be led by that natural light and natural inspiration, they would be led up to God. By this natural light, by this general inspiration, if people would listen to its whisperings, and be guided thereby, they would be led up to the fountain of light. “Every good gift,” says the Apostle James, “and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” But on the other hand there must be, as the Book of Mormon says, “an opposition in all things,” and there is a spirit of evil, a spirit of darkness, which draws downward to death, and a spirit of light which leads upward to life; the one leads to Satan and his works, the other to God and to righteousness. But the inhabitants of the earth generally have been more prone to listen to the inspiration of the spirit of darkness as did our first parents, than to listen to the still small voice of light and life in their souls.

All people must give an account of the deeds done in the body according to the measure of light they have received, and the opportunities they have had of obtaining that light, while they dwelt in the flesh. Some people have lived on the earth when God has sent his servants inspired of him to make plain his ways, while others have tabernacled in the flesh when no inspired voice was heard, when no communication was open between the heavens and the earth. And he who is just, who is the embodiment of the eternal principles of justice, will deal out to all according to their light and according to the opportunities they have had of obtaining that light, but all must be judged, all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for their individual works.

Now, we will take the case of an individual who has broken all the laws of God and perhaps all the laws of man, and finally has shed the blood of a fellow creature, and is condemned by the laws of man to die; he is, in fact, unfit to live, unfit to associate with mortal beings, therefore, they must needs thrust him out of the world that he may mingle with immortal beings. Where do they send him to? A minister will come and preach to him, and tell him that all he has to do is to cast his soul on Jesus; that he has just to believe that Christ died for him, and the righteousness of the pure, immaculate, sinless, Christ will be grafted into that rotten branch, so that he will have the fruits of righteousness and peace. That is according to the modern Gospel. The man believes this, he confesses Christ with his lips and acknowledges him with his tongue, and straightway is strung up between the heavens and the earth, and choked to death; his spirit is forced out of his body, and ushered into the presence of the eternal Father to stand before his spotless throne, and is deemed fit to dwell in the society of the pure and holy ones on high. That is according to the modern Gospel, but not according to the ancient Gospel of Jesus Christ, the everlasting Gospel which says “no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”

But someone may ask, “Is there no efficacy, for actual sin, in the atonement wrought out by Jesus Christ? Is there no method by which people can obtain a forgiveness of their individual sins?” Yes, there is a way, and that is the plan of the true Gospel, but it does not consist in mere belief in the righteousness of another; mere belief in the righteousness of somebody else will not make us any better ourselves. What is to be done then? Here the Gospel is very plain and simple, when pointed out by one who understands it. But “How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?” It is men who are not sent who preach the nonsense we hear in the world. It is men who are not sent who deceive mankind with their strong delusions, and then turn round and call the Latter-day Saints deluded. If they were sent of God they would not preach such nonsense, they would not deceive mankind and thus become the cause of so much sin and evil in the world. For while people believe that at the last moment, at the last gasp of their existence, they may cast their souls on Jesus, and by believing in his virtue escape the penalty of their sins, they will continue to sin on, like many of these false teachers who revel in sin up to their very eyes, and will die in their sins and go down into the pit where they must wait until they are released, in the time and way of the Lord. The doctrine of belief without works is a strong delusion. There is more to do, according to the Gospel, than merely to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is necessary. That is the foundation, it is the root of the matter, but it is not all the matter. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Why? Because if you have true faith in Christ, if you really believe on him, you will believe in his sayings and keep his commandments. Hear him: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” “Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”

When Jesus Christ sent his apostles unto all the world after he had risen from the dead, he commanded them to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” They were to go out and preach to all the world, baptizing those that believed, and then proceed to teach all things whatsoever he had commanded them. Christ taught his disciples many principles while he tarried with them in the flesh, and after he had risen from the dead he continued his instructions from time to time. He also told them that when he went away the Comforter should come to reveal unto them the things of the Father and the Son, and to guide them unto all truth; for it is only by receiving truth and living it that people can be saved and exalted. “Sanctify them through thy truth,” prayed the Savior, “thy word is truth.” The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, was to come, therefore, to make plain the truth, and to reveal things past, present, and to come. It is necessary, however, to have faith in Christ. Why? Because every blessing that flows to the inhabitants of the earth from God the eternal Father comes through Jesus Christ. We must first of all believe in God, then believe in Jesus Christ, and if we really do believe in God and in Jesus Christ we will find out in ourselves that we have broken the commandments of God and of his Son Jesus Christ, and the desire will enter our hearts to turn away from sin. Thus it is said, “whosoever heareth these sayings, and doeth them, I will liken unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.” It is taught by some that repentance is the first principle of religion, but if a man does not believe in God, will he pray unto him? What has a man to repent of except the breaking of the commandments of God? And how shall he feel anything to repent of if he does not believe in God? It is necessary therefore to have faith first, and then comes repentance, a determination to forsake evil, and this is what the ancient apostles taught.

What next? We find that wherever the apostles went, whenever they found a people who believed in Jesus and repented of their sins they baptized them. By sprinkling a little water in their face? Or by making the sign of the cross upon their foreheads? No. They were taken down into the water and buried there in the likeness of Christ’s death and burial and raised up in the likeness of his resurrection, that henceforth, having “put off the old man with his deeds” they might walk in newness of life, observe his laws and keep his commandments, and follow his footsteps, for he “left us an example, that we should follow in his steps.” Then the apostles laid their hands upon those that were baptized, and we read that they received the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the spirit of truth, which opened up a communication between each individual soul and the fountain of light and eternal truth, which testified that they had been washed clean from their sins. How washed? By water? Yes, and no. Water does not wash away sin, but if people desire remission of their actual sins they must be baptized. Thus it must be, “to fulfil all righteousness.” Even Christ himself had to be baptized to fulfil that commandment, and if he had not obeyed it there would have been no manifestation of the Holy Ghost resting upon him in the sign of a dove, and a voice from heaven declaring, “’This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Christ left us this example, and his apostles followed in his footsteps, baptizing according to the commandment for the remis– sion of sins. John the Baptist also taught this same doctrine when he went out to preach in Judea, and when the people came to him confessing their sins he baptized them in Jordan for the remission of sins. “I indeed baptize you,” says John, “with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to loose; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.”

Baptism for the remission of sins!

“Why,” says one, “I thought the blood of Christ redeemed us from our sins.”And so it does. Water itself will not wash away guilt. If a person has no faith in Christ, and has not repented of his sins, baptism will be of no avail. But baptism properly administered by one who has a right to administer in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, will avail. The person to be baptized must go down into the water and therein be buried for a remission of sins, having repented, and having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his atoning blood, for the blood of Christ was shed, “for the sins of the whole world.” But the “whole world” will not receive the benefit of the atonement unless they comply with the conditions laid down, namely: faith, repentance, and baptism. They who do not receive this ordinance cannot enter into the presence of the Father, for “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” So said Jesus. This is a little different from the teachings of modern divines, is it not? Yes, but it is according to the teachings of Christ and his apostles.

Now, then, in regard to the administration of this ordinance. Men must have a right to administer before they do anything in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. I ask who has that right? There are a great many ministers standing up in the various chapels and churches today administering in the name of this holy trinity. You can see men in the Christian world stand up before a congregation and sprinkle a little water upon an unconscious babe, and call it baptism, and actually do it in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Who sent them? Who told them to do this sprinkling? Did God the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Ghost? No. Did any person to whom God has spoken, having authority from God to ordain, appoint them to that office? No. Why! Because for hundreds of years communication with the eternal world has been shut off, inasmuch as the people who profess the Christian religion have not even believed in the doctrine of present communication with God. They have been contented with the old revelations contained in the book we call the Bible, which contains a few of the things that God revealed hundreds of years ago. They do not believe in having communication with the heavens. How did they get this authority, then? When did a man ever get authority from God to sprinkle and call it baptism, or to baptize an infant in any form? It is not to be found in the Bible. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” so Christ said. And you will find that wherever the apostles went, faith was the first principle they taught. “If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest,” said Philip to the eunuch who sought to be baptized. Baptism without faith and repentance is valueless, it is void; and baptism administered by one who has not the right to attend to that ordinance in the name of the holy trinity is also void. Supposing men were to come to us with as groundless claims in temporal things as they do in spiritual. Supposing a man came from Germany to this country and professed to be a minister from the German court. We would ask to see his credentials, and if he had been sent as an ambassador for that people, he would be able to show his authority. Supposing all that he had to prove his right to represent the German Empire was, he felt called in his heart to do so. We should consider him a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. But there are men administering in these sacred things (administering in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost), ordinances to which God never appointed them, for they say there is no communication between them and God, nor has there been among the inhabitants of the earth for hundreds and hundreds of years. They say the canon of scripture is full; God talks no more with the inhabitants of the earth. Where, then, do they get the right to administer in the name of the Lord? I tell you as sure as they do this they will be called to account and held guilty of taking the name of the Lord in vain. How did the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ get the authority to baptize? Christ gave it to them. How did Christ get the authority? Did he assume it himself? No. Jesus said, “I come not to do my own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” It was his Father in heaven who called him to be a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, and Moses and Elias who had previously held that priesthood, administered to him in the mount. Thus Christ received that holy priesthood, after the order of Melchizedek, which embraced all the higher powers and comprehended the lesser or Aaronic priesthood (for the greater includes the lesser), and he ordained his apostles to that priesthood. “As my Father hath sent me,” said he, “even so send I you.” They obtained their ordination from Christ, and therefore had a right to baptize and also to call others as the Holy Ghost directed.

“But,” says one, “there are many people who have felt called in their hearts, they have had the spirit of the Gospel. Have they not a right, seeing they believe in Christ, to administer in these ordinances?” Certainly not, not a particle of right. Let us look at Paul and his history, related by himself, Saul, of Tarsus, who went to persecute the Saints and was smitten to the earth by the light from the glorious presence of the lately risen Jesus. He was led blind into the city to which he carried letters intended to be used in the persecution and annoyance of the saints. Says Paul: “And one Ananias, Came unto me, and said, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him. And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldst know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldst hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” Saul attended to the ordinance and was baptized. “Well, now,” says one, “surely Saul had a right to preach the Gospel. He had seen Jesus and heard his voice. A miracle had been wrought upon him and he was told that he should be a witness unto all men.” No, he had not yet the right. The hands of the servants of the Lord had not yet been laid upon him. But we read in the thirteenth chapter of Acts, that while certain prophets and teachers were waiting before the Lord, “the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” It is written, “No man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” Aaron was called by Moses, who received divine authority by direct communication from God. Aaron, it appears, could talk better than Moses, but Moses was the man called to hold the keys of the ministry. If any man desires to act in the holy ministry he must first be baptized for a remission of his sins and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, otherwise he cannot be a teacher unto others. And even then, although he may have had visions, although he may have seen the Lord and had the glories of heaven opened unto his view, though the curtain that hides the future may have rolled up before him like a scroll, so that he could gaze into the glories of the eternities, all this would give him no authority whatever to administer in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He must be called, he must be ordained, he must receive the authority of the holy priesthood.

Well, what condition has the Christian world been in for centuries? Just the same in a great many respects as the heathen world. The people have been in the depths of error. Darkness has covered the earth and gross darkness the people. “Stay yourselves and wonder,” says the Prophet Isaiah, speaking of the latter times, “cry ye out and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine: they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.” And the Lord said that in that very time, when the people should be in this condition, when they should draw near unto him with their mouth, and honor him with their lips, while their hearts were far from him, “I will proceed to do a marvelous work among the people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of the wise men shall perish and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. * * * And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” Just as the prophet predicted so it has been in the age in which we live. Out of darkness has come forth light. God, from his holy dwelling place, looked down upon the world and beheld that all had gone astray, that none were doing good, no not one. They were divided and contentious, jangling and quarrelling about creeds. Men were crying lo! here, and lo! there; in fact the blind were leading the blind and both were falling into the ditch together. The Lord beheld this from his holy habitation and again restored the truth from the eternal world. He sent his holy angels and revealed anew the everlasting Gospel. Truth came out of the earth, and righteousness looked down from heaven and both joined in one, gave joy to the meek, and became a power among men in the earth.

God called Joseph Smith to the great work of ushering in the last dispensation. He made manifest to him the truth, sent angels to him, enlightened his mind and gave him the gift and power of the Holy Ghost, and as Moses and Elias came to Christ in the Mount, so also did Peter, James and John ordain Joseph Smith to the Melchizedek priesthood. The authority of that priesthood is here now, and the servants of God who are called by that authority go forth and preach the Gospel to every creature, for a witness unto all nations, declaring that the end is near, and that the second advent of the Lord is close at hand. People are called upon everywhere to repent of their sins; to be baptized for the remission of sins, and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, and whenever people have received the Gospel and obeyed its ordinances his blessings have come to them. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, which speaks direct to their souls, has borne witness that their sins are remitted, that they are raised to a newness of life, and that if faithful unto the end they will be received back into the presence of the Father, to dwell in his society and glory. This is a privilege offered to all the inhabitants of the earth who will believe in this Gospel of the latter days. Yet it is no new thing. It is the old Gospel restored. Not a doctrine, not a principle, not a precept therein, but what may be found in the old Scriptures. And this is what people call delusion! The Gospel came to us in the various nations of the earth, some belonging to the various religious sects, and some belonging to no sect whatever, and when we received and obeyed it a power took hold of us superior to anything we have ever experienced before, and witnessed to us in an unmistakable manner the truth of this work. It is not a phantom. It is not something imaginary, but it is a solemn fact, as certain as the fact of our existence. No one can reason us out of it, or force us out of it. Why? Because it is stamped upon our spiritual nature, it is a part of our very being. God Almighty has revealed this truth to our souls, and we know it as we know we live. That is why we are here.

Now, our business is to live this religion, to learn further of the ways of God, and to do his will in all things. The matters I have been speaking of are only the A B C of the Gospel. We must learn “line upon line and precept upon precept,” and continue to grow and increase in a knowledge of the truth, living by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Now I would ask whether this is the case? Having been redeemed, or having had our individual transgressions remitted, are we walking in the straight and narrow way? Are we learning of God? Are we seeking to understand more distinctly and clearly the things that pertain to our salvation? Are we performing the task allotted to us? For we are living in an important day. The day of the second coming of the Savior is nigh at hand, and when he comes shall we be found, as in the parable, among the wise or among the foolish virgins? How is it with us this afternoon? Have we oil in our lamps to guide us on our path? There is no need for us to do anything in the dark. We should be the children of the light. We are accused of following our leaders in “blind obedience.” There is no such thing in the Gospel. We have in our midst those who give us the word of the Lord in a church capacity, “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ,” but it is our privilege to have the same light. “The manifestations of the spirit are given to every one to profit withal.” The Holy Ghost is conferred upon each individual and it is our privilege to see our way. When the true Saints hear the word of life, there is an echo within their hearts and a spirit which testifies to its truthfulness. When the word comes through our inspired leaders it proceeds from the spirit of light which guides us unto all truth. It is the privilege of every Saint to have this light for themselves, the light of God, the light of truth, “the light that is in all things and through all things and round about all things, and is the law by which all things are governed.” It is our privilege to be in possession of that faith that we may ask and receive, that we may seek and find, that we may knock and have the door opened unto us. Well, are we doing this? If so, then we rejoice in our religion. The world compared therewith is as nothing; all things are as dross compared with the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. If we are living our religion it is everything with us. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Earthly things perish with the using and when we pass away we must leave them behind, but we will carry with us the Gospel, and every one of its truths we have made our own. We will carry with us the holy priesthood and its gifts and powers, if we have been faithful, and will be permitted to mingle with the spirits of just men made perfect, and rejoice in the hope of a glorious resurrection.

Now let us strive to walk in this path that we may gain this great glory. Let us attend to the duties we are required to perform. There is nothing in the Gospel that is nonessential. Every principle that has been revealed unto us is necessary for the salvation of man, for I tell you before we are fit to dwell in the presence of God and enjoy the fulness of his glory we must become like him. Latter-day Saints, the ordinances of the Gospel will not save you, they are only aids to salvation. What, then, will save us? A knowledge of truth and the practice thereof, nothing else. We must learn the ways of God. We must walk in his paths. We must be Saints in very deed, and walk in the footsteps of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then, by-and-by, where he is we will be also. If we turn our backs upon the truth we will go down to death; we will be beaten with many stripes, we must suffer the consequence of our guilt, and after we have gone through the depths of suffering and sorrow in the due time of the Lord we may get some kind of a salvation and glory, but where God and Christ are we cannot come, worlds without end.

I would say to my friends who are here this afternoon, that I know this work is true. God Almighty has made it known to me. I bear this testimony to you, and I am willing to meet it before the great judgment seat. God has spoken from the heavens in this our day. He has restored the Gospel of Christ and the authority to preach it. It will go forth to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. The wise and the prudent will not receive it, but “the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” This work will go on to this end and purpose. Zion will be built up, Jerusalem will be redeemed, and the time will come when Jesus, our Redeemer, shall descend in power and great glory to reign upon the earth. I bear my testimony that this is the work of God, that he requires our whole heart, and that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us put away our follies and our errors. Let us not drink into the spirit of the world. Let us not pat– tern after the wickedness that is creeping into our midst. Come out from among them and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing! Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. It is only by the practice of righteousness and personal purity, that we will be made fit to dwell in the presence of the Lord. A doctrine contrary to this is the worst kind of delusion.

May God help us to live the life of a Saint and finally save us in his kingdom, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.