Discourse by Apostle F. D. Richards, delivered at the Annual Conference, held in the Tabernacle, Logan, Cache County, Saturday and Sunday, April 4th and 5th, 1885.

It is very pleasing and it is also an occasion of heartfelt gratitude to be permitted to meet, so many of us, this morning and under such favorable circumstances as those which surround us; even the elements conspire to make our coming together convenient and agreeable. Circumstances are such as prevent our brethren of the First Presidency and several of the Twelve Apostles from being with us, and perhaps others from among the people, who would be glad to be with us at this General Conference, but who deem it advisable, or are so situated that they cannot consistently attend. Let us that have come together seek unto the Lord for His Spirit and His guidance, that we may receive that measure of grace and blessing at His hand which we need under the present conditions which attend upon us.

If any evidence were wanting to indicate to the doubtful, the unbelieving, or the half-hearted, as to whether we are of the world or the world of us, we are obtaining daily evidence of the fact that we are not of the world. The Savior told the brethren that sojourned with Him: “If ye were of the world, the world would love you: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” The same reason essentially exists today that existed then. But the Lord has made very gracious and precious promises to His people—that where only two or three are agreed as touching matters pertaining to the interest of His Kingdom and the honor of His name, their prayers shall be heard. There never was a day since the Church has been organized in these last days that the Saints had better reasons, or more of them, to be strong and confident in God their living Head, than they have this morning. We need to know and realize that our trust is in Him and not in man, for woe! to him that putteth his trust in man and maketh flesh his arm. God has undertaken to perform a work in the earth which is going to astonish the world, and which will give to His name honor, and glory, power and dominion. Now, all these things that occur—I need not go into any enumeration of them, because in all of your different settlements circumstances and conditions are more or less varied—it has been the studied plan of our adversaries to spread snares for our feet throughout the land; and it need not be wondered at, of course, that they who stand highest in authority should be the objects more particularly of their wicked designs.

Take a look at this thing rationally and in a commonsense view for a moment. The forest trees that are shaken with the wind sometimes almost seem as if they would be uprooted by it, and blown over. By this operation the soil is wonderfully loosened about the roots. By this storm the strength of a tree is tested, and the trunk and the branches of it, as to whether they bear proper relation to each other and derive that support that sustains every part in its natural position. It is also very natural that in that grove, as the wind passes over it, the tallest trees are really the most tried part of it, for the wind and storm will dash and blow upon them, while the smaller ones that are protected by each other, scarcely feel it, perhaps. Then you need not wonder if some of the tallest trees do not happen to be here today. We will, however, remember our brethren who are absent, and pray for them; we will ask the Lord to bless and protect them, to strengthen and fill them with the wisdom of the Holy Ghost continually, that the joy and comfort of the truth and of the holy Gospel shall be theirs, and that they shall be preserved from the hands of their enemies.

We who are gathered together, instead of entertaining ill feeling of cultivating malicious designs towards our enemies, will ask the Lord to strengthen us and to qualify us not only for what is upon us now, but for what is before us; for we do not know what there may be for us in the purposes of Jehovah. All this may be necessary and profitable to give us an experience that we should pass through trials, that may tend to our improvement and qualification, enable us in our different positions to better magnify our callings, and to bear off His Kingdom in the last days as He requires.

There are times and seasons when the hoary frosts of winter not only prevent the trees from showing forth their foliage, from developing any bloom, but cause them to cast their fruit to the earth, scarcely giving indications of life. It may not be wondered at then, if through the storms and blasts of adversity which come upon the Church from time to time that its members are not spreading forth and reaching out their branches, or that the foliage shows no such immediate prospects of fruit, as we might, under more favorable sunshine and with more beautiful weather, expect. While this adverse season is on and the leaves perhaps have blown to the ground, and all presents the appearance of barrenness and death itself, the sap is at work down in the roots. Do you understand this? Gardeners and nurserymen especially will understand that at the close of the adverse season, when the winds and storms have loosened the soil, the roots have extended themselves deeper into the earth, when the sun shines and the gentle rain falls and the pleasant spring appears, those roots, now greatly enlarged, will cause the trees to put forth larger leaves, with more abundant bud and bloom, and with larger and more luscious fruit than before. So it is and will be with the great tree of Life which God has planted in the earth, and which is bringing forth and will yield more abundantly the fruits of Everlasting Life.

Well, then, we have nothing that we need be afflicted or worried about, except our own unrighteousness. I know how the Saints feel about many things which are menacing and intimidating them at the present time; but brethren and sisters, now is the best of all times to go often into your closets, for secret prayer, and there find that grace and help of God which is able to buoy you up in every time of need. Men that are the heads of families need now to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be Prophets, Seers and Revelators to their families, to their kindred and to those that are around them. You need to have your roots strike deep into the soil of Heaven and stronger into the soil of eternity, that you may derive that nourishment and that strength that shall bring to you greater, more abundant and more glorious blessings than ever you have yet realized.

Among other benefits that will be produced by the strange conditions that attend us is this: that while there are those among us who have not known whether they were following for the loaves and fishes, or whether they were following for the truth’s sake—many who are ready to dabble in spirituous liquors and in those intoxicating drinks which inflame the passions, which madden the soul, daze their intellects, destroy the faculties of man, drowning their souls in the perdition of the ungodly; many who have never sought to dig deep and lay their foundation upon the rock of revelation which is the only foundation of eternal truth. It is absolutely important that we and they should know which side of the fence they dwell on; that they make up their minds either to serve God or the devil; and this is a time that calls all people professing to be Saints to make up their minds determinedly whom it is best to serve, and if the Lord is their God, to get some oil in their vessels that they be not always in darkness.

Again, there are conditions which pertain to all animated nature, and which are incident to the great body of the Church as well, and they are these: Notwithstanding it may be the choicest food we may eat, notwithstanding the most healthful or precious drinks we may use—there are operations going on in the system whereby those elements that are not found of use are cast off as waste by the various avenues provided by nature for the expulsion of that which is not useful to the system. Just so this principle of life exists with God’s people. They who will not in their due time and place become articles of nutriment and health to the Church and the Saints will become refuse and will be cast off. These are principles in nature and in life which all are conversant with; we know and understand them. In this dispensation of Providence, wherein it seems as though all the powers of darkness were arrayed against us, we need to understand that it is to God and to God alone that we must look. We need to understand the laws of all things well. The Lord has borne us off in troubles and in tribulations while in Ohio, in Missouri, and in Illinois, and the God that has been with us through these troubles will not forsake us at the present time. The great thing for us to do is to feel after Him, and repent of our sins, our waywardness, and of our weaknesses and sinfulness, and put away everything that is unrighteous and that which is displeasing in the sight of God and of angels and good men. If we do this His favor and His power will rest upon us, and He will allow nothing to come upon us but what He will sanctify to our greatest good and to His own eternal honor and glory, and we shall see by and by His infinite wisdom in all His providences towards us.

I appreciate with you the many precious sentiments that have been uttered in our hearing since we have come together at this conference, and also appreciate with you the consideration which our absent brethren of the First Presidency have felt concerning us, and the work in which we are engaged.

There is something about our labor that is strangely peculiar, but not more so, perhaps, in our day than has existed in former ages of the world when the Gospel has been revealed to man. It has always seemed to be the case that whatever period of time we take up to read concerning the work of God and its effects among the inhabitants of the earth—we always find that the people of God and the people of the world have been in direct antagonism; and when we get back to the most remote items of history—or items of information which history is permitted to furnish us—we find that even in the spiritual state of man’s existence, before the family of Adam came to dwell in the flesh, that there was antagonism there between truth and error, between those that embraced truth and those that embraced error, and following down through the ages that same antagonism has existed and been made manifest in one form or in another, so that the people of the earth have never been in a position to see and understand the principles of the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of salvation, in the same light, and to understand it together and correctly. The principles of the Gospel which have been revealed of God have been admitted by the greatest moral philosophers who have lived—aside from religious professors—to be the most noble principles, the most calculated to exalt mankind, in the belief, in the exercise, and in the obedience of them, of any doctrines or principles of ethics that have ever been given to the human family; great moralists, great scientists have been willing to give this credit to the principles and doctrines of our Savior. Philosophers of this world have done this; and all they of the Saints who have rendered obedience to these principles know, truly, how a faith in them exalts those that embrace them, until it has come to be a truism among the people of God, “that righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

Therefore, let it be known to all the world that it is one of the first principles of the Gospel of Christ that men should repent of their sins, that they should be washed in the waters of regeneration for the remission of their sins, that then, in pursuance thereof, they may receive the Holy Ghost from heaven, which is promised unto obedient believers.

This is not only the doctrine of the Gospel of this dispensation, and the doctrine of the Gospel in the dispensation when Jesus and the Apostles of His day were upon the earth, but this is the very principle and doctrine that was revealed to Father Adam, after he was cast out of the Garden of Eden, when the angel of the Lord came to him and asked him why he offered sacrifices. He replied that he knew not, only that the Lord had told him to do so. Then the angel of the Lord proceeded to explain the matter to him—told him that the object of his offering sacrifices was to keep before his mind the great sacrifice that must be offered up in the meridian of time. This was the only symbol and type given to men to cause them to look forward through an ordinance they practiced to the Savior, who was to come as a sacrifice for sin and to become the Savior of the world. Thus early did God place this principle before the mind of the great father of the human family when in that terrible dilemma, he having consented to partake of the fruit and go out of the garden with mother Eve. It was then that our first parents began to be taught this principle. Adam was taught that he must be born of the water and of the spirit, and in demonstration of this he was caught up by the Spirit and placed in the water and brought forth out of the water, as the revelation of God to Joseph declares. Then he was baptized by the Holy Ghost and with fire. And the Lord told him to teach those things to his children that they might look forward with him to the time when the Only Begotten should come in the flesh and should be made an offering for the sins of the world. Adam was further told that if he taught these things to his children he and they should have in this life the words of eternal life, and in the life to come eternal life itself. Mark the careful distinction; that if they would keep the commandments they should in this life have the words of eternal life given to them, and in the life to come they should have eternal life itself, and, added the Lord to this great promise, “thus may all become my sons.”

Thus the plan of salvation was in brief laid out in plainness to our Father Adam, that he and all his children might be thought meet to enter into the favor of God, receive the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be born of water and of the Spirit, and thus come to a knowledge of the principles of eternal life.

We see from this that the first step to be taken in those days, when the works of Cain had gone forth, and when the people had become exceedingly wicked—so bad that the Scriptures say the thoughts of their hearts were only evil and that continually—the very first thing to consider was how to deprive sinfulness of its power and make righteousness to take hold of the children of men so that they might find favor with the Gods, and with all the righteous both in heaven and on the earth.

This was the principle, this was the doctrine, and this was the way by which the Patriarch Enoch—that great and ancient worthy of whom we know so little—went forth and by the power of God reasoned with those wicked people and preached the Gospel to them, and baptized all who would receive it and gathered them together into a place which he called Zion. It was a very great and mighty work he had to perform; for the people had become terribly wicked, filled with the spirit of murder and every manner of abomination that the human heart can conceive of.

This, then, is the foundation that all men have to lay in their hearts and lives before they begin to receive the principles of eternal life as they are revealed. You my brethren and sisters that are from Scandinavia, from the northern countries, from the Cape of Good Hope, New Zealand, Australia, and from the islands of the sea, including the frozen regions of Iceland—every one of you were taught and embraced those first principles in the primitive part of your faith and belief in the Gospel. It was the beginning; it was the step which every son and daughter of Adam has had to take, from the days of Adam until now, in order to cleanse themselves before God, so as to receive the blessings of eternal life. It was by carrying out these principles and preaching that Adam was saved. It was by an obedience to the same principles that Enoch succeeded in gathering out the honest in heart unto the city of Zion. He was 365 years in building up that Zion and in gathering into it a people on the same principles that have been revealed to us in these latter days. We are preaching the same Gospel that was given to those ancient worthies. You can trace the Priesthood by referring to the Book of Doctrine and Covenants—the holy, high Priesthood that has come down from Adam to Noah, and down through Enoch, Methuselah and the different men of God who lived in ancient times—you can trace it clear back to Adam who was ordained under the hands of God, who told him that that Priesthood should abide in his generations and that it should be on the earth at the end of time. What is the Priesthood that you grey-headed fathers are bearing before us today in the midst of Israel? It is the holy, high Priesthood of Melchizedek, which is after the order of the Son of God, and which is after the power of an endless life. Then, brethren and sisters, understand it. It is not a new Gospel revealed now for the first time—these first principles are not new, because they have been revealed from the beginning. They are the same principles that Christ commenced to preach when He was upon the earth. They were the first principles that John the Baptist taught when he came to prepare the way for the coming of the Son of Man; they were the very first principles that Joseph and Oliver taught in this dispensation when they began to preach the Gospel. They were ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. This is the beginning of the work of righteousness.

There are revelations and doctrines given unto us in our day, however, which were not given in former ages, because the people were not prepared and were not in a suitable condition to receive such. Do not let us think that we have got all the revelation there is. In the last great revelation which the Lord gave to Joseph, He told him that He had not revealed all to him, but that there were many laws pertaining to His Priesthood which He would reveal hereafter. Do you remember it? But if the world is going to get scared and terrified and ready to lay waste and destroy the Latter-day Saints before we have got so far advanced in the civilization of heaven as to understand the marriage laws and some of the marital relations of the sexes—if they go crazy over this what will happen to them when something more comes along?

Now, I hope that none of the Saints will grow weak in the knees; do not let them hang down their heads, nor allow their hearts to be troubled; do not let the sisters lie awake at nights brooding over this and that that is going to happen, and getting a great deal of borrowed trouble. There is no promise of grace to sustain them in such trouble; but the Lord has promised that His grace shall be sufficient for our day, sufficient for the troubles we have to bear; but we have no promise of grace to sustain us in borrowed trouble. Do not be alarmed though the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things. While they are in confusion and strife of every kind, you will multiply upon the earth and establish lasting peace upon the face thereof. The Latter-day Saints who are the object of all observation from the four quarters of the earth, are the only people that have pure and settled peace in their hearts and in their midst. Do you realize this? Our missionaries go to the Southern States, and the North Western States; they go to Europe, to Asia, Africa, and every point of the compass, and when they return they tell us that in no place do they find as true, settled and substantial peace, as there is right here in Utah, where one would think, from all that is going on and all that is threatened, that the waves of the sea were going to roll over us. Our peace is that which the Gospel brings. The fruit of the Spirit which the wicked can neither give nor take away. There is no use being worried over these things. It is part of our heritage. They who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution; we have every reason to expect it. It is our duty to seek wisdom of the Lord in all matters; seek for the Holy Spirit, and attend to our own business.

In regard to the principles of the Gospel which the Lord has revealed to us beyond what He has to other people, we should remember that we shall be called to account for the use we make of them; remember that we use them, live them, and administer them in all righteousness in our lives and conduct, and while there are no two families whose conditions and circumstances are just alike, still the same general principles will have their general effect in all households. We must cultivate righteousness. We are learning the principles of the Gospel one after another; how to observe and obey them. We want to know how to hold them in righteousness, because we cannot hold these precious eternal treasures in unrighteousness; if we think we can we shall be deceived and will some day find out that they are not to be held in unrighteousness, for they only take effect with the pure in heart, they that are willing to keep the commandments of God, and walk in the way of His counsels.

Sin is a reproach to any people. It is better for us right here in this life that we keep the commandments of God, even if we did not look for any future reward of glory. Don’t you know it is? Why? Because we feel happy and strong within ourselves when we lie down at night and rise up in the morning; when we go out and when we come in; we feel the sustaining influence and approval of an honest heart, of a pure conscience, and of all just people—a conscience void of offense towards God and His people. This is the greatest treasure that a person can possess in this life. And do you know that go where you will—among those ignorant tribes that surround us, or to the highest civilized, and most cultivated portions of the European or American na– tions—the man that is obedient to the holy principles of the everlasting Gospel—if they do not know he is called a Mormon—is respected above all men who disregard the principles of righteousness and truth. If some of our brethren who work in the mining camps behave themselves and live their religion, the very men around them respect and honor them. Why? Because they are reliable; because the principles they have embraced and put into practice render them substantial and trustworthy. You go into the classes of the university or of the colleges where young men have gone in quest of an education, and you will find that the man who is pure and virtuous in his feelings, in his thoughts and in his ways, who does not delight in folly, in sin and the secret works of darkness, but is at home attending to his lessons and his duty—it is he that makes his way to the head of the class, and gets the highest honor among his fellows. It is he that they look up to because of his upright conduct and all that is excellent in man. That is the kind of men that go forth and make their way and mark among their neighbors and their countrymen. True virtue and righteousness exalt individuals, and it therefore must exalt a nation composed of such individuals. When a nation disregards the principles of justice, equity, righteousness and truth—so far as to fail or refuse the administration of its laws equitably to any portion or class of its citizens, then the people have reason to fear the dreadful consequences that must follow, unless a reformation is effected; then the noble, the honorable, the virtuous and the pure should be willing to make sacrifice for that which is ennobling, exalting, upright and praiseworthy.

Go back in the history of the world and you will see that the greatest nations that ever existed, as soon as they commenced to pervert justice, crush truth and right, persecute God’s people and exalt iniquity, then commenced their downfall, and their way was down, down, down, to demolition and destruction, until more substantial and better elements were found in their ruins with which to raise up and create something new. It was that excellence and purity which God saw in the Puritan fathers that came over to this country for the love of the truth, and to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences—it was that excellence that preserved them and established them here, and as long as they maintained the principles of liberty, allowed others to enjoy the same rights that they themselves enjoyed, just so long did they prosper. They were powerful in that they had influence and faith to receive inspiration from God, to draw up and establish the greatest Constitution that has ever been known on the earth—the grandest combination of loyal principles and fundamental truths that has been established by man, since the days of Noah, and that is the Constitution with which politicians have become so reckless, in construing its provisions, and have gone outside of its limitations to rule and regulate the people of this great nation as they please. That glorious Constitution was made to regulate rulers as well as the ruled. It was so constructed that those who should be appointed to rule over the people should not be their masters, but their servants. How comes it now, that the whole polity has been perverted to another way; the rulers have come to be masters of the people, and are undertaking now to lord it over God’s heritage. We ought to understand these things. It is our duty to do so.

I desire now to refer to a particular expression in the epistle which has just been read, wherein the brethren of the First Presidency have exhorted the Saints not to allow themselves to commit any overt act. No matter how much you are worried, no matter how much you are aggravated by the acts of the ungodly, do not do a thing that you could afterwards be sorry for. Do nothing that could let blood stick to one of you. Bear with every impious insult. Put up with it as Christ did when he was hanging upon the cross and his life’s blood oozing out from his heart, and his spirit ready to depart, and say “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That is the way we want to look as far as we can upon those who are oppressing and injuring us, breaking up our homes, and scattering our women and children to the four winds. It is something that could not be allowed in the old monarchial countries, which are looked upon as being measurably beneath the United States in the matter of a constitutional government, and yet we see men among us who are ready to demolish the very sanctity of home, lay waste and destroy that which lies at the very foundation of all law, natural and governmental. It is painful; it is sorrowful. Let us pity while they are so blind, so ignorant, so ill-natured, and so willing to depart from good government, even to enact laws to prevent their fellowcitizens from worshipping God according to the dictates of their own conscience. But, for my own part, I feel like the First Presidency in this matter. Let us commit no overt act, which in any event we could be sorry for.

We never saw a time when we had reason to feel more thankful and lifted up in our hearts before the living God than the present. Why? Because the Savior said: “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” But says He, “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.”

I wish to exhort the Saints to frequent their closets more than they do; to neglect not their prayers night and morning, and in the season thereof fail not to bow the knee and call your sons and daughters around you. If you do this, by and by your sons and daughters will rise up and call you blessed; if you do not they will get cold and depart from truth and the faith of the living God, and that will bring the greatest sorrow you can conceive of. This is a time when we are called upon to bring our practical religion into use, to put on the whole armor of God, and to trust in Him. The Savior said He could call to His help more than twelve legions of angels; more than the Roman hosts; but He knowing the great purposes of Jehovah could go like a lamb to the slaughter. He understood those purposes, could curb His powers, control His feelings, and could make a manly fight for righteousness and truth, and carry out the decrees of heaven. Can we do so? Can you and I do so? If we cannot, can we be counted worthy to be called His brethren, and Saviors upon Mount Zion? We have got to be considerably more like him than we are before we attain unto all those excellencies that are promised.

Inasmuch as the work of God spreads, and its influence and potency are felt among the nations of the earth, so long will this opposition and this antagonism exist, and we must expect it; it cannot be avoided. It is an eternal consequence of our faith. If we reckoned upon anything else, we reckoned wrongly. Every true Saint, when he embraced this Gospel, felt to lay down his good name, his earthly substance, and life itself—all was laid upon the altar. We need not think, however, that although the Lord permits certain things to come upon us, that He will not soften the hearts of the wicked and ungodly. He has told us with a firm decree, that from a time when the Saints commenced to be more faithful they should begin to prevail against their enemies, and they have proved this in the deliverances that have been wrought out in their behalf from time to time. Have we any reason to doubt or lack confidence in the promises of God for the future? Not a particle. Every step of the way affords a greater, a more powerful confirmation and assurance that He is true to His promises, and will carry them out in our behalf.

Do you know, says one, how far these things will go? Just so far as the Lord will allow them. When it comes to the right time He will put a stop to them. He knows how to do it, just at His good pleasure.

We should go to work and put transgression from our midst, cultivate righteousness and put away all sin, and by keeping His commandments and living by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of His servants the work of sanctification will go on in our hearts, our homes, and our habitations will be holy in His sight. He will not allow the acts of the wicked to come against us any longer than will be for His own glory and our greatest good. Let us feel that we are in the hands of the Lord, that He is our Father and friend. Let us draw near to Him; find Him out, and walk with Him here in the flesh, then we shall know that it will be well with us hereafter.

I pray that the good Spirit of God may dwell in our hearts; may write His law on the tablets of our hearts; may impress the principles of truth upon our minds, so that we may live them and make them profitable to us in the future. That God may grant these blessings unto us, I humbly ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

Remarks by Elder George Reynolds, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, March 29th, 1885.

I stand before you this afternoon, my brethren and sisters, with the desire in my heart that while I do so I may speak to the strengthening of the faith of the Saints of God, and, therefore, I crave an interest in your faith and prayers, that whatever time I occupy I may do so in a way and manner that shall tend to the building up of God’s kingdom here upon the earth.

We have been interested in hearing the report of Brother Edward Partridge, who has just returned from a mission to the Sandwich Islands, where the work of the Lord has been received for many years, in a very gratifying manner by the remnant of the house of Israel who dwell thereon. It is also noticeable that the Maoris, a people of a kindred race to the Hawaiian, who in– habit the islands of New Zealand, many hundred miles to the southward in the Pacific Ocean, are also receiving the glad tidings of the Gospel of Christ with joy, and that hundreds are there being added to the Church at the present time. It has long been the belief of the Latter-day Saints that these races are offshoots of the great people who once flourished upon this continent; who were brought out of the land of Jerusalem under Lehi, Mulek and others, and who have inhabited this land from about 600 years before Christ; that people whose remnants are now found scattered far and wide over the North and South American continents. There appears to be a great similarity in the habits, customs, manners and language of the natives of those two groups of islands; which similarity, in many respects, extends to some of the races that inhabit this continent. And for these and other reasons we believe that in these islanders flows the blood of Israel to a great extent; and where it does, those who are thus blessed by being the children of the fathers to whom the promises were made, as races receive the truths of the Gospel much more readily and apparently, notwithstanding their many weaknesses, cleave unto them much more devotedly than do very many of those who embrace its saving principles among the Gentile nations. It would seem as though at the present time the Gentile nations of the earth were turning from the truths of the Everlasting Gospel; they have measurably rejected them; and the consequence is we find today that there is an increase of skepticism, that there is an increase of a spirit opposed to good order, to obedience, to faith, and to many other admirable characteristics of generations gone by. The present is an age of unrest, of turmoil, of contention, of a lack of faith, not only in religious matters, but in almost everything else. We may be said to be living in a period of transition, and that transition does not always appear to be in the most desirable direction. But this spirit of doubt and incredulity, of uncertainty and unrest is more manifest regarding religious subjects than any other questions that attract the attention of mankind; and is perhaps more manifest in those nations to whom the Gospel has been preached for many years than in any other parts of the world. This is the natural result of the course the people of those countries have taken. Having rejected the principles that God in His kindness has caused to be revealed, His Spirit, which is the Spirit of life, light, intelligence and truth, is of necessity measurably withdrawn from them, and they are left to themselves to serve God as best they may when they will not serve Him as He requires. The consequence is division and subdivision in the churches; for every man’s opinion is as good as that of his neighbor; and there remains no trustworthy, much less infallible, standard by which to gauge the beliefs of mankind; consequently every man walks in his own way and professes such a belief as best suits his fancy. But with us it is different. And the very fact that we are united with regard to that which God requires at our hands in all things is a rock of offense to many; it is regarded as an evil by those who do not love us; by those who make it their business to bring evil accusations against us. Our union is an opposite condition of affairs to that which exists among the sects in the Christian world, and being contrary they imagine ought to be stigmatized, decried and derided. But in our union lies our strength; because we cannot be united on any other principle than obedience to the law of the Lord. There is no spirit but the Spirit of the Most High God that will make this people one. They can trust in no one but in God our Father who has revealed His mind and will to them, and has established in their midst the principles that will make them wise unto salvation, if they will but give heed to them. It is useless, worse than useless, for us to attempt to be united on any principle but the principle of righteousness and godliness. We can find no union in doing that which is displeasing in the sight of God; we can find no union in following any course other than that which God has marked out. We cannot be united in anything but the truth. The truth will not only make us free, but it will make us united, and we cannot be united, however much we may strive, on the principles of error, because there is no bond of union in them. There is only one path that leads to exaltation; one path by which we can become like unto our Father and our God, and if we ever attain to that which we are seeking—eternal life in His presence—we must walk in the path which He has marked out, and in no other, for no other will lead us back into His presence. We must every one walk in that path, and as we must all walk in it, therefore we must be united. Our union must be in God, our trust must be in Him. We are, I presume, from present circumstances, learning that lesson very rapidly. I have noticed on the coins of this nation the inscription, “In God we trust.” Perhaps that motto may have been applicable at the time it was first placed on the money of the United States, but at present it does not appear to be so; for this nation and other nations seem to be rapidly losing all trust in God. They are willing to trust in themselves, in their own strength, in their own wisdom, in their own ways, in their own methods and their own plans, rather than trust in the word of the Lord, for that the great majority of their peoples will not have. But we, the Latter-day Saints, are learning rapidly that we can trust no one, save God our Father, and those whom He appoints to be His representatives upon the earth. Let us look around in the world. What do we find today? Is there any power upon earth to which we can look for succor or aid, for guidance or inspiration under the circumstances through which the Church of Jesus Christ is now passing? If there is where is it? Where on the face of this wide world can we look for sympathy, for help, for support? We cannot outside of ourselves. As has ever been the case those that are not for us are against us. But we are learning the lesson that God is with us; that He will deliver us; that this is His kingdom; and the nearer we live to Him the greater will be the deliverances that He will bring to pass in our favor.

I have met a few in our midst who seemed to have an idea that there was a Gospel of compromise, if I may so use the term, that might be advocated. In all the history of this world, from its creation to the present, I have never read of, never heard of the time when God Almighty compromised with the Evil One; when he was willing that evil should have a place in the midst of His people; when He was willing that any of the principles of eternal truth should be relinquished by those of His sons and daughters, to whom He had revealed them. No. The word of instruction, the word of revelation, the word of counsel has always been for man to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God; to keep inviolate the ordinances of God; to preserve the principles of truth and righteousness intact, and never to consider for one moment that man can gain his salvation by giving up or resigning any principle or law that God has said is necessary for the accomplishment of His purposes, which purposes we understand to be the salvation of mankind and the redemption of the world. Any plan less than the one devised by Him is imperfect; anything else will not save the first one of us. It is God’s law and God’s law alone that will deliver Israel from his enemies. It is by perfect confidence in the word of the Lord, and by willing, humble obedience to all His requirements, accepting all His providences as for our best good, that we shall be delivered. Do you ever recollect? Have you ever heard of a time in any age or dispensation since this earth first rolled forth from the presence of God, that men professing to be His servants have gained anything in this life or for the next by faltering in their obedience to the requirements of heaven, by laying aside the armor of faith, by turning from that which they had espoused, and which they realized to be of God? If you have ever heard of such a people, if you have ever known such a time, your reading and your experience have been different to mine. Judging by the experience of the Saints in the past, and judging by our own experience in this dispensation—as far as I know it has all gone to prove that the closer we cleave to the Lord, the nearer He will draw unto us, the greater will be the manifestations of His power in our behalf, and the sooner will be our triumph over those who seek to injure us.

We have no conflict with the world only as they may bring it upon us. We are the friends of all mankind. We are sent forth to preach life and salvation to every soul who will hearken and obey. Our mission is one of good will to all men the wide world over. We seek the hurt or injury of no people upon the face of the earth. The principles that we proclaim are those which the Savior Himself taught to the sons and daughters of mankind when He was here upon the earth, and which His disciples in after years taught also. They are peace on earth and goodwill to all men. Does any man ever injure his brother or his sister—be they members of the Church of Jesus Christ, or of any church, or of no church whatever—be they Christian, Mahommedan, heathen or Jew—by following the teachings which God has given through His servants in this age in which we are living? I say emphatically, no; under no circumstances whatever. The Gospel that we preach will do all men good. There are no exceptions to this rule. It will teach us all to be loving, to be virtuous, to be temperate; it will teach us to seek to live near unto God, that we may become godlike; it will teach us to treat all men aright, to infringe upon the privileges or rights of none, but to teach to them those principles that will make them better and happier here on the earth, and bring to them eternal salvation in the world to come.

Then why are we maligned, as Brother Partridge has spoken of! Why are we hated? Why are we misrepresented? For surely there never were people who were more misrepresented than the Latter-day Saints. I will tell you, it is because the day approaches when Satan’s reign upon the earth will be brought to a close. He knows and realizes this fact and fills the hearts of those over whom he has power on the earth with hatred towards the principles that the servants of God teach. This is the great secret. This is the originating cause of the trouble. But then, some will ask why Christians, believers in the divine mission of the Son of God, act in this way towards us? Why should they attempt to overthrow that which we claim to be the Gospel of Christ? For the simple reason that the same causes produce the same effects. Whenever the Gospel of the Son of God has been preached upon the earth, in every generation, it has brought forth antagonism from the great majority of mankind, no matter whether they professed to worship the true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, or whether they did not. It is no more remarkable that those who call themselves Christians should oppose the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this age than it was that the Jews, who claimed to be the children of Abraham, should oppose those same principles, in that which is commonly called the Gospel dispensation, when Christ the Son of God Himself was here. The causes are the same; the results are the same; men’s natures are the same; and though the civilization of today may be somewhat different from the civilization of former ages, it has not changed the nature of mankind. Men today as in ancient times are governed by the same loves and the same hatreds; by the same antipathies and the same prejudices; they are influenced by the same spirit; that spirit of evil which reared its head in the heavens and was cast down upon the earth, by which overthrow the warfare was transferred from heaven to earth—that same spirit has instigated and carried on and continues to carry on the same warfare against the truth and against the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ to the present day. Civilization and education are no doubt potent factors in the present history of the world; but mere education and mere civilization do not cause men to love the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, any better than they did in former times. They may learn philosophical truths; they may learn scientific truths; they may be educated to a very great fineness, and to a very great extent be versed in the learning of the world; but it is only by the Spirit of God, as we are told in the Scriptures, that man can understand the things of God, and the best educated in the things of the world alone, appear to be no better able to understand the things pertaining to the Gospel of Jesus Christ than the most uneducated who are equally honest in their efforts to serve God, or equally dishonest, as the case may be. Education does not change the nature of men; it simply develops and polishes that which is in them; it makes the best of that which there is. As the limestone when it is polished is not changed into a diamond, but remains limestone still, though it is more beautiful and can be used for more varied purposes, so it is with the man who is educated in the learning of the schools only; his nature remains the same but the most is made of him; but when a man receives the gift of the Holy Ghost, it is then that his nature is changed. He learns to love the truth; he learns to seek after it, he understands it. He sees things in a light so different to that which he did previously, that it is difficult for him to comprehend how it was possible that he could have been so ignorant and so blind before times. The reception of the Spirit of God is, as we understand it, a new birth. We are born to things eternal when we receive it. It purifies our hearts, it enlightens our minds in regard to the things of God, and gives us that knowledge, that testimony, which comes to all those who listen to and follow its dictates. Herein is the great difference between us, the people of God, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the people and the churches of the world. We have this testimony, this knowledge given us of God, through the gift and power of the Holy Ghost, that none others possess. And this goes behind all argument, all assertion, all attempts to convince us that we are wrong. However wise, however strong, however potent the arguments of the world may be in their own estimation, they cannot go behind the God given testimony that we possess. We may say unto them, you appear to be very wise in your own conceit with regard to these things, but we can go beyond and behind all your arguments, for we most assuredly know that that which we have received is of God, and your arguments amount to nothing when directed against that which we are satisfied is God’s word. And the reason is because we have each of us the word of the Lord for ourselves; it is a constant revelation to our own hearts and minds. The word of the Lord is the end of all controversy as far as we are concerned. “We know that we are of God”—to use the expression of the Apostle John—“and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” We wish to God it were not so. We wish they could see as we see. We wish they could know as we know. We wish they could understand as we understand that this is the work of God, and that He has no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but desires the salvation of all His children. But all mankind will have to learn as we have had to learn that these things can be attained only by an observance of the word and will of God; by walking in that straight and narrow path of obedience to which I referred a short time ago. That is the only way by which they can obtain this knowledge; it is the only way that we obtained it; and all men must obey the truth, for the love of the truth, or the testimony of Jesus Christ will not have a place within their bosoms. Other motives will not stand the test of God’s scrutiny. In this testimony, as I have said, lies the great difference between the doctrine, the principles and faith of the Latter-day Saints, and the rest of the world. God is to us a God of revelation; of constant and continued revelation, of revelation today as much as in any other age of this world’s history since Adam saw its prime. In this we can and do rejoice. In this we receive strength. In this we have a power that surprises the votaries of uninspired creeds, that astonishes unbelievers, that causes the world to wonder how in the midst of all the varied circumstances of an untoward nature we have to pass through, we can remain firm in our faith, firm in our reliance upon the beneficent power and goodness of God. It is because we know that this is His work; it is because we are not dependent on the testimony or say so of any man or woman—we have the knowledge in ourselves that He will deliver us, that He will cause the wrath of man to praise Him, that He will restrain the rest, and that He will accomplish all His purposes in His own good time and according to His own methods. Whatever He permits, be it little or much, will be for the best good of those who put their trust in Him, of those who are willing to abide by His laws, and who are desirous of doing His will and not their own.

This principle of continuous revelation is one which finds great opposition from the wicked whenever it is taught. We find there are many ways in which they strive to cut off the voice of heaven. Some stop at the Hebrew Scriptures; some bring revelation to an end with the New Testament; others will admit that Joseph Smith was inspired of God, but say that with him it ended—that the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants contain all the word of the Lord that we shall receive. Well, no matter where it ends, it is all of the same spirit. The object is to shut out the voice of God from man today, to close the heavens against us, to prevent us who are now living from receiving the word and will of God for ourselves in this year of God’s grace. But the truth is that God will continue to speak to His people through His servants and in such ways as may seem to Him good, as long as His Church is on the earth, and that will be forever; for He has said that His Kingdom shall never be given to another people, but it shall reign and rule forever, and the greatness of that Kingdom shall be given to the Saints of the Most High God, and they shall possess it without end. Therefore with these unchangeable assurances we have all cause to feel confidence in God. Our dependence should be in the great I Am continually. We need not fear the arm of man; we need not fear what the world will do. If we will but trust in God and rely upon His arm continually, He will bear us off more than conquerors. He will bring to pass all His righteous purposes and save us in His Kingdom. But the path of duty is the only path of safety. It is the only path wherein we can walk and have the assurance of God’s continued blessing, of His continued deliverances. Any other course does not carry with it this assurance. Any other path leads to darkness, to contention, to evils of many kinds; for it leads away from the truth and the right. But if we continue in the path that is marked out for us by divine instruction, trusting implicitly in God, then shall we be delivered from all impending evils that are sought to be brought upon us, no matter what they may be; and the nearer we live to God the greater will be the blessings showered upon us, and seeming evils will be changed to blessings of untold worth. Of this I am assured, not only by the testimony of the Spirit of God in me, not only by the testimony of the Spirit of God that is in my brethren, but by the experience of the people of God in all past ages, and the promises of God for the future.

May God bless us and enable us to be firm, true and faithful, relying upon His arm at all times, trusting in Him for succor, for guidance and inspiration continually, that we may be His people and He our God, is my prayer through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by Elder H. W. Naisbitt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, March 8, 1885.

My brethren, sisters and friends: The congregation is large, and I hope to be so directed by the Spirit, that all present who so desire may be enabled to hear and understand.

The Sabbath is the day provided expressly for the reception of spiritual food. The speakers, or those who may be called upon to teach, need all the resources that are within their reach in order to satisfy a congregation of hungry souls, they need particularly the faith and prayers of the Saints, the influence and power of the Holy Ghost, the manifestation of the authority of the Holy Priesthood, so that there may be instruction upon the important topics and principles of the Gospel, not the theoretical ones alone, but those that are interwoven with our daily life.

There is a vast amount of experience in the aggregate among the people. Individual experience forms one of the treasure houses from whence a speaker can draw the supplies that are necessary and advantageous for a sympathetic audience. There is a great deal implied in a congregation like the present one; there is much more implied in the aggregation of congregations forming a community, from communities to nations, from nations to mankind at large. The most narrow as well as most dense communities are made up of the family organization. There is found circle within circle, or as the Prophet had it, “wheel within wheel;” and the homes of a community should be the outgrowth, not of theories alone, but of the faith, knowledge, and understanding of those relationships which exist there. When these family organizations are based upon knowledge they are likely to be more permanent. If they are only thoughtless or theoretical, or if they exist without information, circumstances, pressure, opportunities are very likely to disintegrate them, to break them up, to dissolve them, and so through indifference for each other substitute an anomalous condition of selfishness amongst those members who otherwise should form connected and interwoven circles.

In Christendom the marriage covenant is the foundation of the home. The ideas which men hold concerning it, lay at the foundation of all social order, all unity and all government, and even the welfare of future ages depends upon the theories cherished in regard to home and family associations. The thoughts held and the practice growing out of these, are surely higher than could be possible in the families of a community where the sexual relations remain undetermined, where they are without restraint and without order, there will inevitably be chaos, disruption and contention, and the body politic would speedily and inevitably under loose conditions, degenerate and pass away. But this marriage organization and institution has existed from the beginning. It has been the binding and sealing power of the family; it has perpetuated those families from the time that Eve was given to Adam to the last marriage that took place in our own immediate neighborhood. The Lord said that it was not good that man should be alone. He gave to him as a helpmate one of His daughters by the name of Eve. This relationship was then, instituted by the Almighty, and therefore a man and his wife should really become one; their interests, their labors should be blended; their responsi– bilities should be mutual; and in thus helping and aiding each other they should train the posterity that God might give them in His fear and in the practice of righteousness, so that His rule and Kingdom might exist and prevail upon the earth.

In all nations, from the highest civilized to the lowest tribal relation, among the wanderers of the earth, there is more or less semblance of this organization, this family compact, this united responsibility; garnished in many lands with pomp and ceremony, and with all the appliances and sanctities of religion. In others with less, and still less of this, until we come to where with but little ceremony the dusky Indian captures the maiden of his choice, and takes her to the tent which he has erected for himself.

The Scriptures give an account simply of the woman Eve; declaring that this name was given her of Adam, because she was “the mother of all living;” but outside of biblical record there has been handed down from time immemorial the idea that Adam had two wives, the narrators go so far, or rather so near perfecting the tradition so as to give their names, Lilith being said to be the name of one as Eve was the name of the other, and while it may be difficult to harmonize all the Rabbinical and Talmudic versions of this matter, it is said that Joseph Smith the Prophet taught that Adam had two wives. Without however, assuming or basing anything upon this theory, or upon this tradition—which may be mythical in its character—it is nevertheless, very evident that marriage was ordained of God; and when we take into our hands the record of the Holy Scriptures that have been handed down to us by our fathers, that have been cherished in parts by the ancient people of God, and in latter times consolidated; passing through various channels under peculiar circumstances, and with an apparent special providence continuing and protecting the same—we find throughout the pages thereof that marriage everywhere for four thousand years, at all events, was recognized as of divine origin. One of the latest assertions in regard to it, as addressed to the early Saints by Paul, was, that marriage was honorable in all, and further that it was typical of that union and headship held by Jesus to the Church, and from this comes an added force to the Savior’s words, who, when speaking on this topic said: “what God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”

The sanctity of the marriage relation had another feature in ancient Israel: that great family of promise were divided into tribal relations, and by these their genealogical tables were kept perfect. Any marital connection or alliance, outside of that order was visited with indignation, condemnation and punishment. Those who were guilty of violating the order of marriage were looked upon as guilty of something which destroyed the root and foundations of society. They were held to be guilty of introducing things and practices which vitiated the value of genealogical record, and which made the perpetuity of families a comparative impossibility and had it not been for tribal carefulness in this direction, for this supervision which controlled and regulated the people of God, it would have been impossible in the days of the Savior for the Apostles to have traced His genealogy back to the early Prophets and Patriarchs. That which men now apply only as a rule, in regard to stock, or to some of the most ancient families of mankind, by the people of God, was looked upon as the one perfect chain to demonstrate hereditary descent.

We are told in tracing one of the genealogies from father to son—or from son to father, in a backward direction to Adam—that finally Adam was said to be the son of God, and by a close application of the principles of logic, it may be assumed that all the posterity of Adam are by direct descent the sons and daughters of the living God. It will also be found in the prophecies of Isaiah regarding the Savior, that He should be called the “Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” When we come to His own conversation, where His Apostles asked Him if He would show unto them the Father, He said: “Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” This statement is reiterated time and again in the Book of Mormon, and in the sacred writings that we have received. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world, was not the Son only, but the prophetic declaration was fulfilled in Him—He was verily and indeed the Everlasting Father. So by the same application of logic and inferential evidence from holy writ, wherever you find a man he is the son of somebody, and his existence is perpetual and eternal. Every Father becomes, by virtue of his position, an everlasting father. He in this respect represents the same characteristic as that occupied by the Great Father of us all. And throughout the countless ages of eternity, any man who has ever assumed or occupied the position and continues faithful to its respon– sibilities, will forever remain to his posterity “the Everlasting Father.”

As far as we can glean from the sacred records, we find that this relationship was established for the bringing upon this sphere of action a posterity. The powers and functions which had been conferred upon man and woman were exemplified in this direction, and when a man’s wife was barren, when any of these daughters of Israel in ancient times were childless, it was considered to be a reproach to them, yet in the exercise of faith and by the blessing of the Almighty, and by obedience to the patriarchal order, many of these ancient sisters, the progenitors of the Israel of the latter days, were delivered from barrenness, and became the mothers of a vast and ever increasing host of posterity. Those who are familiar with the sacred Scriptures will remember one of the wives of Jacob; they will remember the case of Hannah, the mother of Samuel the Prophet, and there are others which are familiar to our minds which need not be quoted. The desire for offspring among the wives of Israel was a prevailing feeling, because it was understood that from that lineage should come the Messiah of the latter days, and every daughter of Israel was anxious that in a direct line she might be the honored of God, in being the medium through which should come the Redeemer, the promised Immanuel.

It ought also to be remarked in connection with this question, that marriage was at times polygamic as well as monogamic—that is, right away in the early history of the world there were men who had more wives than one. Lamech was the first who is mentioned in Scripture. And here it might be observed, although probably all understand it, that the Bible does not profess to give a perfect history in detail of the habits and practices of the ancient people of God, for these are only secondary to the ever present assertions of divine interest in and regulation of the human family. There are only revealings or incidental glimpses here and there in regard to the principles of social and domestic life, and hintings of some which have been kept hid from then to now; but that marriage was the heritage of man is certain, and that while under many circumstances it was monogamic, there were also many cases in which it was of a polygamic character, and in both instances it was given by command and then received the approbation of the heavens. It was regulated and sustained by the great lawgivers of ancient Israel, who were inspired to point out in detail the limits of consanguinity, the times and seasons of privilege, and what should be the method of securing posterity under such and such circumstances; until the time came when Israel as a nation enjoyed its highest glory, and then we find that this principle (polygamy) formed one of the leading features of the household extension in the kings of that time. David is a noted illustration. Solomon was another, and in the comments of the Scriptures regarding these two men, notwithstanding their multiplicity of wives, we find no condemnation save in the fact that they in other respects violated the fundamental law of ancient Israel. David, we are told, captured the wife of another man by stratagem and because he did this he fell under condemnation. The son that was born to him of that connection died a premature death; but afterwards when he repented, he married and still retained that self same woman, Bathsheba; the Lord blessed and acknowledged David’s repentance and her position by giving her for a son the great Jedediah, or Solomon, and finally in a direct line through her, came also the Redeemer of Israel. The Scriptures in commenting upon David’s practice say that in “none of these things did he violate the commandments, save in the case of the wife of Uriah” [1st. Kings, 15, 5.] We are also told that Solomon multiplied wives and families unto himself, yet his reign formed an era in the national life of Israel. It was during his administration as King and Priest under the order of God, that that wonderful temple was built and dedicated which received the sanction and approbation of the heavens; of the resting upon it of the cloud by day so that the Priests could not minister at the altar, and the descent of fire from heaven, which consumed the sacrifice presented, were both tokens of divine acceptance and recognition, and we have not found in reading the history of Solomon that his conduct was condemned save in the fact that he took unto himself wives of the outside nations contrary to the law, which declared that the marriages of Israel should be within their own immediate families (Deut. 7th, 3rd), and as a result the record declares that it was these heathen wives which he took, those women that were captured in war or those that he had from choice or were given to him for conciliatory alliance from surrounding nations who led away his heart from the worship of the God of Israel, and turned him to the practices of idolatry. With this exception the presumption is from the evidence that his other marriages were approved, and in them was his posterity perpetuated. It was the direct result of the blessing of the Almighty, and through him, as he stood in a representative position, we may surely assume what the feelings of Israel were in regard to polygamy or the plurality of wives.

It is more than inferential evidence in favor of this principle which grows from the consideration of the practice of Solomon and David, and Abraham and Jacob, and Moses and Gideon, and Jehoiada and Abdon, and Rehoboam and Abijah, and Esau and Lamech, and Jerubbaal and Jair, though some of these men were not examples in every act of their lives, yet the facts are no more in favor of monogamists as to this than in the day and age in which we live.

Unfair advantage has been taken by opponents of this practice, because of the Adamic era, but the Rabbinical tradition already mentioned, while not conclusive, shows that no repulsion existed in the minds of the honored priesthood of Israel; and, as the Rev. Dr. Newman quoted the words of Lamech, so we may also have our opinion and that is that his declaration possessed no reference whatever to his plurality of wives.

However, in the Christian dispensation it has been assumed that this practice had become almost obsolete; some have said that it died away because it was deprecated by the Savior and by His Apostles, but there appears to have been thoughts in the minds of the latter concerning marriage which open to our minds many things in regard to that institution. For instance we are told that man is not without the woman in the Lord, neither the woman without the man. [1 Cor., 11, 11.] It takes the two, at least, to make a complete and rounded man. When the first pair were created the Bible expressly declares, “male and female created he them,” and called their name Adam. [Gen. 5, 2.] It included the two; it included the man and wife; and the theory of the Gospel in Apostolic times was, that a man was an imperfect being without the woman, and that a woman was also an imperfect being without the man, and this perfect state could not be realized or wrought out without the institution of marriage.

It is, then, by this marriage relation that men and women were in the Lord according to the divine order, carrying out the examples of their great predecessors, and of their Father in heaven. It may safely be assumed that marriage with them was an eternal principle; that it was not meant for time only, but for eternity; that it was a relationship that was perpetuated, and that this not only included the man and wife, but of necessity the entire family organization. For our God is not the God of the dead but of the living, “and what he hath joined together no man shall put asunder.” To the older people here, who are familiar with the facts made manifest in the human organization, it may be said that there are certain elements of attraction which lead the one sex towards the other. This attraction is designated by the name of love. We are sometimes afraid to exhibit this characteristic; we think it is unworthy of men or women; and that when a man is said to be in love, or a woman, it is something that should be veiled from the eyes and knowledge and understanding of everybody but themselves. But insomuch as love is one of the great attributes of Deity, this idea does not recommend itself. It is not only a great attribute of Deity, but it is the greatest and most potent attribute to be found in man’s and woman’s organization. To those who have been allured by its power; to those who understand its force; to those who realize that it is the parent of all action almost in life; how it leads men to sacrifice, to labor, to effort, no argument is needed to show that it is the greatest power of the human heart. For it men will endure any amount of sacrifice; for it women will endure and submit to almost any indignity. The fact is, it is the only element that will bind together in its original purity the family circle: it is that which leads a man to go forth in the battle of life to earn the bread that perisheth: it is that which enables him to look upon his wife as paramount to all else: it is that which enables her to watch by her infant children, and in the moment of sickness, with sleepless nights and days of vigilance, await until there is a restoration to health; it is this that glorifies the family circle and makes it a little heaven upon earth; and every man and every woman is cognizant of the fact, that where love has died out from the altar of home, that home has lost its greatest attraction. A man does not go there and look upon it as his little resting place from the care and anxiety of the world when that feeling has died out. No. He finds his pleasure in the club room, on the race course, at the gaming table, in political life, in business, or in many other directions, rather than in the little heaven called home. Ah! Sad indeed is the fate of those families where this beautiful, this beneficent, this almighty, this glorifying principle has failed, or finds no resting place therein.

Now, this is the key to marriage in the abstract. It is its foundation. It constitutes the glories of its architecture. It brings upon it its capstone, and finishes the edifice that God Almighty hath ordained. Yet this element which lays at the foundation and runs through the whole fabric of married life, in and of itself is not sufficient to produce and perpetuate that perfect happiness which men and women desire in this relationship. Man is a compound being. Woman is a compound being. There are other feelings of the heart beside affection and love, although these will cover a multitude of sins. But it is necessary for the best interests of the family relation that the tastes and habits, feelings and thoughts of the high contracting parties should run pretty much in the same direction—that is, so far as intelligence is received. Hence we have the apostolic injunction given to the early Christians which said: “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.” This was one of the commands given to the early Christians; because it was realized that though the fire of love may burn fiercely in the early years of wedded life, yet unless there is unity of sentiment, of thought and of action in regard to the religion that married couples should possess, and that should be imposed upon the children there will ever be a probability of disintegration and disruption, and this rule had its counterpart, or had its origin, in ancient Israel. It was not intended, as already stated, that the sons of any of the tribes of Israel should take to themselves wives of the nations that were round about them; they were commanded strictly to keep with that family, and where they failed in this, whether as individuals or in a national capacity, it brought down upon them the blighting curse of the Almighty, and led them finally to bondage, and to be carried away to the ends of the earth, and so many families in our Israel, after years of suffering of counsel and commandment, have become in a measure lost through the influence of misdirected and disobedient love.

We all realize the influence that a woman exerts over a man. A man, to be sure, exerts a good deal of influence over a woman. But I think the bulk of experience will show that if even a good, devoted Latter-day Saint woman should be foolishly guilty of marrying outside of the Church, or marrying a man in the Church who is half-hearted, that her children will retain more of her individual impress than they will of the father’s. I think observation will establish this fact: that where there is a devoted father, and an indifferent, unbelieving mother, the probabilities are that disintegration will set into that family, and that the majority of them will pass away from the influence of the Church and from the institutions of the Gospel. Not that either of these conditions is good—that is, they are not the best conditions. The best conditions are where there is a devoted man and a devoted woman, or women, all laboring in the interests of the Kingdom of God upon the earth, and impressing their own individuality, by the powers of an educational character upon the posterity that God may give them.

But in regard to this objectionable form of marriage called polygamic, if this marriage is an eternal principle, it follows almost of necessity that there will be a period in the experience of thousands when it must be essentially and eternally polygamic. How many young wives are there who leave this stage of action sometimes without children, and sometimes leaving a little fam– ily? And under these circumstances a man marries again; he takes another wife and raises up another family, and for two or three times or more this may be the experience of some. Now, if marriage is not for time only, but for eternity; if the marriage relation is continued, there is a condition of things which demonstrates that in the life to come at all events, marriage must be in many cases polygamic—that is, a man must be possessed of several wives.

Now, our theories of heaven are, that there is nothing there save that which is pure, save that which is ennobling, save that which is progressive, save that which is according to the order of God. If, He, then, in the eternities that are beyond the veil can admit of this relationship by virtue of the fact that marriage is eternal, does it not appear strange that such an order is decried by His children upon the face of the earth.

Nor need it be urged, that in some experiences there is a reversal of this order, that a woman may be the wife of several men while in the flesh, and that as a consequence, this arrangement must also be eternal. It has already been said that woman is subordinate to man, she was given to be his helpmeet, he was to rule over her, to be the head, as Christ is the head of the Church, that the man was not created for the woman, but woman for the man. [See 1st Cor., 1 to 12.]

Besides in the keeping of genealogical record, in the tracing of family or tribal relations, it is evident that a woman must be the acknowledged wife of some one man, and that to him alone pertains the eternity of the marriage covenant by the authority of the Holy Priesthood. This query is however old in history, it is precisely the one addressed to the Savior by the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection. He, however, without condescending to explain the sealing power to them declared that “when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage,” and the darkened inference of Christendom has been, that all family organizations, all characteristics of sex, all procreation of the species would be obliterated as something pertaining only to the shores of time.

This polygamic form of marriage, however, when we come to consider humanity, is far in excess of the monogamic. Its influence and power and practice are felt around the globe, and we can judge of its nature by that which we have seen and heard of in our own experience. Ishmael, the son of Abraham, was of polygamic lineage. It was prophesied of him that he should become the father of many nations, and in the eastern lands of the earth he has multiplied exceedingly; and today we find that the gigantic power of England with all its wealth, with all its appliances of science and civilization, is held in check by this selfsame Ishmael, the son of Abraham, the friend of God, so that assumed degeneracy consequent on this system is not established by facts.

In this land of ours, we find that monogamy is the rule; that there are laws preventing a departure from this order, and that any departure from that is visited with a good deal of criticism, with some legislation, with some pains and penalties, and is made to the nation a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense. Yet we might here pertinently ask the American nation—“From whence did you derive your monogamy? We might ask Old England the same question. I would like to ask if it has been accepted as the result of an intelligent understanding of the two modes of marriage? Rather has it not been inherited without investigation, without thought, without reflection, without understanding the marriage covenant? We all know it is the outgrowth of tradition; that it has been received from the fathers; and so far from having been an intellectual reception of a principle, fundamental and eternal, it possesses nothing of that character whatever. Monogamy was practiced by the fathers, the same as the religions of mankind were practiced by them, it was received and accepted unhesitatingly without comment or consideration, without understanding as to whether it was conclusively the best, or whether it was the worst, or whether it was of God, or whether it was of man, or whether anything different today might or might not be of Him.

Now, here is a little community called Latter-day Saints, who believe in both orders. They have accepted marriage in the abstract. They do not believe that society should run at loose ends in its sexual relations. They believe that a violation of those laws is as much a wrong today as it was in the days of ancient Israel, and they believe further that all sexual irregularities should be visited by penalties of divine sanction and appointment; and still more, that that which was right, that which was commanded, that which was encouraged, that which was practiced, that which was regulated among ancient Israel, and that which will be practiced and is inevitable behind the veil, cannot be an offense in the sight of God, in the day and age in which we live.

But it may be said, why speak of this matter when there is so much excitement in regard to it? For the best of all reasons, that this is a free country, that free speech has never been forbidden, has never been checked, has never been curtailed. It is the heritage we have received from our fathers, and we are at liberty to speak of the institutions that lay at the foundation of society, and to analyze and understand them. There are thousands of our youth growing up that are not familiar with the fundamental principles pertaining to marriage; with the ideas and theories and practices of the nations that have grown out of this relationship; and it needs that they should understand why this turmoil exists, and whether there is a good foundation for the position that men take everywhere in regard to that principle, and which leads to the persecution of their fathers, and the ostracism of their community.

When we come to the sacred books that have been received by the Church we find that, in regard to this dual idea of marriage—marriage in the monogamic form, and marriage in the polygamic form—the Book of Mormon expressly declares that it was necessary in the first colonization of this country that marriage should be monogamic, because the sexes were equal, and the people realized that marriage was an indispensable thing to both man and woman; but there is also indication that necessity would give final enlargement to this practical question.

So it was when Noah came out of the ark, and there are other periods in the history of mankind when nothing but monogamic marriage could prevail without doing an injustice to those round about them. But where there is no chance of this injustice; where every man is free; where every woman is free; where there are thousands of mankind that never marry at all, and thousands of women who by law cannot marry, there is room for the exercise of the polygamic form thereof; so that, in argument, the sacred books of old Israel, the sacred books of Christendom, the sacred books of the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, all tend to substantiate the idea that marriage in the abstract is of God; and that it is or has been of Him, both in the monogamic and polygamic form. Still further, these written revelations are not the only evidence of the fact that monogamic marriage and polygamic marriage are both susceptible of practice by the human family. Who is there that is acquainted with himself or herself—where is the man and where is the woman who does not realize, if they have attained to mature years and experience, that all the functions of manhood and womanhood can be subserved in both forms of marriage, and often better in the polygamic. If in this ever present revelation of the Almighty, of the finger of God in man’s organization, and in woman’s, it had been decreed that polygamy was an immoral thing, and that it did violence to either, then that would be evidence to go against the sacred books that we have received from the past, and from those of the present; and if Joseph Smith had come forth claiming to be a Prophet of God, and had given a revelation testifying to the necessity and advantage of polygamic marriage, and this revelation had come in contact with the revelation of man’s experience, with the revelation written in his own organization, then it would have nullified itself; but it is in harmony with such a revelation, and shows the possibility and susceptibility and natural character of marriage in the polygamic relation. During a certain debate held in this house in regard to this very question, Doctor Newman asserted that there were evidences against this practice in the Bible. I consider that the Bible has been read by the Latter-day Saints as much as ever it was read by Dr. Newman, although they may not have done so in the original tongue—they may not have Leviticus 18:18—as he had it—but yet they have that great gift of God which is called common sense, to say nothing of the inspiration of His Spirit, and they are just as well able to understand the revelations of the past as Doctor Newman with all his knowledge of the original rendition and meaning of the Hebrew character.

And if a tree is to be judged by its fruits, what of the whoredoms, the adultery, the fornication, the prostitution of women in monogamic nations? What of sexual diseases, of blighted lives, of martyred women, of little graves dotting every hillside and the resting places of the dead? What of feticide, infanticide and abortion? What of the decimated power and numbers of the best society, what of their liaisons and their divorce courts, and other damning features which cling closely to the skirts of modern Sodoms, the paragons and promoters of monogamic marriage?

Dr. Newman also made another remark something like this: that polygamy was not intended for the poor man, that it was intended for the kings of the earth, overlooking the fact, however, that Israel is a nation of kings and priests; so that when he said that polygamy or the practice of a plurality of wives was intended only for kings, it brought home a truth pregnant with thought; for God decreed that he would gather His Israel from the poor of all nations, and so in Rev. 5, 10, they are represented as singing a new song, “Thou hast made us Kings and Priests to God, and we shall reign on the earth;” and this principle was to extend not through time only, but through the countless ages of eternity, so that His people might occupy the position of eternal fathers and eternal mothers, and be indeed Kings and Priests forever and forever.

There are also other avenues of information besides those sacred records, and besides those revelations written in the organization of man and woman at large, and that is the revelation of individual experience. There are many men and women who have practiced this principle in the midst of Israel for thirty years and upwards. I have heard their testimonies time and time again, and they declare that their experience corroborated the exhortation, commandments and practices of Holy Writ, and the revelations written in their own organization; and they tell me that in this relation they have been blessed, they have been prospered, they have had around them the influence of the Spirit of the Almighty; that peace has been upon their household and habitation, and that they have been enabled through that principle to multiply their posterity upon the earth. Where are these? They are everywhere throughout this Territory, and their experience, corroborating those other revelations which I have mentioned, forms a threefold cord that cannot by any process or by any power be broken. I will say as the result of my own experience—for I have lived in that relationship—that to me and to mine it was productive of good, although it came in contact with our tradition. Although it came in contact with the practices of the fathers, and with our feelings, yet, in its experience it demonstrated itself to be of God, and no better time have I had in thirty years of married life than when I had three wives given me of God, and occupying but one habitation. The power of God was in that home; the spirit of peace was there, the spirit of intelligence was there; and we had our ever present testimony that God recognized the patriarchal order, that which had been practiced by His servants ages and ages ago and revealed to us in the dispensation of the fullness of times; and although two of these have gone behind the veil, they went there with a consciousness of having done their duty in this life, and that they would meet in the life beyond those who agreed with them in practice and in faith; from this condition came the discipline of life, the power of self-restraint, a tender regard for each others feelings, and a sort of jealousy for each others’ rights, all tempered by the consideration that relations meant to be enduring claimed more love and interest and soul than did monogamy under its best conditions.

Here, then, are some of the evidences in regard to this married relation that forms the foundation of civilization and of human life, and that lays at the foundation of the Government of God upon the earth; according to our ideas concerning this relationship so will our society and this community become. If we treat the marriage relation with levity; if we should believe that it was but a civil contract, and for time only, we should be weak as others and should not excel: if it is not part of our religion and of God, then it is not of value to us. In my experience—and that is not a very lengthy one—I have marked the change in feeling that has come over the nations in regard to this marriage question. When I was a lad it was very unusual for a man to take to himself a wife without the sanction of religion. All the marriages of Old England had to be celebrated in the Established Church, and a record was kept of them there, and of the posterity issuing from that marriage, and when these died, their death also was recorded, so that there was an unbroken chain of genealogical evidence in that respect often of immense value for legitimacy and other purposes. But by and by the spirit of religious liberty, as it was called, began to spread. It is but a hundred years ago, or a little over, since Methodism was established—the now dominant, or next to dominant religious organization of Christendom. It began in a small way; but it increased and spread abroad; it multiplied its converts, its ministers and its chapels; it became a potent factor, in a political sense, in the nation, and it was necessary that political parties should conciliate and cater to this increasingly wealthy religious organization; and when the Methodists wanted marriages performed in their own, instead of going to the Established Churches, their power and influence, the influence of wealth and numbers, their power as a political factor of the nation, gave them favor in the eyes of the ministry and the legislature. By and by they were allowed the privilege of marrying in their own churches and chapels, and by their own ministers. And as it was with this body, so it was with the smaller bodies, the satellites thrown off and revolving around the great planets of religious organization in that country. And then as this so-called religious liberty increased in spirit, skepticism began to grow in the minds of many in regard to religious doctrines. There were thousands of people that had no more faith in Methodism than in the Established Church, or in Catholicism. They had more faith in Tom Paine, and Voltaire, and Rosseau, and such men as Ingersoll, and their liberty made it appear plausible to them that there was no necessity to go to any church, or seek the aid of any minister, or have any religious ceremony in connection with their own marriage or the marriage of their families. So provision was made for this ever increasing host of skeptics, and finally it was decreed that marriage was nothing but a civil contract, not needing the service of a minister, or the sanction of religion, but requiring simply that it could be entered into after due notion was given, in a public place and not before a worshiping assembly. In such cases marriage was entered into as “a civil contract,” and when this stage was reached, inasmuch as it was but a civil contract, “only this and nothing more,” the next step of necessity was, that it could be dissolved. Where is there a contract of this nature that cannot be dissolved? If I am engaged by an employer we can dissolve the engagement whenever either of us is dissatisfied. And so this feature was applied to marriage; the laws of divorce were introduced, and that which was once considered discreditable, difficult and expensive, and would have been sounded from one end of the land to the other as such, became common and unworthy of remark.

Thus the bonds of society are loosened; the sanctity of the marriage relation is destroyed; and the world is filled with entanglements that are the product of this civil contract business, and even where this contract remains intact, there is a spirit made manifest to avoid the responsibilities of marriage as to offspring, and to live together in numberless cases without any marriage at all; so that when the connection is broken it may be swept to the wind with no results traceable or injurious to any of those concerned.

Now, for the safety of society, for the welfare of the human family, for the love of order and responsibility upon the earth, for faith in the revelations of God, and for high regard to the practices of His anointed, I am in favor of the marriage relation. The Latter-day Saints are in favor of the marriage relation, and they are utterly opposed to sexual intercourse outside of that. And they do not believe that marriage is a civil contract alone. Whatever power there may be in the courts to enforce the claim of a wife against a husband, or the husband against the wife as a matter of protection, in the main, marriage is of God, is of divine origin. Marriage requires the sanction of the authority of the Holy Priesthood in order to give it force, in order to make it valid in this life and the life to come, and marriage—polygamic or monogamic, according to the necessities of the case and the condition of those who enter therein—is in harmony with all the laws of life; and despite what the world may say, those that are of polygamic descent without knowing it are to be found among the rulers of today—the most exalted and the most prominent in a national sense—even in repudiating Christendom.

In the carrying out of this relationship the Latter-day Saints are numerous everywhere throughout this Territory: and it is incumbent upon the rising generation that they should hold to those sacred views that are held by their fathers; that they should marry within the confines of the Church; that they should seek for their husbands or wives, as the case may be, among those who have been obedient to the principles of the everlasting Gospel, and who comprehend something of the nature of the marriage covenant. Those of our posterity should not depart from the ways of our Father; they should not be willing to take up with the practices of Christendom. They should be under proper restraint, proper control and direction in all the relationships of life, because this parental relation among the faithful is an eternal authority. Those children of ours, they never can get away from their father and mother in this life, nor in the life to come. If they should form connection with those outside of the Church and become aliens to the Gospel, after a long day of repentance they will have to return and bow the knee if they would have access within that organization, if they would enjoy all that belongs to that relationship, if they would inherit the glory with which that relationship is identified; they will have to repent, as it were, in dust and ashes and come back to the family circle, compact and covenant, wherein the Almighty gave them a being. And in this respect it may be well to drop a hint in regard to the practices of some of our sons and daughters in this city—where they step outside of what some call priestly authority. When they come to get up amusements of their own, they should see that that only which pertains to good order and good government are introduced, for those inevitably tend to consolidation and unity. It would be well if our boys would listen to their fathers’ counsel; would respect the authority of their fathers and mothers who are good Latter-day Saints; and when they want enjoyment they should seek to keep within the circumscribed limits of all reputable authority.

There are a great many thoughts arise in my mind, but I presume that I have occupied all the time desirable and I do not wish to weary the congregation. The subject I have touched upon, however, is a very important one. It lies at the foundation of things, and, as I said before, as it is comprehended by the human family, by us as Latter-day Saints, so will be their position among the nations, so will be their power in renovating society, and so will be their measure of approbation by the heavens.

May God give us wisdom to so maintain ourselves in this relation whether it be polygamic or monogamic—that we may gain His smile and approbation, that we may feel His Spirit in our families, in our hearts, in our going out and coming in, and may we realize that we have the approbation of heaven, and the sanction of all the powers of the eternities past, present and to come, as well as the example of the Patriarchs and Prophets. And when this life shall come to its end with us, may we be privileged to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of our Father and God, and make part of a family there, a great nation of Kings and Priests, associating with those who have passed through much tribulation and washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb through the ordinances of the Gospel; which I ask may be the case, through Jesus Christ, Amen.

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, Feb. 1, 1885.

I have been very much interested in the remarks made by Brother Erastus Snow, who has addressed us.

These are precious principles which only the Saints know how to comprehend and appreciate. We are told “that the natural man perceiveth not the things of God, neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned,” and therefore those outside of that influence and spirit which is communicated to the Saints of the Most High, through obedience to the Gospel of the Son of God, find it very difficult to understand them. But we comprehend them, because God has given unto us His Spirit, which takes of the things of God, and shows them unto us.

I and a few others have been away from here for some time, visiting among our southern brethren; Brother Snow, who has just spoken to you, was one of the party. It appears rather an inclement season of the year to go on a journey of that kind; but circumstances seemed to make it necessary that we should go and look after the interests of the people, socially and politically; for notwithstanding our religious ideas, we still have certain rights, privileges and immunities, which belong to us as individuals and as citizens of the United States, in common with others. And seeing that things were quite loose in those far-off settlements, and that men and their families were being subjected to various kinds of outrage, usurpation and imposition, in many instances under the form of law, it seemed necessary that somebody should attend to these matters, and I thought it best for me to go, in company with others of our brethren, to ascertain what was the true position of affairs, and to give such counsel as the circumstances might demand. We found that a great many outrages had been perpetrated upon many of our brethren; that they had been dealt with contrary to law, and in violation, as has been referred to, of the rules of jurisprudence governing such matters; that a vindictive and persecuting spirit had been manifested, and that several of the brethren had been sent off to a distant land from their own. I did not know but that they were without a prison in Arizona, when I heard of these things, and that therefore they had sent a number of honorable men who differed from them in their religious sentiments off to Detroit. I had these things inquired into and found they had a good Penitentiary in Arizona, and that there was no necessity for any such outrage as this to be perpetrated upon decent men. I was sorry to find that things had been conducted in this unusual and vindictive manner, and without any ostensible reason for such extra-judicial acts. Not only because injustice had been heaped upon honorable men, but also because of the position in which it places the nation which was once the pride and glory of all lovers of freedom and equal rights, and boasted of as being “the land of the free, the home of the brave, and an asylum for the oppressed.” These foolish men are now seeking to carry out the enormities that existed among what was called the civilization and intelligence of ancient barbarism, then, as now, under the name of Christianity, and other euphonious appellations which are common to us, and that we are well acquainted with. I was in hopes that things were not so bad as they were represented to be, but I found that I was mistaken in that matter, and I was sorry to find myself so mistaken.

In relation to this anomalous form of proceeding they are now copying the example of Russia, which is generally considered an arbitrary government, and where despotism has been supposed to reign supreme; they have in that nation a place called Siberia, to which they banish men, under a despotic rule, without much formality of trial. I was hardly prepared today to suppose that we needed an American Siberia under the form and in the name of liberty and the rights of men. But this is the fact. We have herein America today an American Siberia in Detroit, to which place, upwards of two thousand miles from their homes, men are banished for a term of years; and what for? Because they have the temerity to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, and cannot fall down and worship before the Moloch of an effete Christianity.

These extraordinary proceedings that have been going on in this Territory, in Arizona and in other places, simply exhibit the very principle that Brother Snow has been speaking of. I need not tell you about affairs that have transpired here. You are quite as well acquainted with them as I am, and ought to be better: for I have been away from here for about four weeks visiting the Saints in our southern settlements, and we have had a most pleasant visit. Outside of these extraordinary proceedings, we found the people prospering very well, with pleasant homes and bright prospects before them. We had with us several of our best brethren, and we visited many of our settlements in that district of country, the residents of which were very much gratified at our appearance in their midst, and for the counsels they received. But I found that such had been the outrages committed that it was impossible almost for any man standing in an honorable position to maintain his position unless he broke the law by resisting the officers, and they thought it not prudent to do so, and so did I. It may suit others to violate the law, to trample upon human rights, and desecrate the sacred term of liberty, and this is frequently done by the arbiters and minions of the law in the name of justice; but we profess to be governed by higher, by nobler and more exalted principles, and to move on a higher plane; and if Jesus could afford to endure the attacks of sinners against Himself, we, if we have the Gospel that we profess to have, ought to be able to endure a little of the same thing. There is nothing new in these affairs, nothing strange in this at all. Many of you have had much to do with these matters. Some of these grey-headed men that I see before me know a little more about those matters than some of the younger portion do. Many of you have been driven from your homes, robbed of your property, dispossessed of your possessions and had to flee from your homes to these mountain valleys, and seek an asylum among the red savages which was denied you by your so-called Christian brethren. Before you came here you were banished from the State of Missouri into the State of Illinois. What for? Because you had the audacity to worship God according to the dictates of your own consciences. I have had to flee from bloodthirsty bandits time and time again. Brother Snow had to do it, and many of you grey-headed men and women have had to do it. What for? Because of polygamy? No, there was no such thing then alleged. What for? Because you had the hardihood, in this land of freedom, to worship God according to the dictates of your own consciences. For this crime you had to leave your homes, and you were despoiled and robbed and plundered, and had to flee as exiles into another land. I had to do it, you have had to do it. You fled from Missouri to Illinois, and then from Illinois to this land, and why? Why did you leave Illinois and come here? Did you injure anybody? No. They killed your Prophets, and I saw them martyred, and was shot most unmercifully myself, under the pledge of protection from the Governor, and they thought they had killed me; but I am alive yet by the grace of God (sensation). Why had you to leave? Because they murdered your Prophets, and wanted to possess themselves of your property; murder and spoliation generally go together. And because they killed them, they accused you of doing some wrong, said you must leave your homes, and there was nobody found in all that wide land to check the outrages of those red-handed assassins, to administer justice and to preserve you in your rights. I do not know any other reason; I never did know any other, and never expect to be informed of any other.

The history of these things is quite familiar to you as Latter-day Saints, and you do not think it anything strange. Some of our young people think that the present proceedings are very remarkable. But many of us, grey-headed folks, have seen plenty of such proceedings, and have had many experiences of this kind; they are nothing new to us at all. And did we ever expect them to get better? We have not so understood it. We are told in the Scriptures, and we have kept teaching it all the while, that “the wicked would grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” That is doctrine which I have believed in for the last 50 years and I have had a good deal of testimony and practical confirmation on that point. We expect that these things will tran– spire. We have been told about secret organizations that should exist, and they are beginning to permeate these United States, and are laying the foundation for disruption, disintegration and destruction. It is not necessary that Congress and the Judiciary should set examples of tyranny and violation of Constitutional law, and attack the fundamental principles of free government and the rights of man; for there is plenty of that kind of spirit abroad; yet men who profess to be the conservators of the peace and the maintainers of law join in these nefarious, unholy, tyrannical and oppressive measures. There are any number who are ready to follow in their footsteps, and the whole nation today is standing on a volcano; but they do not seem to comprehend it. Well, are we surprised? I am not. It is strictly in accordance with my faith: it is strictly in accordance with the Old Testament Scriptures; and it is strictly in accordance with the Book of Mormon; it is strictly in accordance with the revelations given to us by Joseph Smith, and all these events that have been predicted will most assuredly transpire. But I suppose it is necessary that “judgment should first begin at the house of God,” and if it does, “where will the wicked and the ungodly appear,” when it comes upon them? We are told that the wicked shall slay the wicked. We need not trouble ourselves about the affairs of the nations, the Lord will manipulate them in His own way. I feel full of sympathy for the nation in which we live, and for other nations, in consequence of the troubles with which they are beset and which are now threatening them; yet they do not seem to comprehend the position. I know a little of some of the things that will transpire among them, and I feel sorry. Do you feel sorry for yourself? Not at all, not at all. Do you feel sorry for your people? Not at all, not at all. The Lord God has revealed unto us great and eternal principles which reach beyond this earth into the eternal heavens, and which have put us in possession of light and truth and intelligence, and promises and blessings that the world are ignorant of and do not and cannot comprehend. I feel every day to bless the name of the God of Israel, and feel like shouting, “Hosanna! Hosanna!! Hosanna!!! to the God of Israel, Amen and Amen,” who will rule among the nations of the earth, and manipulate things according to the counsel of His own will. These are my feelings in regard to these matters. But then I feel interested in the welfare of my brethren and sisters, and when I see their rights interfered with and trampled ruthlessly under foot, I feel that there is something at work that ought not to be, and yet that is quite necessary to teach us some of the principles of human nature, that we may be able to discern between the good, the virtuous, the upright and the holy; and the impure, the foolish, the vindictive, the corrupt, the lascivious, and those who are trampling under foot the laws and principles of eternal truth. God has revealed unto us certain principles pertaining to the future which men may take objection to. He has revealed unto us certain principles pertaining to the perpetuity of man and of woman; pertaining to the sacred rights and obligations which existed from the beginning; and He has told us to obey these laws. The nation tells us, “If you do we will persecute you and proscribe you.” Which shall we obey? I would like to obey and place myself in subjection to every law of man. What then? Am I to disobey the law of God? Has any man a right to control my conscience, or your conscience, or to tell me I shall believe this or believe the other, or reject this or reject the other? No man has a right to do it. These principles are sacred, and the forefathers of this nation felt so and so proclaimed it in the Constitution of the United States, and said “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Now, I believe they have violated that, and have violated their oaths, those that have engaged in these things and passed that law, and those that are seeking to carry it out. Congress and the President of the United States and the Judiciary, and all administrators of the law are as much bound by that instrument as I am and as you are, and have sworn to maintain it inviolate. It is for them to settle these matters between themselves and their God. That is my faith in relation to this matter. Yet by their action they are interfering with my rights, my liberty and my religion, and with those sacred principles that bind me to my God, to my family, to my wives and my children; and shall I be recreant to all these noble principles that ought to guide and govern men? No, Never! No, NEVER! NO, NEVER! I can endure more than I have done, and all that God will enable me to endure, I can die for the truth; but I cannot as an honorable man disobey my God at their behest, forsake my wives and my children, and trample these holy and eternal obligations under foot, that God has given me to keep, and which reach into the eternities that are to come. I won’t do it, so help me, God. [Here the speaker vigorously struck the book on the desk, and the large audience responded with a loud “Amen.”] The Constitution expressly says that no law shall be passed impairing the obligation of contracts. But we have entered into covenants and contracts in our most sacred places, and that, too, in many instances, before there was any law prohibiting the same, and yet the attempt is now being made to give the Edmunds law an ex post facto application and to punish us for these contracts which were not criminal, even from the standpoint of our enemies, at the time they were formed. I myself married my wives long before there was any law upon the subject, and many of you did the same, yet by an ex post facto application of laws since enacted the attempt is now made to punish us as criminals. I have never broken any law of these United States, and I presume that some of you, whom our enemies now seek to criminate and drag into court as violators of law, can say the same. Under the present system of things in this Territory, harlotry and adultery are vindicated, sustained and unblushingly protected, and honorable and virtuous wedlock is trampled upon, condemned and punished. Well, what will you do? I will obey every Constitutional law so far as God gives me ability. What else will you do? I will meet these men as far as I can without violating principle, and I have done it. When this infamous Edmunds law was passed, I saw that there were features in that which were contrary to law, violative of the Constitution, contrary to justice and the rights and the freedom of men. But I said to myself I will let that law take its course; I will place myself in accordance with it, so far as I can. Did I do it? I did. I remember talking to Mr. Pierrepont, who was Attorney-General under President Grant’s administration. He with his son called upon me. They dined with me, and perhaps I can explain my views on this subject by repeating our conversation as well as any other way. I have a sister keeping my house for me—the Gardo House. When Mr. Pierrepont came in, I said:

“Mr. Pierrepont, permit me to introduce you to my sister, who is my housekeeper. It is not lawful for us to have wives now. And when the Edmunds law was passed I looked carefully over the document, and saw that if I was to continue to live in the same house with my wives that I should render myself liable to that law. I did not wish—although I considered the law infamous—to be an obstructionist, or act the part of a Fenian, or of a Nihilist, or of a Kuklux, or communist, or Molly Maguire, or any of those secret societies that are set on foot to produce the disintegration of society and disturb the relations that ought to exist between man and man, between man and woman, or man and his God. I desired to place myself in obedience or in as close conformity as practicable to the law, and thought I would wait and see what the result would be; and that if the nation can stand these things I can or we can. These are my feelings. Men and nations and legislators often act foolishly, and do things that are unwise, and it is not proper that a nation should be condemned for the unwise actions of some few men. Therefore I have sought to place myself in accord with that law. I said to my wives: “We are living in this building together. We were quite comfortably situated, and we might so have continued, but I said to them that under the circumstances it will be better for me or for you to leave this place; you can take your choice. They had their homes down here which they now inhabit; which were quite comfortable. So I said to them, you can go there and I will stay here, or you can stay at the Gardo House and I will go there or somewhere else; for I wish to conform to this Edmunds law as much as I can.”

I am always desirous to let everything have its perfect working. We talk sometimes about patience having its perfect work. If we have laws passed against us I like to see them have a fair opportunity to develop and see what the result will be. These were my feelings then, and they are my feelings today.

Well, do you think, then, that the people have been outraged? I most certainly do. The usage has been in all legal trials among all civilized nations to presume that all men are innocent until proven guilty; but we now have test oaths introduced, which is another violation of the Constitution and by which an attempt is being made to hold all men guilty until they prove themselves innocent. Again: there is a usage which has existed among the civilized nations, and in this nation also, that a man must be tried by a jury of his peers, selected from the vicinage, but the juries selected for our courts are composed today of our bitter persecutors and our most relentless enemies, and in many instances selected from the lowest and most debased men who can be found or picked up from the gutters. We also have another class of courts improvised for the occasion in the shape of “U. S. Commissioners’ courts,” which are operated and run after the order of the ancient notorious “Star Chamber.” Such institutions provoke the contempt of all honorable men, and the parties assuming such offices place themselves in a position to be despised of their fellows. I might enumerate many other outrages, but time will not permit on this occasion. No man’s liberties are safe under such administration. What will be the result? The result will be that those that sow the wind will reap the whirlwind. When men begin to tear down the barriers and tamper with the fundamental principles and institutions of our country, they are playing a very dangerous game, and are severing the bonds which hold society together, and the beginning of these irregularities is like the letting out of water. The next step that followed the Edmunds Act, was the introduction of a test oath. The legislation already provided was not good enough for some of our officials here and another portion of the Constitution must be broken to introduce a test oath without any authority. I think this was introduced by our Governor. Then comes another class of men called Commissioners, rather a new idea in American Government. Yet it was thought necessary that extraordinary operations should be entered into in relation to the Mormons. Why? Because it is necessary that they should be dealt with differently from anybody else.

Now, I have seen some of my brethren shot to pieces in cold blood and under the protection of the State Government, and the promise of the Governor made to myself and Dr. John M. Bernhisel, who is sometime ago dead. In Missouri a great deal of that thing was done. In Georgia lately, and in Tennessee acts of the same kind have been perpetrated. Now, I want to know if anybody can tell me—here is a large congregation, and many thousands of you acquainted with our history—I want to know if anyone of you can tell me of any individual that was ever punished according to law for killing a Mormon. Speak it out, if you know it. I do not know of any such thing. Brother Snow says there is not an instance on record. Well, I would rather be on the side of the Mormons in that case than on the side of those who are their persecutors and murderers, for they have got something to atone for yet, which we have not under those circumstances. We have got through with our part of it. The other is not through with yet. There are eternal principles of justice and equity that exist in the bosom of God, and He, in His own time, will manipulate these things according to the counsel of His own will; and with what measure men mete, as sure as God lives, it will be measured to them again, pressed down and running over.

Very well, what would you advise us to do? Are we suffering any wrongs? Yes. Well, what would you do? I would do as I said some time ago. If you were out in a storm, pull up the collar of your coat and button yourself up, and keep the cold out until the storm blows past. This storm will blow past as others have done; and you will see that many of the miserable sneaks who are active in those measures, and who are crawling about your doors, and trying to spy into your houses, etc., will be glad to crawl into their holes by-and-by. Well, what will you do? Get angry? No, not at all. Let these men have their day and pursue their own course; we will protect ourselves from them as well as we can. Why, some of our folks in the South were actually try– ing to seek an asylum in another land away from the persecutions of free America, and I do not know but that we shall have a lot of pilgrim Fathers again here in this country, fleeing, not from England by way of Holland, nor from France, nor from any of those countries where they used to persecute people and proscribe them for their religion, but from America, “The land of the free, the home of the brave, and the asylum for the oppressed”—fleeing from there because of their religious sentiments. What an idea! Who could have thought of it? People say that history repeats itself. It is so doing in our day. Well, what would you do? Observe the laws as much as you can. Bear with these indignities as much as you can. But it would not be well for these men to perform their antics anywhere else than among the Saints, or they would dangle to the poles, lots of them, by the neck, if they attempted any such acts. No people would endure these things as the Latter-day Saints do. Will you endure them? Yes, a little longer. Wait a little longer. And after you have borne with a good deal, then endure “as seeing Him that is invisible,” and cultivate those principles that Brother Snow has so beautifully set before us, and feel, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you.” Well, what would you do? Would you resent these outrages and break the heads of the men engaged in them, and spill their blood? No. Avoid them as much as you possibly can—just as you would wolves, or hyenas, or crocodiles, or snakes, or any of these beasts or reptiles; avoid them as much as you can, and take care they do not bite you. [Laughter.] And get out of the way as much as you can. What? Won’t you submit to the dignity of the law? Well, I would if the law would only be a little dignified. But when we see the ermine bedraggled in the mud and mire, and every principle of justice violated, it behooves men to take care of themselves as best they may. That is what I have told people while I have been in the south—to take care of their liberties, to put their trust in the living God, to obey every constitutional law, and to adhere to all correct principles. But when men tamper with your rights and with your liberties, when the cities are full of spies and the lowest and meanest of men are set to watch and dog your footsteps; when little children are set in array against their fathers and mothers, and women and children are badgered before courts, and made to submit, unprotected, to the gibes of libertines and corrupt men; when wives and husbands are pitted against each other and threatened with pains, penalties and imprisonment, if they will not disclose that which among all decent people is considered sacred, and which no man of delicacy, whose sensibilities had not been blunted by low associations, would ever ask; when such a condition of affairs exists, it is no longer a land of liberty, and it is certainly no longer a land of equal rights, and we must take care of ourselves as best we may, and avoid being caught in any of their snares. I cannot think that this crusade is aimed entirely at us; from many circumstances that have transpired, I have been led to believe that whilst we are made the victims, these proceedings are introduced as a political ruse, for the purpose of embarrassing the incoming administration. What would you do? Would you fight them? No. I would take care of myself as best I can, and I would advise my brethren to do the same. Would you resist law? No. As I said before, I can stand it if they can. It is for us to do what is right, to fear God, to observe His laws, and keep His commandments, and the Lord will manage all the rest. But no breaking of heads, no bloodshed, no rendering evil for evil. Let us try and cultivate the spirit of the Gospel, and adhere to the principles of truth. Let us honor our God, and be true to those eternal principles which God has given us to hold sacred. Keep them as sacredly as you would the apple of your eye. And while other men are seeking to trample the Constitution under foot, we will try to maintain it. We have prophecies something like this somewhere; that the time would come when this nation would do as they are now doing—that is, they would trample under foot the Constitution and institutions of the nation, and the Elders of this Church would rally around the standard and maintain those principles which were introduced for the freedom and protection of men. We expect to do that, and to maintain all correct principle. I will tell you what you will see by and by. You will see trouble, trouble, trouble enough in these United States. And as I have said before I say today, I tell you in the name of God, Woe! to them that fight against Zion, for God will fight against them. But let us be on the side of human liberty and human rights, and the protection of all correct principles and laws and government, and maintain every principle that is upright and virtuous and honorable, and let the world take the balance if they want, we don’t want it. We will cleave to the truth, God being our helper, and try to introduce principles whereby the will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And we will obey every institution of man for the Lord’s sake so far as we can without violating our consciences and doing things that are wrong and improper.

God bless you and lead you in the paths of life, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Apostle F. D. Richards, delivered in the Tabernacle, Ogden, Sunday Afternoon, January 18th, 1885.

It is always a pleasure to meet with the Saints, and I always find substantial pleasure in bearing that portion of the labor of the ministry which devolves upon me. Of course there are times when human nature is physically incapacitated from labors. Nevertheless I rejoice exceedingly in the contemplation of the work that we are engaged in. Certainly the review of our immense subject, our great calling, our vast labor, and the wonderful results that follow them—when they are reviewed as they were this morning, and called up before our minds, must awaken deeply interesting and I should hope broadly expanded views and reflections in the minds of the Saints.

We are, as a people, and also our labors as well as the results of them, a great outstanding witness to the world of the divine character of the work we are performing—the high order of our calling to perform that work, as well as pointing significantly to the grand and glorious results which must inevitably follow the labor and toil that are now upon the Latter-day Saints. Any person whose bosom is warmed and whose intellect is lit up by the Holy Spirit must rejoice greatly in the contemplation of the great last dispensation which is now fairly before the world, fairly upon the Saints, like the harness that is upon those that are appointed to labor, to pull, to lift, and to toil.

Where is there any people upon the face of the earth, except the Latter-day Saints, who have from their religious convictions—or from any system of ethics or morals that they possess, gone forth upon the face of the earth, and, from honest, conscientious convictions, and, from their most heartfelt appeals, taken hold of the honest in heart, or of the vicious in heart; anywhere upon the face of the earth, and gathered together a people comprising twenty to thirty different languages and nations, and brought them together to any place, located them, and established a system of government that has been for their improvement, for their benefit, for the increase of their influence, their peace, or their happiness in any sense, either spiritual or temporal?

You can look abroad upon the earth in vain to find any other example that has any kind of relationship, or bears any kind of analogy or appearance like unto the work that is being performed by the Latter-day Saints in the days in which we live.

Who is it that is doing this work? What is the character of this people? Are they those that have been through the schools and been educated to appear in the most plausible and convincing manner in all classes of society? Are they those that have been brought up in affluence and comfort; that can present everything that is pleasing and engaging to the eyes, the ears and the minds of those they address? Not at all. Not many learned or noble. It is often the inexperienced boys that are picked up from the plow, from the workshop, to the humblest of laboring men, toiling, struggling, and many a time when they have not been able, from persecution and oppressive circumstances in which they have been placed, to make a comfortable livelihood, yet they have left the bosoms of their families and gone forth in faith carrying the principles of eternal truth and administering them, with an honest heart and clean hands and by the authority of the Holy Priesthood from heaven to the children of men. And what have they done? What has this simple, humble plan accomplished? Without money in their pockets, without letters of recommendation even to the people, without means oft times to make them comfortable, abnegating themselves, deficient in the comforts and necessities of life, they have gone forth with their hearts full of love and blessing to the human family to find other bosoms kindred to their own, though strangers in appearance, ready to receive the glad testimony of these servants of God. It is not the learned and the noble, nor the wealthy of the earth that have brought their hundreds, their thousands and their tens of thousands to this country.

It has been the potency of those principles that have been taught by the simple and many times silent testimony of the Holy Ghost, by the still small voice, that has carried conviction to the honest, the humble, laboring poor, and has brought them home here to Zion—they that want to know more of God, they that come from the crowded cities and other portions of the earth—find here a piece of a new world; they take hold and make to themselves homes, all in the name of Israel’s God, and by the calling of the voice of the Good Shepherd. Oh, how beneficent and how munificent has the Lord our God been unto us! Behold! as I look abroad this afternoon in this house, I contemplate the great mass of this congregation that are partakers of the Holy Priesthood. It is not a few that are partakers of the holy calling, the authority to administer in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the echo of that saying that is written in the Scriptures where the Lord has said that He would take of Israel and make of them a nation of kings and priests unto Himself. Behold ye, my brethren and sisters, here they are.

Here is Israel gathering together, being taught of the Lord, to learn of His ways and walk in His paths, that they may receive the blessing and be clothed upon with power, as the Prophet said: “Awake, awake; put, on thy strength, O Zion, put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem.” What are these beautiful garments? These beautiful garments are the clothing upon with the authority and power of the Holy Priesthood. It is that which makes people beautiful; it is that which makes people useful; it is that which causes the Saints to sing: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.” It is that excellence of the knowledge of God that makes men and women beautiful, and makes their acts delightful when they are performed in righteousness in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I rejoice when I look around and contemplate this precious privilege—that there is scarcely an individual that has come to years of judgment and understanding but is a partaker of some measure of the Priesthood, if no more than the office of a Deacon that can administer blessing by attending to the door, wait upon the tables, and also by attending to other temporal duties from time to time as they may occur.

Here let me say, that every officer in the Church, from the Deacon up to the Apostle, should realize that it is his duty to endeavor to administer blessings by the virtue of the calling of God which is upon him; he ought to feel thus, and every sister that is the wife of such an husband should feel, if she has received with him her blessings in the house of the Lord, that it is her privilege and duty to administer blessings, comfort and happiness to her husband, to her children, to her family and household. Every one in all the Church should be filled with a spirit of blessing. The authority of the Priesthood should cause a gushing forth from the fountain of the heart, a bubbling forth of streams of blessing, of consolation, of comfort and of rejoicing, each should try to help and benefit the other in every possible way.

Contemplate the immense army, I may say of Seventies and Elders we have among us; and what a work are they doing in the nations, and what a work are they doing and ought they to do at home in preaching the Gospel to each other, in encouraging and strengthening those whose hands sometimes hang down, and whose knees tremble; speaking comforting words to the Saints, saying, “Dear brother, thy God reigneth, trust in him.” Notwithstanding all that we see on the right hand and on the left, and all that we hear, the Lord God has not forgotten His people, nor has He forgotten to educate and instruct them, in all that He knows is for their greatest good, so that by and by He may come and find a nation of kings and priests who shall reign with Him on the earth a thousand years. We ought never to forget that we are in a school of experience. Every brother and every sister should feel that they exert an influence that will tend for good or for evil.

We ought to feel concerned for our little ones. How precious they are! Sometimes I hear the brethren testify how much good is being done by the Relief Society and the Associations. I want to hear them talk about the Primaries, and tell us how the little children are getting along. It seems hard to get it into the heads of some of the parents as well as some of the Bishops to realize the importance of teaching and instructing these youngsters, some seem to consider it the sole duty of the Primary Associations, while others think it the duty of the parents only to see after them. Now, I think we miss it in trying to thus shirk the responsibility. I think we should all try to understand more perfectly the worth of souls. Oh, if the sisters and brethren that have the charge of these little Primary Associations could only realize that every little child is a gem that they are called upon to polish, to cut, to refine, to shapen, to burnish, to fit and prepare to stand in the diadem of its father’s crown. This is the way in which we ought to look at these small but precious jewels. We should assist the little ones to grow up to be mighty men of Zion, that shall come up to teach Senators wisdom, rebuke strong nations, though they may be far off and become a wholesome terror to the ungodly.

As Apostles, as Bishops, as High Priests, as Elders, as well as fathers and mothers, we need to get more of the spirit of this great work in all its different branches, and keep it with us; always have a blessing to dispense; everywhere a word of comfort and consolation to bestow. We should seek for the Spirit of God and get that measure of it that will bear us up, that they will make us feel the cares of life are trivial; that will sustain us under every circumstance. We can bear wonderful trials; we can live though and outgrow them and look back on them and wonder how we passed through them, realizing that we never could have done so but for the help of God that sustained us in it. Then give Him the glory.

Every officer, then, in the Church should be full of blessing to his fellow man. Only think how many patriarchs there are. They should feel to bless all around. No doubt they do, sealing upon those to whom they administer the blessing of eternal life in perpetuity.

The school that we are being educated in is a strange one. You cannot pick up the Bible and find anything that is like it. In ancient days, when there was a warfare, it was a warfare of carnal weapons, many times. Not so, in our days; and as if the Lord were determined to put carnal weapons far away from us, He even permitted the Gubernatorial order preventing us carrying firearms with which to celebrate the 4th of July, and then, on the top of that, He has given us the abundant testimony of peace all around, even with the hostile natives. Is not this an overwhelming testimony that the Lord wants us to work with the other class of weapons—the sword of His Holy Spirit, the power of eternal truth—the ammunition that wants to be kept alive, active and burning in our hearts.

When we come to contemplate this matter, our warfare is entirely in another direction, it has to be carried on and accomplished by the power of faith. We have to contend for our liberties and the rights of the people before the courts, wherein we strive to maintain the Constitutional rights to which we are entitled, both civilly and politically. We have not gone to the authorities that are over us in the nation and supplicated them saying: “Will you please give us some extraordinary liberties or privileges—we contend for the rights of every American citizen, which are our rights.” We have not cut ourselves off from the rights of citizenship. Our fathers fought to help obtain and bled to help establish the blessings and privileges, the liberties and powers of this glorious government to all its loyal citizens; and when this Church was established, it went on for more than thirty-two years—no law of the Church conflicted with the laws of the land, until it became necessary in the opinion of some politicians that the Saints should be made offenders in the eyes of the nation and of the world. Then it was that Congress passed a law—the law of 1862—prohibiting plurality of wives, polygamy, or bigamy, as they choose to call it. Now, then, we have not risen up against the laws of the land; it is the laws of the land and the men of the land that have risen up against the people of God, and have brought their offensive warfare in this matter, and we are thereby placed on the defensive. The nation have been pleased to say that we shall not worship God according to the dictates of our consciences, as required by some of the laws and ordinances of His Church; and have made laws to prevent us from so doing, if possible. Hence it is that, while we go before the courts we do not go as suppliants for something extraordinary, or for something that other people have not got. We ask to be preserved our rights, the rights that belong to every American citizen. It is for this that we go through the courts, appealing from the District Court to the Supreme Court of the Territory, and then to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Now, is not this a great and an important lesson of experience and instruction, and yet there is occasion, for all this is required in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. The Lord has said through the Prophet Joseph to us, that we must importune at the feet of the judges—do you remember it?—and at the feet of Governors—do you recollect that—and at the feet of the President, and then, says He, if your importuning does not prevail, and you do not obtain all things which you have a right to, He will come out of His hiding place and take the matter into His own hands. So you see we have some importuning to do before, or at the feet of Judges, Governors, and Presidents, in order to maintain the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution of our country.

Right here I want to say a word or two especially in regard to the way we have to do our importuning. I refer to a discourse by President Young, in which he said he wished he had five hundred young lawyers full of the spirit of the Gospel who would rise up and help to maintain and defend our rights before the courts of our country. The discourse was published in the Deseret News and republished in the Journal of Discourses. It is public matter for anybody to read that wishes to. But a few days ago, however, a Bishop remarked that it looked very singular for one of the Apostles to raise up a lawyer, and thought there must be a screw loose somewhere. It happens, however, once in a while that some Bishop wants my son or someone else’s son to help defend them before the courts. (Laughter.) I wonder if there is any screw loose there. Excuse me, brethren, for this reference; but I wish we could have a goodly number of substantial young men growing up in our midst who would become skilled and mighty in the law, and who could go into any of the courts and set forth the true principles of justice and equity in all cases. We need more of such men. We do not want men to become lawyers, turn infidels, and live for nothing but the little money they can make. We want to raise up a corps of young men armed with the Spirit of the Gospel, clothed with the Holy Priesthood, who can tell the judges in high places what the law is, and what equity is, and can plead for the cause of Zion, and help maintain the rights of God’s people. Hence you see we have got to carry on these matters. Our rights are infringed, and we have got to defend ourselves as best we can. We are told that we must plead with the dignitaries of the earth; plead with them until their position on our question is known; they have got to declare themselves.

There are different branches of the government, which are considered coordinate. For instance—there is the legislative branch, namely, Congress. Then there is the President, who represents the executive branch. Then there is the army and navy, which is the arm of power to carry out and maintain physical defenses. And then there is the Supreme Court, the legal tribunal that stands at the very head, if you please, and pronounces upon the constitutionality of the acts which Congress passes. Hence we see our case has not only to be brought before and had cognizance of in the Congress of the United States to ascertain if they will make laws to oppress us, but these laws can be taken to higher courts, to see whether they will maintain the rights of God’s people in the land. And does it seem a terrible thing that one or two should get cast into prison? As President Cannon contemplated this morning, half a dozen would cover all such cases within the last twenty-two years, and the persons connected with the most notable cases have come in and furnished the evidence for their own crimination, under the promise that punishment would not be inflicted. But like the Governor of Illinois, who pledged his honor and the honor of the state to protect our Prophet and Patriarch, all such promises were broken. Nevertheless, in this manner we have got to test the purity or impurity, the integrity or otherwise, of the different branches of the government under which we live.

God is going to make His people a great people. He has designed them to be the means not only of revealing among themselves, what they are, and what they are here for, but of making them a standing testimony of the truth before the whole world. The great knowledge of which we have become possessed cannot be hid under a bushel, cannot be hid up in a dark place. Here we are in the heights of the continent, calling Israel home, ready to impart the light that is within us, to all of Adam’s children who will receive it. Let us seek to be wise. The Lord has told us of certain classes of defense which are better even than the employment of weapons of war. And what is it? It is the gift of wisdom. “Wisdom is better than strength or weapons of war,” said the ancient man, who tested the matter and found it out. Now, let us understand that the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and a good understanding have all they who keep His commandments.

My brethren and sisters: let us not be discouraged in the least. Remember that no great revolution was ever achieved without some fighting. Some battles have had to be fought, some victories had to be achieved. It is while the war is going on that some get wounded, and other contingencies arise, and some things necessarily happen that are unpleasant. But after the war is over, and the new government is instituted, the grand improvement is then felt, as it has been felt in this nation ever since the thirteen colonies fought and maintained their independence from the mother country. It is true we have been oppressed a little. But our enemies do not make very much at it. We live and thrive notwithstanding, do we not? How singularly the Lord works with men. The people of the Southern States through the war and since, have been limited or deprived of some of their rights. And some few men—Senator Brown for one—are not afraid to rise up from their seat and defend the right whether in behalf of Mormon or non-Mormon, and expose the doings of self-righteous men in New England, exposing the fruits of their monogamous marriage relations as compared with our marriage institution. The Lord has raised up men sometimes to maintain the rights of His people. He will allow us to be pinched from time to time as it may be necessary to unite us together, to make a wife love her husband a little better, to make a husband love his wives and children a little better, and to strengthen the bond of union in every heart. For my part I rejoice in this work, and seek continually to gather knowledge. I rejoice that I have lived to see the work of God established on the earth. Let me tell you, my brethren and sisters, the greatest affliction some of us have: it is some great fearful apprehension that something is going to happen. We naturally borrow trouble. We should not do that. Just consider that the work is the Lord’s. Be certain you do your duty every day. And when you lay down at night do so with a clear conscience, and enjoy slumber and be refreshed, and rise up in the morning, in the likeness of the resurrection, prepared to renew the contest of life. Thus we should go on step by step, adding faith to faith, keeping the commandments of God, and purifying ourselves all we can. The Lord will bless us in proportion to the degree that we endeavor to purify ourselves, and keep His commandments. That is the great secret of our full acceptance with God. We must purify ourselves as He is pure.

I do not consider it proper for me to occupy more of your time this afternoon. I feel to say I rejoice in this work. And I say unto every brother and sister that keeps the commandments of God, be joyful and rejoice in Him. He has called us to the work in which we are engaged, and He is educating us, as I said before, in order that by and by He may have a nation of kings and priests, judges and rulers to help Him bear government and rule over this earth in righteousness, when the curse shall be taken from it, and when truth shall prevail from one end of the earth to the other. May it be our happy lot to be there and rejoice with father Abraham and all his family, is my humble prayer, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Ogden, Sunday Morning, January 18th, 1885.

I am pleased to have the opportunity of meeting with the Latter-day Saints this morning in Ogden, and of listening to the reports which have been made by the brethren respecting the Sunday Schools, and the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations. These institutions furnish an index to the growth and development of the people, and the future character of those who are now and who will be members of the Church in years to come. I think a very fair estimate can be formed of what our people will be by closely observing the condition of the Sunday Schools and the Mutual Improvement Associations; because those children and those young men and young women who are now members of these schools and associations will in a very few years take their place as active members in the community, and the character of the community be largely dependent upon their characters and upon the development which they have made in the directions that these institutions seek to form them. I look upon it myself as exceedingly important that our schools should be properly conducted, and that our associations should receive that attention from those who have influence and knowledge that will make a proper impression upon the minds of those who are members. In whatever capacity I might be acting in the Priesthood, with the proper feeling of anxiety about the growth and development of the people, I could not fail to take interest in all these associations, and to see that they were properly conducted as far as my influence would extend. I do feel this interest. I have for many years felt it. It has been one of the great delights, I may say, of my life for many years, to see the growth and development of our Sunday School interest.

For many years, while laboring in the ministry abroad I saw how small was the amount of fruit resulting from the labors of myself and other Elders in the world; that we labored sometimes for years and were only able to bring into the Church a comparative few, and then, out of those that were converted and brought into the Church, there was a large percentage who did not remain, but who lost the faith and fell away. I became convinced in my mind that more satisfactory results and a larger amount of fruit could be obtained by devoting attention to the cultivation of our children, and for years before I had the opportunity, I had resolved in my own mind that if I were ever permitted to remain at home long enough I would devote attention to the cultivation of the young. I think that which has been done in this direction has amply rewarded every man and woman who have taken interest in this cause. You can better tell, probably, than I can—or at least some of you can—what the effect upon our community is—the effect of the Sunday School, and of the teachings of the Sunday Schools. You are familiar with the children. You can contrast their present condition with the condition of children a few years ago, and by making this contrast you can estimate, at pretty near its true value, that which is and has been done. So far as my observation is concerned I am satisfied that a great amount of good has been accomplished. I have been on missions when Elders have come from the valley—young men—and I have been very much ashamed to see their ignorance in regard to the doctrines of the Church, and of the history of the Church, and their ignorance of the Scriptures. I have felt that it was almost a shame that young men brought up in Zion should go as missionaries and be so ignorant concerning the most vital points connected with our religion. I am happy to believe that that has passed away to a very great extent, and that those who now go out in the capacity of missionaries do so with a more thorough understanding respecting the history of the Church, the doctrines of the Church, and a wider intelligence concerning everything connected with the Church than was formerly manifested. In our Sunday Schools I have listened to children being catechized, and their answers upon points of history of the Church, and other matters, have been given with a correctness that could not be excelled, if equaled by many of the Elders of mature years if they were interrogated upon the same points. Everyone who has visited Sunday Schools must be convinced of this. Therefore, when we hear, as we do today, that in some of your settlements nearly all the children are enrolled in the Sunday Schools, it speaks well for the future of the children. If these schools are properly conducted the effect must be immense in lifting them up from ignorance and giving them correct knowledge concerning the doctrines and history of the Church, and indoctrinating them in the principles which we view as so important for men and women to understand. It is therefore very gratifying to hear such reports, and that which we have heard today respecting the schools in Weber Stake is a very fair sample of the reports which are made in other Stakes.

We have today, so far as statistics inform us, nearly 50,000 children in Sunday Schools. These 50,000 children will in a very few years be men and women, taking their place in society, probably married, and their influence will be felt upon the future families of the people, and if they are properly taught in the principles of the Gospel and are fortified against sin, and are taught the evil effects that will result from the practice of everything that is wrong, we can imagine what an effect this will have on the entire body of the people! It is therefore very encouraging to all those who take an interest in the growth of Zion, in the development of the work of God, to know that our children, in Primary Associations, in Sunday Schools, and in Young Men and Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Associations, are receiving the instruction that is best adapted for their future good and happiness.

There are a few points that I have always deemed as of the utmost importance that our children should be taught; the more so because such teaching guards them against some of the growing evils of the age in which we live. It has seemed to me sometimes that if the Lord had not established this Church at the time He did, the future of our race would be in some respects very dark and hopeless to contemplate. The growth of intemperance, the spirit of infidelity concerning God and concerning everything pertaining to God and to righteousness, the wonderful spread of corruption, the low value placed upon virtue, and the increase of the evils that result from the absence of virtue, are of such a nature that, if you look outside this Church, the picture is a most discouraging one. God has established this Church and He has told us from the very beginning that the chief corner stone, it may be said, of this great edifice that He has reared and is rearing, is virtue. Early in the history of the Church the Prophet Joseph received revelations to this effect: that he who looked upon a woman to lust after her should deny the faith, and unless he repented, he should be cast out. What an amount of purity is embodied in this statement of the Lord to us in this revelation! A man must not only refrain from doing that which is wrong with the opposite sex; he must not only refrain from carrying his lust into the actual commission of crime, but he must be so pure in heart that he shall not look upon the other sex with a lustful eye and a lustful desire. If he does so, we are told by the Almighty that he shall deny the faith. Now, I cannot imagine how the Lord can make more plain to us than He has done in these revelations—for it is repeated more than once in the revelations that we have received—the importance of virtue, the importance of purity, purity in thought as well as purity in action. The frequent apostasies from this Church, the many who have left the Church, denied the faith, lost the Spirit of God, the most of them, no doubt, are traceable to the commission of this sin. It is, as I have said, the crying sin of the age. Outside of this Church virtue is not fostered as it should be. Of course there are exceptions. I do not mean to say that all people are corrupt; I would not be so sweeping; but in society generally there is not that value placed upon virtue that should be, and in many circles the virtue of man is derided. A man who claims to be virtuous, or who desires or seeks to be virtuous, finds himself alone, as it were, among his fellows. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we, in training our children, should lay deep and solid in their minds the importance of virtue. They should be taught that their whole lives as Latter-day Saints depend upon the cultivation and preservation of this principle; and that if they are guilty of wrong in this direction, unless there is sincere and heartfelt repentance before the Lord, He will undoubtedly withdraw His Holy Spirit from them and leave them to themselves to become a prey to those wicked influences that are seeking constantly to take possession of the hearts of the Saints of God.

Now, we can best do this in childhood; we can teach our children in childhood and in youth, and as they grow to manhood and to womanhood we can fortify them against those evils. It has been necessary, apparently—for the Spirit has seemed to indicate the necessity of this—that there should be greater strictness enforced among our people. There has been a growth of wrongdoing in many quarters that has been most painful to all those who have the welfare of the Saints of God at heart, and who desire the prosperity of Zion. Many cases have come to the knowledge of the First Presidency and of the Twelve and of other leading men wherein people have been compelled, in order to conceal their wrongdoing, to marry, and even then have failed to cover it up. Now, such a condition of things, if permitted to continue in our midst, unchecked, would be productive of the most terrible consequences. The Spirit of God would undoubt– edly be so grieved that it would forsake not only those who are guilty of these acts, but it would withdraw itself from those who would suffer them to be done in our midst unchecked and unrebuked; and from the President of the Church down, throughout the entire ranks of the Priesthood, there would be a loss of the Spirit of God, a withdrawal of His gifts and blessing and His power, because of their not taking the proper measures to check and to expose their iniquity.

My brethren and sisters: I suppose you must be impressed, as I am, with this truth, that our only source of strength is, that we shall live so that the spirit and power and gifts of our religion and the favor of our God shall be extended unto us and be in our possession. There never was a more critical period in many respects in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ than that which we now witness. I never, in my recollection, or in reading the history of the Church have seen a time nor heard of a time when the adversary of God’s Kingdom was more determined, apparently, to destroy the work of God than he is at the present time. On every hand there are the most persistent efforts made to check the growth of the Kingdom of God, and not only that, but to destroy this religion, the religion of Jesus Christ, and to throw obstacles in the pathway of its progress; and to actually deprive members of this Church of every right that men and women value—every political right, every civil right—to place us in bondage, and to make it odious in the eyes of mankind to be Latter-day Saints, or to have any faith in the religion that God has revealed to us, and of which we are so proud, and for which we are, as a rule, so thankful.

Now, we do not have wealth with which to combat the designs of our enemies; we do not have numbers; we do not have influence; there is no strength that we have that men value and that men seek for in a contest such as that in which we are engaged. We possess no advantage, none whatever, that men place value upon. But we possess advantages that we understand, and which we as Latter-day Saints highly value, and they are the best advantages, however much they may be disliked by the world. However little importance they may attach to the advantages that we possess, we know that in a contest such as this in which we are now engaged they are of the utmost importance.

To begin with we must, as I have said, be a virtuous people. We must love virtue better than we love our lives. We must be so pure, not only in our actions, but in our thoughts, that God’s favor will be with us, and His Spirit rest down upon us, and we must live the lives of Latter-day Saints, carrying out in our lives the principles that God has revealed. This is our only strength. Let us be deprived of this and we are weak, because, as I have said, we possess no other advantage. If we prevail, as undoubtedly we shall, it must be because of God’s help; it must be because He is at our right and at our left, and His power is round about us and near unto us. Looking at our position from a human standpoint everything looks dark. Men today are calculating on the destruction of this people. They think that we shall at least be compelled to abandon some features our religion. In some places and with some people it is Church and State they complain of. In other places it is that we practice plural marriage. In other places there are other reasons assigned for their dislike to us—we are too united; we do not divide into parties, wherever we go we cling together, and do not assimilate with the rest of our fellowcitizens, but are a party of ourselves, and are dangerous because of this. And various accusations are made as justification for the treatment that is extended to us. Men whose lives are so vile that they would not bear the least examination, much less exposure, make the charge against us that we practice plural marriage, and therefore that we should be dealt with in the harshest and most severe manner. On the other hand, men who are constantly seeking for political influence, who do not scruple to use that influence in the most reprehensible manner, and to the utmost extent possible, and frequently preachers, too, charge that we unite Church and State. They would gladly use the influence that we have if they had it, and use it in a manner so obnoxious to individual liberty, that it would bear no comparison to the manner influence is used among the Latter-day Saints. That would be all right if they used it, but it is all wrong if we use it. And so it is with everything else. If they could unite a people together as we are united that would be perfectly justifiable; but because Latter-day Saints unite together, that is exceedingly wrong, especially when they do so as a religious community.

For myself I want to do that which God directs. That is the wish of my heart. I want to honor my God if I know how to do it. I believe this entire people have the same feeling. They desire to do the will of God, if they can find out what that will is, and if He will communicate it to us, as I know He does, I am satisfied that the great majority of the Latter-day Saints will do that will regardless of consequences. It is the attempt to do that, that has brought us into disrepute.

God, in building up His Kingdom, does not take pattern from men. He does not ask counsel from men as to how that Kingdom shall be built up, and the methods that shall be employed to establish it. He is going to build His Kingdom up in His own way, and if it does not suit men or the nations of the earth, why, I suppose they will have to be, as they have been and as they are sometimes at present, angry with those who strive to do that which He requires. I know this that many things that men admire are an abomination in the sight of God; many things that they think most admirable God holds as an abomination. Therefore, in building up His Church and His Kingdom He is going to take His own plan of doing it, and for one, so far as I can I feel willing to allow Him to dictate how it shall be done, and then leave the consequences to Him. I know that He will bring off those who put their trust in Him victorious, and He will ask no odds of the nations of the earth. He delights in a people who are courageous and valiant, who are not afraid. He delights in people of this kind. The greatest blessing almost that we read of that was ever given to a man in the flesh was given to a man possessed of this courage. You will remember him, doubtless, when I mention His name. His name was Nephi. He was the son of Helaman, and had a brother named Lehi. He was the grandfather of Nephi, who was the President of the Twelve whom Jesus chose on this continent. Read the life of that man, and observe the blessings that God bestowed upon him. God gave him great power because of his valor and fearlessness in His cause, and it is so with every Prophet and with every man of God of whom we have any record, and it is so with every people and generation who put their trust in the Lord, and are valiant for His cause. He will give them great blessings and power, and He will bring them off victorious. He has done so in the past. He is doing so now, and He will do so in the future; and whenever you find a man or a people weakened and limber-backed, nervous, their hands shaking and their hearts trembling, you will find a people that have not very much of the strength and power of God with them; but when they are full of courage, zeal and determination, God is with them, He strengthens them, and gives them victory. He will do it every time, with every individual. You read the history of Elijah, and see how valiant he was, and how God blessed him, and I might go on and enumerate a great many more men who have been distinguished in the world’s history because of their valor. God stood by them always, and will stand by us if we are valiant. Look at the men who have been most valiant in this Church in defending, advocating and practicing the principles which God has revealed, and doing this, too, in the face of mankind who have been determined that we shall not do these things, and see how God has blessed and sustained them in so doing. Therefore, having had this experience in these matters, it is for us to be valiant in the cause of God, to show our faith by our works, and not be Latter-day Saints with our lips alone, but be Latter-day Saints in all the acts of our lives, in all our words, and in everything there is connected with us. Let us not imagine that God has established His work to take pattern in its methods of procedure and management after the corrupt nations of the earth. He has not done so.

We live under a Government, the best that ever was formed by man upon this earth—a Government in which every human being can live without interfering with the rights of others in the practice of the principles which God reveals. God has purposely arranged this. He raised up wise men to lay the foundation of this Government, and He defended them against the mother country, and enabled them to achieve victory over the greatest power there was upon the face of the earth—the power of Great Britain. He gave them power to form a Constitution under which every man and woman can dwell in perfect freedom—that is, if they wanted to do right. This land has been dedicated to liberty, dedicated by the Lord our God, and by men who have lived upon this land, to liberty, and as long as this land shall be a land of liberty it will be a blessed land to the inhabitants thereof; but when it ceases to be a land of liberty, then as sure as God has spoken, this Government will go down—that is, any Government will, that will war against the principles of liberty—and the men who are now engaged in their assaults upon us because of our religion, are traitors to this Government, and they are the most deadly enemies to the Government of the United States that can be found anywhere upon the face of the earth. They are laying the axe at the root of the tree, and are taking measures to destroy this Government, because it can only, as I have said, be preserved by maintaining the principles of liberty that are contained in the Constitution which God gave to the land, or which He inspired men to frame for the land. But in our contention for liberty—for we today are the defenders of the Constitution, and we shall have Constitutional principles to maintain and defend in the courts of the nation, we are being forced into this duty and position—God will bless us and preserve us, and carry us off triumphantly, and the words of Joseph, which were inspired by the Almighty, will be fulfilled to the very letter, namely, that the Elders of this Church will be the men who will uphold and maintain the Constitution of the United States, when others are seeking to trample it in the dust, and to destroy it. We are a free people—let others seek to bring us into bondage as they may—we are a free people, with the perfect right to worship our God and to carry into effect the principles that He has revealed. And if the whole world array themselves against us, and the combined power of the nation pits itself against this work, they must go down in the struggle, because they are occupying a false position. If fifty hundred millions of people were to say the contrary, no matter, the principle still remains true, that under the Constitution in this land, a man has a perfect right to do that which God requires at his hands as long as he does not intrude upon the rights of his neighbor.

If one man stood alone in this position, and millions of men were to say it is not so, that lone man would still be right. We have that right. God has given it to us under the Constitution of the land in which we dwell, and if men enact laws and pile one law upon another until they reach to the sky, it would not change this. It is an eternal principle, and it will stand—this principle of liberty, the liberty that God has given unto every human being—the right to do that which seemeth good in his own sight, to follow the dictates of his own conscience, as long as, in so doing, he does not trespass upon the rights of his fellow man. We stand by that fearlessly, and stand by it for ourselves, and for our children after us. I would not abate one iota, not a hair’s breadth, myself, in this feeling. I would feel that I was a traitor to myself and to my posterity if I were to yield in the least upon this. We must maintain our rights, not aggressively, not in any quarrelsome spirit, but in a spirit of quiet firmness, quiet determination to maintain our rights, to contend for them, and to never yield one hair’s breadth in maintaining them. This is our duty as individuals and as a people, and in thus determining, we band ourselves together more closely. Complaints are made of us that we are so exclusive. Why, in the very nature of things we should be fools to be otherwise than exclusive. We cannot help it. We are driven into exclusiveness by the acts of our enemies, and by the pressure that is brought to bear upon us. A flock of sheep when attacked by dogs or wolves, huddle together, and seek to protect themselves by getting into a cluster. So it is with us. It is the law of preservation, that we should get close together when we are assaulted as we have been. We cannot put trust in others who are not of us to any extent. There are, however, many honorable men, hundreds and thousands of them. If there were not, we would not send missionaries out as we do. We believe they are just as honest as we are, just as sincere as we are, and desire as much to do right as we do. I believe there are millions of them in the earth, men and women, whose desires are as good as the best Latter-day Saints. They desire to do the will of God, and to keep His commandments as much as any of us do, and are as sincere in it; but many people are ignorant and do things through ignorance which are wrong. But, as I say, self-preservation demands that we should cling together; that we should be united; that we should sink all personal differences; that we should have no preference that we would not be willing to forego for the sake of the Kingdom of God. It is an important time with us. We have enemies all around us. A determination is made manifest to destroy every one of our liberties, if possible, and to bring us into bondage. That is the design, if it can be accomplished. But it will not be accomplished. You will see it will fail, it will signally fail, and God will preserve us in our liberties, and especially will He do this if we keep His commandments, and do that which He requires at our hands.

A great many people seem to think, and some who are among us act upon the thought, that because a man holds the Priesthood, and is a religious man, and practices religion, that he should not have any voice in matters that belong to civil government. In Washington the charge has been frequently made that all the leading offices of the Territory of Utah were held by Mormon Elders, Mormon Bishops and others. I have frequently said, in answer to this, before committees of the Senate and House, that if we did not take Mormon Elders we would have no officers, for the reasons that, as a rule, every reputable man in Utah Territory, when he attains the age of majority, holds the office of an Elder, or some other office in the Priesthood. This explanation gave a very different view to men who did not understand our organization, and whose ignorance was taken advantage of. In the world there are a few men in religious societies, who hold leading positions, hold what we would call, if in our Church, the Priesthood, and the rest are debarred, and are mere laymen. But it is not so with us. The bulk of the Mormon people hold the Priesthood, and every man of repute of any age is an officer in the Church. It is said that the members of our Legislature are men who are prominent in the Priesthood. How could it be otherwise? If a man is energetic and has any talent he of course holds some position in the Priesthood, and he is very apt to hold some prominent place. But does this prevent him from acting in a civil office, and from dealing justly and wisely for the good of the people? No, we have proved to our entire satisfaction, that this is not the case.

When we look at Utah Territory today, and compare it with other Territories it will be conceded by everybody who is impartial that the position of affairs here is equal to, if not much better than the position of affairs in any other Territory and in many of the States. Has that been because there has been a union of Church and State. No, it is not due to that; for that has never existed here. Has it been because there has been one man dictating everything—has it been due to that entirely? No; for no one man has done this. But it has been because the men who have acted in these capacities have been men of wisdom, and the people have had confidence in them. Wherever we go as a people, we carry with us our religion. You cannot dissever our religion from our lives. It is a part of our lives, and, of course, because of this, we are exposed to those charges that are made against us. Yet at the same time, I do not believe there is a people to be found within the confines of the Republic who draw the line more strictly between religious and civil affairs, and between Church and State, than do the Latter-day Saints.

We are living in peculiar times. I think the youth of this community—those who are growing up now—should closely observe that which is being done. It is an important epoch. Events are taking place now that are worthy of our remembrance, and we are being put in a position to be tested thoroughly. The contest seems to be narrowed down to this point—whether we shall be able to live as a people and enjoy our rights as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or not. Formerly, the question was soon solved. A mob would form itself against us, and by force of superior numbers, and backed by a public opinion that was too strong for us to contend with, we had to vacate our homes and flee. The alternative was presented to us of flight, or the abandonment of our religion. This is not quite the alternative now presented before us. The question is, will you abandon your religion? Will you renounce those principles that God has revealed to you, and which He has declared are essential to salvation and exaltation in His Kingdom—will you renounce them? Will you renounce obedience to the Priesthood of the Son of God? If you will I expect you can enjoy some sort of peace—a peace that would be the peace of death. Who will accept it? Will any true Latter-day Saint? No; no true Latter-day Saint will accept that. What next? You cannot have your rights as citizens. You must be put under bonds. You must have penalties affixed to your practice or to your faith. If you continue to be Latter-day Saints you must be discriminated against. That is another alternative presented to us. Will we accept that? Yes. I believe that I speak your feelings. I believe I give voice to them when I say that you are willing, all of you, to take this choice and these consequences. What next? Will a mob come and drive us from our homes? Not yet. You will see fun whenever that occurs. That is not in the program as I view it at present. No mobs. What then, shall we do? We shall have to contend in the courts; we shall have to make this a legal fight. It is mobocracy in legal form and in legal guise that now attacks us. It comes to us in a shape that we can meet better than we could the old forms, when a mob banded together and came in such overwhelming numbers that we could not resist it. It may be just as wicked. The present mode of attack may be just as cruel; the ultimate object may be just as bad in every sense and in every respect; but it can be met in a different form and in a different way. We have to contend now for our rights in the courts of the land; we must see whether there is a willingness on the part of those who hold authority as judges, to give us our rights, and in this way we shall test the nation, our Government, and prove whether there is a willingness on the part of those who administer the government to give us those rights that belong to us as American citizens. If they do not, who will be the sufferers! We shall suffer to some extent; but our sufferings will be light compared with those that will fall upon the men who shall prove untrue and recreant to the principles of liberty and truth.

Now, I look forward myself with great pleasure to the future. Every step of this kind that we take is an assurance of that which is to come. We cannot press forward as a people; we cannot become the people that God designs we shall be, and that He has predicted we shall be, without having just such contests as these. They are the natural consequences of the position that we occupy, and of the growth and development of this people. But the same God that protected this Church when it was but a small handful, a few individuals, still reigns, and His promises are as much to be relied upon as they were when the mob drove the Latter-day Saints out of Missouri; as much to be relied upon as when, in that dark hour, the mob killed our Prophet and our Patriarch, and afterwards compelled the Saints to flee from their homes; as much to be relied upon as when we came to these valleys; they are just as reliable today as they were then. It is for us to so live that when we call upon Him that we do so with an assurance that we have done our duty, that there is nothing lacking on our part so far as human and mortal beings can do. We have our sins, our frailties, our many weaknesses; but God looks down in mercy upon them when we repent of them, and show a disposition to put them away from us. When we are in this condition we can call upon Him and leave ourselves to His mercy, with the full assurance that He has always stood by His faithful people, His faithful servants and handmaidens, and that He will not forsake them in any hour of extremity or of peril. He will stand by them; He will hear their prayers; and at the very time when it will seem the darkest, when it will be as though there is no power to save, God’s arm will be stretched out for our deliverance, and we shall be rescued and be triumphant. He will so control circumstances and arrange affairs, that, at the very moment when the adversary will be glorying in triumph, and gloating over the prospect before him, He will then be ready to extend His arm of deliverance in our behalf, and rescue us from the power of those who desire our destruction.

As I said in the beginning, if this work depended on us alone we would soon go down. It depends upon God. He is at the head of it. He is behind it. He is all around it. He established it. He has controlled circumstances thus far in a most wonderful manner; and when I look at that which has been done in this country, with all the efforts that have been made by the wicked, one act after another, one act of wrong piled on top of another, and see the meager results to show for their base course, I feel to praise God with all my heart for His goodness and mercy to us.

A Governor of this Territory perjured himself to do us a great wrong. He gave the certificate of election to a man who was not elected, thinking, in so doing, he was dealing Mormonism—or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—a deadly blow. What has been the result? Who is injured? Is anybody injured? I do not, myself, know of anybody that is injured, except the man who did this perfidious act, who perjured himself by violating his oath of office. I do not know of anyone else. Certainly the people of Utah are not. Go back, and look at Judge McKean’s rulings and acts. We had a reign of judicial terror in the Third Judicial District for about eight months, and no man knew when he was to be pounced upon. Prominent men were indicted and put under bonds, some for one thing and some for another. Who has been injured by this? Has anyone been injured? We have not. We have ate, and slept, and enjoyed ourselves, and been as happy as men could be. I am sure President Young, when he was living, was a happy man. It did not interfere with his happiness and enjoyment, and others who were indicted in like manner, they enjoyed themselves, and the people have not been injured. We have had a great deal of this kind of experience.

Now we are passing through a similar condition of affairs to some extent. We shall come out of this just as we have come out of other perils and trials and ordeals. We shall gain experience, and it will increase our faith to see the power of God manifested, and to see how wonderfully He controls the acts of men for His glory and for the accomplishment of His purposes. Look at the hubbub that has been raised in Congress. There has been a tremendous amount of pressure brought to bear upon that body in regard to the Mormons. Delegation after delegation has gone from Utah to Washington and appeared before Committees, for the purpose of getting bills made into laws. It will be most interesting reading in years to come, the various bills that have been presented to Congress against Utah. Every sort of scheme has been resorted to. You cannot think of anything, scarcely, that has not been embodied as a feature in some of these bills. And with what result? Have we slept any less? Have we been any more unhappy? Have we had any less prosperity? Has the sun shone less upon us? Has Heaven withdrawn its smile from us? Have our fields been less fruitful? Have our children been less numerous? Has any blessing that we value been withheld or withdrawn from us because of these things! If they have I am not aware of it. I cannot think of any evil that has come upon us as a people. I look over the past; I review the acts of the wicked; I review their combinations; I review the many conspiracies that have been formed, the many determinations that have been reached to destroy us, to cripple us, to deprive us of our rights, and I must confess to you this day, my brethren and sisters, in the presence of our Father, that I cannot think of a single thing that has been done that we could call injurious to us as a people; not a single thing. With all the force that has been arrayed against us, with all the threats that have been made about us, we have lived, we have prospered, we have increased, we have been blessed of the Lord. You know how blessed you have been in your families, in your homes. You know how much peace has reigned there; how much you have had in your hearts, and in your meetings, and in your associations. You know how free you have been from fear and from trepidation. You have not suffered in your feelings, for God has given unto you a peace that the world cannot bestow, that the world cannot take away. The world has not given unto us those blessings; the world cannot take them away from us; they are ours, given unto us by God our Eternal Father. They will still be given unto us. God’s promises will be verified to the very letter.

But you watch the men who have fought against this work. Watch the men who have apostatized from this work. Ask yourselves what their fate has been. Where are the men who have sought to oppress the people of Utah? Where are they today? Who is there among them that has prospered in this work of oppression? Go through the list of Governors, Judges, and other officers. Go through the list of those who have held any office, and who have sought the oppression of the people and the destruction of their liberties, through their spirit of antagonism to the work of God, and their desire to destroy it—go through the list of them, and ask, who among them has had prosperity and has been blessed, and to whom we can look and say, “Oh, how successful that man has been; how he has prospered in fighting the Mormons!” Is there any such man among them? You are familiar with the names of apostates who have left this work through fear or some other cause, corrupt in their lives or for some other reason? Can you recall among the long list of men who have come out and pitted themselves against this work of our God, any who have prospered and had happy lives? Is there any of them with whom you, the humblest of you today, the humblest, the poorest of you Latter-day Saints—is there one of them with whom you would exchange places today? Not one. I am sure that I can reply for the whole of you—that is, there is not one in that long list of names of men who were once members of this church, who have come out against it, with whom you would exchange places; not one.

Why then, should we fear? Why should we tremble? Why should we be afraid of that which is threatened? I tell you in the name of the Lord He will stand by us, He will stand by all His people. There is this peculiarity about our God. He is not like the devil. When the devil gets a man in a tight place he leaves him there; he encircles him in his net, he lets him get entangled in its meshes, and then leaves him to himself. That is the devil’s way. He deserts those who follow him when they most need his help. But with God, in the time of the greatest extremity, in the time when help is most needed, then He is close to His faithful servants and His faithful children; then is the time that He stands by them. In the deepest waters He is with them; in the midst of the heaviest and sorest afflictions He is at their right hand and at their left; He is around about to sustain and carry them off victorious.

God help us to be true and faithful to the cause that He has established, that in the end we may be permitted to sit down with him and His Son in His Kingdom, is my prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by Apostle George Teasdale, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, January 11th, 1885.

Since the last time I had the privilege of worshiping in this house I have had the opportunity, in company with Brother F. M. Lyman, of making a tour through the Southern wards and Stakes of this Territory, and I must say, though it was my first visit to several places, that I have enjoyed my labors exceedingly. I appreciated my association with the Saints, who are striving in their weakness to establish the righteousness of God upon the earth. I was treated with the greatest kindness. It is impossible for us to be associated as we are in a great work—a work that from the beginning has been opposed by the world—without feeling the greatest admiration for men and women who are filled with the spirit of integrity, who manifest a love for God and for the principles of righteousness, that is surprising in the day and age in which we live, when righteousness is so unpopular. I had always been given to understand that I was living in an enlightened age in the blaze of the Gospel; that we had passed from the dark ages and living in an enlightened age, among educated people; that the Gospel of the Son of God was being promulgated in all nations, and that we had the Bible for a guide, so that we need not be mistaken. This being the case, it is something very curious—I often think so in my reflections—that men and women are today in the penitentiary, doomed to associate with the worst class of villains, because they believe in God. The same principle that exalted Abraham and made him the “friend of God,” because he believed God and obeyed Him today is considered a crime: for men and women who manifest that they have the faith of Abraham by doing the works of Abraham are considered fit subjects to be placed among murderers and the worst class of characters. I presume if 50 years ago, any man had said that the time would come when the doctrine of Christ should be so unpopular that those who believed God, and who practiced the principles that lead to endless lives, would be incarcerated in dungeons, he would have been considered slightly insane. It has been the boast of the nation to which we are attached, that wherever the glorious flag waved it was a source of consolation to the people of all nations to know that there was a spot on earth that was the land of the free and the home of the brave. With a Constitution that is the admiration of all nations and peoples, nobody would have ever thought for a moment that the circumstances that we see today, and the facts that we are in possession of, would ever be recorded upon the pages of American history, and they never would have been had the spirit of patriotism that dwelt in the bosoms of those who consecrated their lives, their sacred honor, and their all, for the establishment of a spot on earth that should be indeed the land of the free, and the home of the brave, been manifested today. No brave man would ever interfere with another man’s religion. It is all that I have. My hope, my joy. Take my religion away, and I am a beggar of the poorest kind. If I am wrong show me my wrong: I am open to conviction. I embraced the doctrine taught by the Latter-day Saints, because I believed that it was true, and that it promised to me something more than I was in possession of. The humble man that brought the glad tidings of the restoration of the Gospel, told me that if I would appeal to God who dwells in the heavens, and would appeal honestly, He would give me light and intelligence, and that if I would obey the Gospel I should be put in possession of knowledge that it was true; that I would learn that Joseph Smith was no false prophet, but a true prophet sent of God; that holy angels, holding keys of power and authority, had visited the earth for the express purpose of restoring the Priesthood of God, that the Gospel might be taught in power and authority in all nations, preparatory to the coming of the Son of Man, which is nigh at our doors. Wishing to be kind to myself; wishing to understand if there was any truth in all these things, I went where we should all go—to the throne of grace, and asked God the Eternal Father in the name of Jesus Christ, that if the testimonies I had heard were true, that I might have a knowledge of the same; that I was willing to embrace the Gospel provided that it was true, and it would guarantee the excellency of knowledge that was promised me if I would seek wisdom at His hands and obey. I asked that if it was the truth I might know it; because if any man desired eternal life I did; if any man desired to serve God I did; if any man desired the remission of his sins I did; and consequently I went to that source that I would presume all intelligent men and women would appeal to when a message of the kind that came unto us through the Prophet Joseph Smith was sounded in our ears. I obtained that knowledge, and I have endeavored faithfully to bear my testimony wherever I have been, and under whatever circumstances I have been placed. And I have never taken any step but what I have appealed to the same source, believing as I do in the Gospel of Christ, believing as I do in the Bible, and believing that James meant what he said when he stated: “If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” I went forth in the simplicity of my heart believing God would answer my prayer. He did so, and from that day to this I have had, in my associations with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a living testimony of the truth of this work, and the closer I live to the requirements and to the principles that have been enunciated, and are continually enunciated, by inspired men, the greater the happi– ness and peace I enjoy. Do I wish to interfere with the rights and privileges of anybody? God forbid. Do I wish to do anything that would be a reproach to this nation? God forbid. The course that the Latter-day Saints are taking is an honor to the nation. It is an honor to this country. That God our Eternal Father selected men who had been born, and raised on this soil to usher in the dispensation of the fullness of times. It certainly ought to be a source of joy to all men who are honest in heart, and who desire to obtain eternal life, to know that the keys are turned by which they can obtain the same. But as it was in the days of Christ, so it is today. The world by wisdom know not God: and the course that they are taking today in fighting against the principles of righteousness is a shocking record to make upon the pages of history. Can a false religion benefit me? Can manmade systems benefit me? Can I obtain the remission of my sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost, through uninspired men? I think not. I have no guarantee for that inside or outside of the lids of the Bible.

In my travels among the Latter-day Saints, circumstances have arisen that have caused me some reflection, more especially with regard to prayer. It might not be believed that among the people who profess to be Latter-day Saints, there are those who neglect prayer. We have had to ask young men, sometimes, that were Elders and who had been recommended to be Seventies, if they prayed, and in telling us the truth, they have stated that they did sometimes. I never should have doubted for a moment that there was anybody professing to be a Latter-day Saint who did not pray. I cannot understand it. I was inducted into the Kingdom of God by prayer, and I have been sustained by the Almighty Father, by prayer, ever since that day. I do not pray for form sake: I pray because I earnestly desire to have the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. I cannot understand how anybody can pray for form’s sake, although I have almost been led to believe that we do so on a great many times and occasions, and I will give you my reasons for so thinking. What is the idea, after singing, of one of the brethren standing up here to open this meeting by prayer? Is he not our spokesman, the mouthpiece, and should we not, while he utters the sentences, have those sentences pass through our minds in a prayer as a congregation, and when he has finished it, endorse the same by saying “amen.” What is the meaning of “amen?” So be it. Well, I noticed today that there were few “amens.” Why is this? Did we not endorse the prayer? Did we not sanction it? I should think if we did we would naturally say “amen”—so let it be. But I will tell you what I am afraid of—I am afraid of the Latter-day Saints getting into a form of religion and being no better off than their neighbors, or getting into the habit of going to meeting and hearing the singing and praying and the discourse without their having any influence whatever upon our minds any more than perchance to criticize. I cannot understand how that kind of a worship can be acceptable to God. If I understand it, He requires our hearts, and He desires when we pray that we mean what we say. What is the meaning of prayer? Why, it is to earnestly ask something that we require with all our hearts. All who are in fellowship of the Holy Ghost, will ask God for His Spirit to be in their hearts in all their business relations, even, that they might not soil their hands, but keep them clean and their hearts pure, that they might merit His approbation. The Lord Jesus Christ encouraged His disciples to pray—to pray without ceasing. Upon one occasion He spoke a parable on this very subject, that men ought always to pray and not faint. And I think if any people on the face of the earth ought to pray it certainly should be the Latter-day Saints; for we have no friends on the earth. All the friendship that we can depend upon is in God our Eternal Father, who controls the actions of all men, and who allows men to go to a certain extent, that they may prove before the heavens their corrupt hearts and what they would do if they were permitted; that every man through the agency that God has given him, may manifest himself before God, before the heavens, and before all mankind, as to the spirit he is of in the record that he makes. The Savior said there was a certain judge, “which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him saying, avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.” This was the parable that the Lord Jesus gave the people when persuading them “to pray, and not to faint.” “And the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge saith: “And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth.“ We as a people should certainly be a prayerful people, and I would venture to say that if we were not, if we depended upon our own strength, the time will come when we will fail. I cannot understand how in a well ordered house family prayer can be dispensed with. I cannot understand how it is that men understanding the responsibility that rests upon them, understanding their own weakness and insufficiency, understanding the blessing that God our Eternal Father has promised unto us through our faithfulness, should consider that they can do without God. Why, it seems to me that in every well regulated family the head thereof should gather his wives and children around him and bow at the altar, even the family altar, and offer unto God thanksgiving and praise for His protecting care and to entreat Him for His Spirit that we might be led by its counsels that He might not suffer us to be led into temptation, but that He would deliver us from evil. And I do not consider that this duty is all the time upon the head of the house. I consider that his family should take a part in family prayer. I do not consider it necessary for the man to be the mouthpiece all the time. I think it is just as acceptable to God our Eternal Father, for the wife to take her part in prayer, and for the boys and girls to take their part in the same exercise. It seems to me there is something very shocking that young men should be allowed to grow up until they are about twenty years of age and have it to say that their father never asked them to pray in the family circle. We expect our wives to be associated with the Relief Societies, and certainly they should know how to pray. We expect our young men to be associated with Young Men’s Associations, and they certainly should know how to pray. We expect our daughters to be associated with the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Associations, and they certainly should know how to pray. We expect our children to be associated with the Primary Associations, and they certainly should know how to pray. We do them an injustice when we do not divide up the honors in prayer in this way. It is requisite that all should take their turn in prayer, and I do not think it should be done for form’s sake. It should be the expression of glad hearts, understanding the great blessings that have been conferred upon us through the light and intelligence of the Gospel, and feeling glad that we are not under the condemnation of priestcraft, but that we have the privilege of priesthood; that we are not led by false teachers who have no authority, and who know not the way of life and salvation, but that God has given unto us true teachers, inspired by Him, that His people may learn of His ways and walk in His paths. And I believe in the counsel of the Savior when He advised His disciples to pray for their enemies. If there are people on the face of the earth who ought to be prayed for, it is our enemies. I would pray the Eternal Father that He would have mercy upon them, that He would enlighten their minds, that they might understand they were fighting against the truth. I would plead before Him that they might be prevented from making the dreadful record that they are making against themselves; I would plead that the Lord would be merciful unto them, that they might be converted as we are converted. Who converted us? The Spirit of God. What do we know only as we are taught of God, and what can they know of the true faith only as they are taught of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, in His dying agonies, and the martyr Stephen filled with the Spirit of His master, said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Lord, lay not this sin to their charge! Behold the unbounded love and charity that were in the breast of the Savior and His servant Stephen. We should have this same Spirit. It is a most awful thing to die in one’s sins. It is most awful to be classed with those who misrepresent, who are called in the Bible liars, who are to have their portion in the lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death. When I think that men of professed intelligence will stoop to such dishonorable means to bring trouble upon innocent people, I think they ought to be prayed for that God would have mercy upon them, that He would convert them from the error of their ways, that they might not be blotted out from the book of remembrance and become subject to the second death. I think common humanity should inspire us to pray for them. They are the children of God, and they are in the image of God, they are our brethren and sisters, children of the same parent: and it is a duty we owe to God and to mankind to pray that the Lord may have mercy upon sinners. I also believe that we should pray for the Chief Magistrate of this nation. We should pray that He might be inspired of God, and be a blessing to the nation in his integrity to the Constitution. I believe we should pray that God might overturn, and displace the wicked, and put in righteous men who would repeal the unrighteous acts and laws that have been passed, and thus demonstrate that they were willing that all mankind should enjoy what they themselves wish to enjoy—the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. All the happiness that I have is in keeping the commandments of God. All the happiness that I have has been given unto me through the new and everlasting covenant, which God has restored to the earth. And then I believe in secret prayer. I can go and tell my Father things that I would not want anybody else to know. I can go and ask His direction when I require it. So can the sisters, who are entrusted with these bright spirits that have been reserved in the heavens and foreordained to come down on the earth in the dispensation of the fullness of times to assist in the establishment of the Kingdom of God. How are you going to exercise righteous dominion over your children and teach them correct principles, unless you enjoy the revelations of God. I cannot understand how a woman can love her children and not plead before the Almighty, that they may be protected from all accident, that they may enjoy their senses, that they may be preserved in the use of their limbs, that they may not meet with any accident that would disfigure or disable them in the battle of life. I think all these things arise on common sense principles. When we know that God lives; when we know that He hears and answers our prayers; when we know that we are dependent upon Him and upon Him alone; when we know that we have no friends outside, and that the world is at enmity with God, is at enmity with us, and with the principles of righteousness, we should humble ourselves to the dust, and ask God to be merciful to us and to all mankind.

Then, again, hew can we have faith in the Gospel, unless we have the Spirit of God. In a revelation that has been given, and that is frequently quoted, we are told that when we do as the Lord sayeth He is bound to fulfill; but when we do not we have no promise. And on another occasion He said that He could not look upon sin with the slightest degree of allowance. Do we believe this? Do we believe that all we have, or that we ever expect to have, comes or will come from God? Do we understand this principle? Do we understand that if we do not obey the Gospel, that if we do not offer unto the Father the offering of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, we will not be accepted of Him? Do we understand that unless we live the principles that He has revealed from the heavens, that we have no promise of the future, and then to think it a light thing not to pray. The Lord has said with regard to the work of the ministry, and the establishment of His Kingdom on the earth that, “No one can assist in this work, except he shall be humble and full of love, having faith, hope and charity, being temperate in all things, whatsoever shall be entrusted to his care.” How is it possible for us to be put in possession of these inestimable virtues unless we desire them with all our hearts! And how can we obtain them but by earnest prayer to Him from whence all these priceless blessings flow? From what other source can we obtain them? Why, if we thoroughly understand our position, and our entire dependence upon God our Eternal Father, our prayers would ascend up to heaven night and day, and they would be mingled with praise and thanksgiving to God, for the mercies and blessings He has vouchsafed unto us. If we do not see the necessity of this it is because we are too ignorant to understand the loving kindness of God, and it is time we should wake up to righteousness and good works, that we may have wise and understanding hearts. The Lord has indeed been merciful to us as a people. How marvelously He has protected us! How marvelously He has blessed us as a people, and how cheerfully He has poured out His Spirit upon us when we have sought it. It behooves us to walk in His paths. It is our duty to walk in the light, even as the beloved Apostle said: “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” The same beloved Apostle said: “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”

My brethren and sisters: Let us pray to God our Eternal Father; let us make ourselves familiar with His Spirit and the impress thereof; let us, if we have not done so, put our houses in order, remembering that we are living in perilous times, that we are living in the hour of God’s judgment, that we are on the eve of famine, of pestilence, of earthquakes; and it behooves every man and woman professing to be Latter-day Saints to be alive to their duties, to put away all folly, to live humbly and frugally before God, and to prepare for the calamities that are coming upon the earth. We have been warned and forewarned, and I say unto the Latter-day Saints prepare ye, O prepare ye, for the calamities that are at our doors. Let us cease all extravagance; let us remember the children entrusted to our care that they, too, may have something for a day when nothing shall be raised; let us sanctify ourselves before the Lord, striving to do His will and keep His commandments, calling upon Him in mighty prayer (remembering “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,“) to have mercy upon His heritage; and that these valleys of the mountains may indeed and of a truth be the land of the free and the home of the brave; which blessings I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by Apostle F. D. Richards, delivered at the General Conference, at Logan, held in October, 1885.

Providence seems to smile upon our gathering together for a conference at this time. Indeed, as a people, if we take into consideration all of the blessings of our common salvation, we are today highly favored of the Lord, in every general respect. I think our hearts ought to be moved by a sense of gratitude for all of His many blessings to us, both temporal and spiritual. Our brethren here have gone to and improved the condition of their tabernacle, so that we are very comfortably situated. The singers, I think, feel that they have got into the right place; a good table is also provided for the reporters. I take this opportunity to invite reporters of any and all newspapers that may be present, who wish to do so, to come forward, take a seat at this table and report the proceedings of our conference. The only favors we ask at their hands is that they will please report us correctly.

We have been striving half a century to inform the world of the principles of our faith, and we have not tired at it yet; we are still sending missionaries to the four quarters of the earth. We have sent them without stint of numbers to the people of this great nation, the United States; have endeavored to inform them ever since the year 1830, and especially since the endowment at Kirtland in 1836, when the Apostles, High Priests and Elders went forth into all parts of this nation, as far as permitted, and as fast as they had opportunity, to inform the people of the principles of our faith. But it seems almost impossible to get to their ears, and much less likely to reach their hearts. It appears to have been easier for us in an early day to receive that measure which the Lord had revealed for our benefit than it is now when He is giving us so much that the new wine cannot be received into the old vessels, and if it could we do not know what the results would be. In these our times, some of the feeble and fainthearted, will no doubt think that because of the efforts at persecution against us we have reason to be very sad, to pull long faces and be cast down because we are oppressed. Brethren, not so. Do not think of it a minute. So long as we are dealt with in a milder manner than our Master was, we have reason to be thankful and ought to go on our way rejoicing. So long as we are not dealt with more harshly than our brethren have been in former periods of time and in this dispensation in which we live, we have reason to be thankful.

We lament the absence of our brethren of the First Presidency, and several of the Council of the Twelve Apostles. We would be glad and thankful if we could have them all with us, but we are pleased that so many of us can be with you as are here. We hope that the conference will result in the strengthening the good resolutions of every Latter-day Saint—in invigorating the energies of all who are in anywise afflicted, or oppressed with temptations and trials of any kind. The Lord told the brethren in his day—those whom He appointed, laid His hands upon and ordained to the Apostleship—that this would be their heritage; that they would be vilified and hailed to prison, and that men would think they were doing God service in taking their lives from the earth. And, said He, is the servant greater than His master? No. He told them that when they experienced these things, they were to lift up their heads and rejoice; for great was their reward in heaven. Therefore, we have the assurance that if we are true and faithful, we shall suffer trials and temptations as they did in former days, and as Joseph and Hyrum, and the brethren of the Apostles, with a host of Elders, have done in these latter days for the principles of the Gospel.

These things, however, should not move us, or they should only, if they move us at all, strengthen us to stand true to the holy faith of the Gospel, to the principles, ordinances and institutions which the Lord has revealed unto us. We may expect to meet opposition on every hand, but our opposition may come in a different form from what our brethren have formerly had to endure; we should, however, be armed with the spirit of divine truth, so that we may comprehend our duty under every circumstance and every condition in life. I know some of the brethren feel that it is a very serious thing to be cast into prison. Why, there is many a thing worse than that. It is a thousand times better to go to prison than to deny the principles of the Gospel, and to be forsaken of the Holy Spirit. What did Brother Brigham say before he left us? When Congress passed the law of 1862, I heard him make this remark—rather startling at the time—that a man who would not be willing to pay his fine and take a term of imprisonment for a real good, virtuous woman was not worthy of a wife at all. Well, let us learn to look at these things in a proper manner, and be thankful that our conditions are no worse. Let us look to God continually; He will guide and control all things for the good of His people.

There is a portion of the writings of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, that seems so appropriate to our condition, that I propose to read in the hearing of the congregation a part of the 6th chapter, commencing at the 10th verse:

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

“Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

“Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

“Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousnes;

“And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace;

“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”

I have read these words because of their remarkable adaptation to our present condition and circumstances.

I feel, in attempting to address the Saints, a very great degree of helplessness, and of dependence upon the enlightenment and aid of the Holy Spirit in order that I may speak to you a short time unto edification; for without the spirit of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit of divine truth which is sent forth to testify of God and of the truth to the hearts of the honest in the earth, our labors will be of very trifling account. But if we have the aid and help of that Spirit, then we may be edified and rejoice together as the children of God—both he that speaketh and he that heareth.

It would seem that after the very elaborate and comprehensive epistle that has been communicated to us by our brethren of the First Presidency, in which they seem to cover many of the circumstances which now attend upon God’s people, and in which they also give to us such words of exhortation and instruction as, if followed by us, must not only make us understand better our condition, but know better how to occupy our positions with credit to ourselves and to the acceptance of God our heavenly Father—I say it would seem, after reading that epistle, and having it impressed upon our minds, as I am sure it must be upon all who listened in spirit and in truth, as if it were scarcely necessary that anything more should be said to put us right in regard to our duties and give us understanding concerning them, or strength in the performance of them. But we each of us have a testimony of the truth of the Gospel and of the work of God to bear to our brethren and sisters, and I feel a desire myself, in common with my brethren, to communicate such things as may be given to me, so that we may be encouraged in the work in which we are engaged; that we may feel our good resolutions strengthened within us, that we may be led to realize in whose name we trust, in whose strength we stand, and that we may be able also to realize, as the Apostle Paul did, when he wrote, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Our condition is a very peculiar one in regard to this nation, and yet it is no more strange or peculiar than has been the condition of God’s people in other ages which are re– corded in history for our comfort, encouragement and consolation. Therefore, I feel this morning like speaking a little about the nature of that which is called crime, which is charged upon us.

We are told by men in high places that it is the highest duty of good citizens to render obedience to the laws of the land in which we live. Now I can scarcely believe that any professor of religion—any honest religious professor of any Christian denomination in these United States—can honestly and solidly endorse that sentiment, much less anyone who is clothed with the ermine and is honored with a seat upon the judicial bench; yet it is from judges that we hear this. A great apostle of the law, the greatest, the ablest and most popular delineator of the law from the days of Justinian of ancient Rome down until his day, was the renowned Mr. Blackstone himself. When portions of various nations had settled together in the island of Great Britain—some from the northern states of Scandinavia, others from Brittany, and the different parts of the German or Saxon nations and had collected the laws of those countries for the purpose of having them assimilated, so that those people who came from their various countries should have one established usage of law for the regulation of all their civil and criminal procedures in the adjudication of their difficulties with each other, the learned Chancellor Blackstone undertook this great task, and from the alembic of his intelligent and powerful mind brought forth and enunciated his views of the law. These views have been held to be the basis of all legal administration; the fundamental principles of jurisprudence among all Christian nations ever since he published them.

This celebrated gentleman who is considered to this present day as one of the greatest, if not the very greatest legal light of the age, laid it down plainly and emphatically, that man had no right to make any laws contrary to or in conflict with the law of God. I wish every lawyer throughout the nation would read it and understand it; for when they depart from that rule they become apostate from the faith of true legal jurisprudence as laid down by this distinguished apostle of the law; and furthermore, he held that the laws which should regulate or constitute the jurisprudence of every nation were derived from and based upon the laws revealed by God, through the Prophet Moses. This gentleman stated and laid down as a fact that the Ten Commandments, the ancient law of God, were held by him to be the basis, and fundamental principle of all law, justice and administration that should be had among the human family. He claims that as the basis of his work. Then no man who is a true lawyer, after the order of the celebrated Blackstone, can say in truth that it is the highest duty of a good citizen that he should observe in all things the laws of the land, unless it be first established that those laws are consistent with the laws of God.

Now, then, wherein are we transgressors? I wish to call your attention to this a few minutes, because I desire my brethren and sisters to understand whenever they are called in question before the tribunals of this nation—I want our boys and girls that are growing up around us to understand what is the nature of that which is called crime, which is alleged against their fathers, and in which their mothers are participants. It was never alleged against us as men of Israel, as “Mormons,” if you please, that we were violators or had been, violators of the law of the land until July, 1862. It was never proven and cannot now be shown that we, as a people were violators of any law of the land whatever. In 1862, a law was enacted against bigamy, or polygamy. The term bigamy had always been used before, but now it was coupled with polygamy in order that it might be made to reach, and be understood by everybody as intended for, the Latter-day Saints.

Now, then, to come at the matter in question, what is the crime, if any there is, in this doctrine of heavenly marriage as we hold it, the doctrine of the eternal covenant of marriage, incident to which is plurality of wives? When we married our wives at the first—we were New Englanders, Britons, Scandinavians, &c.—we were married until death should us part. That was the period for which we made contract, whether we went into the church and had the ordinance solemnized by an ecclesiastic, or whether it was done before a justice of the peace, judge, or any civil magistrate. When the law of God came, before the doctrine of the eternity and plurality of marriage was taught to us, the Lord gave us a revelation, in a very early day, in regard to members of other churches being rebaptized. Some of them doubted the need of being rebaptized. They said we were baptized into the Baptist church; we were sprinkled in the Methodist church, in the Presbyterian, in the Congregational: why be baptized again? The Lord in answer to this question told His people that all old covenants He had caused to be done away; but “behold!” He said, “I give unto you a new and everlasting cove– nant.” Therefore, all had to go forth, who had been baptized by men having no authority to administer, and be baptized by one who had authority, in the name of Jesus, for the forgiveness of sins, and for admission into the Church of Christ. By and by, when we had walked before the Lord for a number of years, He revealed to us the laws of marriage. Well-regulated parents do not teach their children when they are dandling them on their laps the nature of the covenant, or the ordinance, or the duties of marriage. They wait until they grow up. It is proper that they should wait until their children have attained to years of judgment, understanding, and perhaps to the age of puberty. So the Lord, in dealing with his children did not reveal this eternal covenant of marriage until his people had lived a while in keeping the first laws and ordinances of the Church, and learned to walk in the light of the Holy Spirit, and to purify themselves from the various besetments with which they were attended when they went into the waters of baptism, and become better prepared for more exalted principles and truths. One of the last great principles that the Prophet Joseph was commanded of God to teach us, was the law regulating the eternity of marriage; that whereas, we had taken our wives only until death should us part, we should now understand that we were, while in the flesh, laying the foundation for eternal dominions, crowns and exaltations; that our wives and our children were given to us of God for the purpose of laying the foundation of a kingdom; that we shall have, if we are faithful and obedient, the covenant of eternal life ourselves and the power to seal the same upon our generations, that they may become, as Abraham’s, like the sands of the seashore for number.

The Latter-day Saints claim to be the children of Abraham, and if they are the children of Abraham, they will do the works of Abraham. It was difficult for men and women from all parts of the world, who had lived in the monogamic order all their lives to accept this doctrine of the eternity and plurality of marriage. It was “a new and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned, saith the Lord.” This was the obligation that was laid upon the Prophet Joseph, and through him, upon the true believers of the Church, even all who were worthy to accept of these obligations. It was herein that the Elders and their wives extended their faith, enlarged their obedience, and accepted the terms of the new and everlasting covenant extending not through time only, but eternity also.

Now, I ask, who is injured by a man taking a second wife, when the wife he now has is agreeable and it is mutually understood between her and him and the newly affianced; it being entered into with a mutual understanding and a mutual agreement according to the law of God—I ask, who is injured?

Wherein consists the crime of bigamy? It is this. When a man takes one wife he covenants to adhere to her until death do them part. He violates that covenant when he takes another woman, unknown to his wife; he thus practices fraud upon her. This is where the crime comes in. Fraud is perpetrated upon his own family. I want the old and the young to understand it; I want to come down to the root of the matter, and find out and show up what the crime is, if any, that is charged upon us. This crime of taking another wife when a man has one is called bigamy; and there are laws and penalties against it. With the Latter-day Saints there is no fraud practiced, the second wife being accepted with the mutual consent of the first, and in accordance with the revelations of God. There is in that no crime at all, unless some law of God is violated, or somebody is injured in the matter. If this transaction that I have just named violates the law of God, or if it injures or infringes upon the rights of a brother or a sister, then there may be some ground for pronouncing it a crime, but belief in, and practice of, the eternity and plurality of the marriage covenant do not violate the law of God, because He has commanded His people to accept and obey it. Neither is it an infringement upon the rights of others, neither men nor women, but gives all women an opportunity to become honorable wives and mothers, and thus to shut out what is politely called the social evil, with all its horrid concomitants of seduction, feticide, infanticide and all the train of sexual monogamic evils which haunt and infest Christendom.

If, then, we violate no law of God nor right of our fellows, wherein, I ask again, consists the crime of our religious faith? It is in this: that Congress forbids it; just as Darius forbade Daniel praying to God, and because he persisted, cast him into the den of lions; the same as Herod caused all the male children to be slain, hoping to kill Christ our Savior in his infancy; the same also as Nebuchadnezzar cast the Hebrew children into the flames because they worshiped the living God rather than his idol. Wherein consists the crime of Daniel praying to the God of Israel? Simply be– cause King Darius forbade him doing it.

What constituted the crime of the Hebrew children in worshiping the God of Heaven? Solely because Nebuchadnezzar commanded them to worship the golden image, which they would not do. What is the intrinsic nature of our crime in believing and practicing the eternal covenant of plural marriage as revealed by the Almighty, and as we are commanded to do? Simply and solely this: Congress passed a law making it a penal offense to do so. This is all the criminality there is about it; and the question remains for each one to answer, Shall we obey God or man?

What is liberty—the liberty that you and I and all men are entitled to enjoy? It is that we do not violate the law of God, or that we do not infringe upon the rights and liberties of our fellow creatures. That is true liberty. Upon that hang also the law and the prophets.

In the establishment of this principle of the Gospel, the marriage covenant, it is intended only for God’s people, and not for the people of the world. They do not want it. They would like to have that liberty which is not liberty but license—by which they can continue and perpetuate seduction and adultery among them—keep up their houses of prostitution and their places of assignation. It is a part of the business of both high and low to keep going this degradation and destruction of the female portion of the race, and it is because the people of God have taken a course that every righteous woman may have an honorable husband, become an honorable wife and have a position in the family and household, that our brethren are hailed to prison; be– cause they are faithful to their families; because they have taken wives in order that they may rear up children, have a generation to bear their names and their priesthood, and to become a people devoted to the living God.

I want to say in this connection, as I wish all to understand it, that when we adopted this principle by the revelations of God, there was no law in the land against it. Understand it, brethren and sisters. But it is now as in ancient times, when the captives of Judea were carried into Babylon. Their captors found excellent qualities in them, as some say now they like our industry, our enterprise and our virtue “outside the marriage relation,” but we want you to put away this commandment of the Lord and “become like us,” “be as we are,” then we will like you, and we will be hail fellows well met.

The representatives of the country at Washington have discovered something or other in these mountains that is displeasing to them; that we are increasing; that we delight in our children, and do not take measures to prevent their coming forth, as is very frequently done in the world; that we are willing to take wives and support them rather than to indulge in whoredom and the like; and they said, “This won’t do.” Hence they went to work and passed a law against us, that would prevent us carrying out the principles of our religion. I want these young boys and girls, as well as the older ones, to know that God has never given us a law that was in conflict with any law of the land; but that Congress has enacted laws to make us criminals. There is no crime in that which we practice, inasmuch as no man is injured, no woman injured, and no person’s rights are invaded; on the contrary, our people are called upon to exercise a great amount of self-denial and self-abnegation, that all may be blessed, and that the charity of the Gospel may be extended to all the human family, as God has designed and ordained. Thus, we are not violators of the law of the land, but the lawmakers of the nation make us transgressors. God commands us to keep His law. The people through their representatives say we shall not. That is all there is in it. They undertake to say that we shall not observe the law of plural marriage, and in consequence of this they are hailing us to prison. Our outgoings and incomings are watched by marshals, so as to find something upon which to bring us before a commissioner or before a grand jury; not for any crime we have done, but because we have obeyed God, which Congress has said we must not do—making a law against us—whereas we are violating no law.

I do not love to talk against my fellow men; I simply present these things to you to show up the real state of the case. It is unpleasant for me to say that the men of the Congress of 1862, and that of 1882, were not men of the most immaculate virtue. It is understood throughout the land that nowhere on this continent is the practice of whoredom and of the seduction of women carried on to a greater extent than in the city of Washington, and by those men who go there to make laws against this people. What attitude does it place the people of this nation in, and the Congress of the country, in relation to us and this law we are undertaking to keep? Why, as soon as the Lord has established His Gospel and covenant, the spirits of the other world are seeking to come and dwell among us; they desire a parentage among the Saints of the living God, where they can be welcomed with filial love and not repulsed by feticide, where they can be brought up in the fear of God, with a hope of returning pure to the Father’s presence, without being lost by blood guiltiness or other crimes while in mortality.

How do you think the spirits contemplate the necessity of a birth in the nations of the earth where so much harlotry and whoredom exist? I tell you this very presumption of the country in which we live, that we shall not have these children to dwell in our midst and bear the name of Christ in the earth, is a presumption against the very heavens, and against those spirits of the just who are waiting to be made perfect through their sufferings in the flesh.

Ah! says one, you folks in the mountains, numbering only one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand, need not talk in that kind of way; for here is a great nation of fifty-five millions of people who say you shall not do this thing, or, if you do, you cannot have a home with us. Well, we will admit that about two hundred people of the United States say to everyone of the Latter-day Saints that we must put away this doctrine, or we cannot dwell in this land. Well, that is a terrible majority against us: but let us look at this a little. I do not think that we need be very badly scared. You recollect at one time a young man was with Elisha the Prophet, when a large host compassed the city, both with horses and chariots, and a battle was imminent. It was turbulent times with Israel then, worse than it is with us now. The defending army was a very small one, and the heart of the young man began to falter. He could not see how the few of Israel were going to prevail against their numerous enemies. Whereupon Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he,” the young man, “may see.” And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Fear not, said the Prophet, “for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

Now, it is so with us exactly. All the fathers who have gone before, the Prophet Joseph, and Hyrum, the Apostles and Patriarchs, the Elders, High Priests, and hosts of others, say nothing of the fathers of our generation hundreds of years back, are all around us, waiting and watching and anxious to see us go forward and triumph; so that we have many more for us than against us, the fifty-five millions to the contrary notwithstanding. Therefore, we have no occasion to let our hands hang down from fear, or our knees to tremble; not a bit of it. On the contrary, I tell you, my brethren and sisters, that one of the greatest evils existing in our midst today is that there are too many of us. You may think that is a hard saying; but there are decidedly too many of us. There are people among us who are committing all manner of sin and transgression—people who drink with the drunken and spend their substance with harlots and in riotous living. All such should be severed from the Church, unless they repent speedily. The numbers should be reduced, like unto the army of Gideon. The Lord told Gideon that he had too big an army, and it was reduced, (in the manner related in the seventh chapter of the Book of Judges) from two and thirty thous– and to three hundred, which was all the Lord wanted. The others were told to go home, and Gideon, by following the instructions of the Lord, put all the hosts of the Midianites and Amalekites, who were said to be “like grasshoppers for multitude,” to flight.

That is just what is the matter with us. There are too many with us who are not living as Latter-day Saints ought to live. Again, there are many who walk in other men’s light. If they whose duty it is will only put away from us those who will not serve God, we shall find ourselves strengthened in the work in which we are engaged. If we will but do what is right, we need not fear what our enemies can do. The Lord only wants the honest, the obedient, the faithful, and He will “turn the world upside down, waste the inhabitants thereof,” and glorify Himself by His people.

I have referred to the instance of Gideon on purpose to remind you that the work of the Lord is not upheld by strength of numbers, but it is by the Spirit of God—the spirit of obedience, which is better than sacrifice or the fat of rams, and that the wisdom of God is better than strength or weapons of war.

Men of intelligence—politicians from European countries as well as our own—have visited this country, and I have heard them tell President Young that we had a very strong government in this Territory. We all know that: but it is good to have wise men visit Utah from abroad and see the excellence and strength of its government.

I would say to the people of the land—inasmuch as they are making this bugaboo about polygamy—not to be deceived. The Governor has told men upon the streets that he did not care anything about poly– gamy; (we knew very well that he did not by his conduct;) but it was the power of the Church that must be broken. Must it? This is the work of the Lord, and there need not anybody mistake it. The order of God’s church and kingdom is the strongest government ever known on this earth, and if the people of this great nation entertain any fears of the consequence or effects of such a government, why, I ask, don’t you of the nation, you of Congress, you of the Cabinet, if you please, embrace this order of government and establish it over the nation! You can do it. You can repent of your sins, every one of you, and be baptized for a remission of them. You can adopt and extend this strong government which God has established in these mountains, and if you will do it, God will establish you and the government and this nation never to depart from before His face; and you shall be made the means of helping to bring everlasting righteousness—the millennium—upon this land, and of causing the Spirit of God to rest down upon all flesh. Is it not worth your while to engage in a thing of this kind?

But, ah! The terrible fact exists that the blood of the prophets is upon this nation, although the nation has not shed their blood, yet a sovereign state permitted it, and the nation have not washed their hands from it. This accounts for the terrible hardness of heart that is to be found in this country.

Were it not for a lying press and a corrupt people in our midst, who incite ignorant people to send petitions against the “Mormons” to Congress by the bushel, the nation could not be wrought up to such frenzy, nor to make such laws as the Edmunds law against us. But they do these things because their hearts are hard, and because the blood of innocence rests upon them this nation have yet to rise up and rid themselves of this blood, and place the responsibility where it belongs, or they will have to suffer as accomplices after the fact for these terrible things done in their midst—this people driven from city to city, despoiled of their goods; driven into the wilderness to this country, to find a home in which they could dwell in peace. Blessed be God for enabling us to find it out! We have had a home of peace and rejoicing, and we have been blessed in all things. Have we need today to be terrified? Do our hearts need to palpitate for fear? We have had a United States army camp in our midst already, and we have no occasion to fear now; God will work out the deliverance of His people.

The Lord never more thoroughly frustrated the design of an army than in the instance of that which came out here, and never was there a time when He caused the gain of the Gentiles to be scattered among His people more effectually than He did with the goods the army brought to this country.

Shall we fear today? Let us look back to Israel and see their deliverance—as related in the Bible and Book of Mormon—see what He did in former times. The secret of success is obedience to the commandments of God, and to the covenants we have made with Him.

It does not become me to say what I will do when I am brought to the judgment seat to be tried and sentenced. A man don’t know what he will do. Let us recollect the instance of Peter, who walked with Jesus by day and by night. In the light of these things it does not do to boast what we will do; but I hope by the blessing of God to remain firm and immovable when these things look me in the face. I ask God to give me grace sufficient that I may keep His commandments, honor every law He has given, or shall give, and stand firm to the truth under every circumstance in life.

I pray that the blessing of God may be upon you. Be true and faithful to God. Let the brethren attend to those things which the First Presidency have pointed out in their epistle in regard to transgressors, and they that fear not God neither regard His precepts and laws. Keep the commandments of God, and let us teach our families to do so also, that we may grow strong in His righteousness; then we shall find it is no matter how many there are against us, we shall know that there are more for us than against us. He will bring us all right up to the test, and will find out what is in every man and what every man is able to endure. Our sisters think that they had all the hurt of this matter, that the men had it nice and fine; but I tell you the men will get their full share, and you sisters will get even with them, if you will only abide true and faithful.

May the Lord grant His blessing upon each as we have need; I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, December 14, 1884.

It is always an impressive sight to me to see a congregation numbering so many people as this does, raise their hands before the Lord to sustain the names of men who are presented to them as holding office in the Church, and though we do this semi-annually, in our general conferences for the General Authorities, and quarterly, that is, four times a year for the local authorities, it should not be in our feelings nor in our practice the performance of an empty form, but should be done in a spirit that will be acceptable unto our Father, and in consonance with the responsibility that devolves upon the men whom we sustain. For when we thus sustain these men it means more than the mere lifting of our hands, or at least should do so. It means the sustaining of these men by our faith and by our prayers, and so far as works are required, by our works, and when we thus vote and thus act, there is a power and an influence accompanying such action as we have performed this afternoon, that are felt by those in whose favor we vote: they feel strengthened, and God our Eternal Father seals His blessing, or causes it to descend upon those who are voted for, and there is a spirit that rests down upon them from that time forward, so long as they are faithful and are thus sustained, that manifests itself unto all with whom they are brought in contact. Let this congregation lift up their hands to sever a man from the Church, and no matter how high he may be in authority, no matter what Priesthood he bears, no matter how great and mighty he may have been in the Church and in the ministry—let this congregation for just cause lift up their hands against any such man and how quickly the effect is felt, how quickly that man is stripped of his power and of his influence, and of that spirit and those gifts which have been conspicuous in his labors previous to such action, or while he was in good standing and in fellowship with God and his brethren and sisters. We have seen numerous illustrations of this in our history. Name after name might be mentioned of men who have been bright stars in the firmament, who have been stripped—by their own conduct to begin with, and afterwards by the action of the Saints of God upon their case—of that luster, of that brightness, and of that glory that seemed to attend their ministrations. And while this is the case with those who have transgressed when the Saints of God act upon their cases, so it is, on the contrary, with those who are sustained in their ministry, and in their Priesthood, and in their calling by the united, uplifted hands of the Saints of God in conference assembled, as we have done this afternoon. Men may sneer at the Latter-day Saints, and say this is but an empty form, and that it is all prearranged. Men may say what they please about this. It is prearranged according to the spirit and mind of God, so far as that can be ascertained. When men are chosen for office, the Spirit of God is sought for by those who have the right to select, and if there be doubt upon certain points men are not chosen; but when they are chosen and the mind of the Lord is sought for to know whether it will be agreeable to Him that they receive this office, or that they should act in those positions, and when they are thus selected and thus submitted, as I have said, to the Conference, then if they themselves live so as to have the Spirit of God with them, they will be clothed with it, and when they seek to magnify their office God will magnify them before the people and will show them, and the people that they are indeed His chosen servants, and that their ministrations are acceptable unto Him, that He confirms them by the outpouring of His Spirit and the bestowal of His gifts. It is a remarkable fact in this age of unbelief, in this age of doubt, in this age of darkness, in this age when men pride themselves upon there being no revelation, and no knowledge from God—I say it is a remarkable fact that in this age such as we now live in, and such as we are familiar with, God, in the history of this people is accompanying His labors, and the labors to which He assigns His servants, with the ancient power, with the ancient manifestations, and with the ancient confirmations by gifts and by mighty signs and works that He causes His servants to accomplish.

When Moses was about to depart, God required of him that he should lay his hands upon another man to take his place to act as the leader of the people of Israel. He laid his hands upon Joshua, and a portion of that spirit and power that had attended the ministrations of Moses in the midst of Israel was immediately manifested through Joshua, and God confirmed the selection and impressed upon the people by the signs and the mighty works which Joshua accomplished that he was indeed God’s chosen servant. He magnified him in the midst of the people; he was enabled to perform mighty works, and the people, if they had had any doubts whatever, had those doubts removed by those manifestations of power. You remember how the Lord showed in the sight of all Israel that Joshua was His inspired and chosen servant, for under his direction the children of Israel crossed the river Jordan dry shod. It was at the time of high water in the river Jordan; but the Jordan was stayed in its onward course, its waters stopped running, and the whole hosts of Israel, by the direction of this servant of God, passed over dry shod. In this manner God showed unto His people that He had indeed chosen this man to be His servant. And so it has been in the entire history of God’s dealings with His people. He has not left them without a testimony. He has not left them to proclaim His word unaccompanied by His power. They have not been left to argue for themselves, to plead for themselves, to protest in the ears of the people that they were the servants of God, and to constantly contend for their rights as leaders of the people of God. But in every instance when He chose a man to be His servant, He accompanied that choice by the manifestations of His power, by the outpouring of His spirit, and His gifts, so that every honest soul, every humble man and woman who sought the Lord, might know for themselves that those men were His chosen ones. A most striking illustration of this suggests itself to my mind now. It occurred at the time the children of Israel desired a king. The Lord was displeased with them for this. Samuel also felt offended, for they had rejected him and his house. They had a good reason for desiring a king, at least they thought so. The surrounding nations had kings who went out and in before them to battle and were their leaders, and they desired to have a king, especially when the two sons of Samuel, whom he had chosen as Judges over Israel, were men who had turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. This Prophet of God, this mighty man of God, happened to have two sons who were unworthy of their father’s reputation, unworthy of the Priesthood, unworthy of their position as Judges in Israel. In consequence of this the leaders of Israel gathered together and said unto Samuel: “Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy way: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” Samuel was greatly offended with the thought. But the Lord said unto him: “Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” In other words, the Lord had led them and chosen for them those who should lead them up to that time, and now He would give them a king. He designated to Samuel the kind of man he should be, who he should be, and told him he should visit him. The person designated was Saul, and Samuel anointed him king of Israel. After he was chosen king, it seems that he went about his ordinary business, and the next we hear of him he was following the herd, driving up the cattle, when the news came to him that Nahash, the Ammonite, would only be pacified towards the men of Jabesh-Gilead upon one condition, and that was that he might thrust their right eyes out, in token of their subjection, and as a reproach upon all Israel. And then, at that time, when danger threatened Israel, when there was a necessity for a general, for a man to lead the hosts of Israel, the Spirit and power of Almighty God, and the anointing that he had received under the hands of the Prophet of God, descended upon that young man, Saul, and his anger was kindled at the insult that had been offered to his nation, and he took a yoke of oxen and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel, by the hands of messengers, saying: Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen. And great fear fell upon the people; they gathered out, and he organized his army, and they fell upon their enemies and cleaned them out.

Now, this is an illustration of the manner in which God operates upon His servants and upon His people. This young man was following peaceful pursuits. Though he had been chosen a king, he had not seemed to assume kingly dignity, he had gone about his business; but when the crisis arose, when there was a necessity for someone to step forward and take the leading position, then the spirit of that position to which he had been anointed, and to which he had been chosen by the voice of God, by the act of His Prophet, and by the approbation of the people, rested upon him, and he emerged from his obscurity and arose in their midst a king, a leader in very deed and in truth.

And so it was, you remember, in the case of Elisha. When Elijah was about to be taken to heaven, the spirit of prophecy seemed to rest upon all the prophets. The sons of the prophets came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, “Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.” At a former time he had been plowing in the field, with twelve yoke of oxen, when Elijah came along, and Elisha dropped his work and followed the prophet of God. Afterwards, when Elijah’s departure drew near, he said unto Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee let a double portion of that spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast a hard thing; nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.” And sure enough, he beheld a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and he saw his master ascend in his sight to heaven, and undoubtedly that gift that he had asked for, and that Elijah said should be granted unto him if he beheld his departure, was given to this man of God, it rested upon him, and when he came to the Jordan, having Elisha’s mantle which he had dropped, he smote the water in the power of God, and cried, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” so that the waters divided, and he passed over dry-shod. God accompanied that man by His power wherever he went. A great and a mighty prophet was he; so great and so mighty, that it is related of him that after his death a band of Moabites came into the land. The people of Israel were burying a man. While in this act, they became frightened at seeing a band of men, and cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha; and when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood upon his feet. He was a mighty prophet, and he received those gifts and this power from God, which He bestows upon all those who receive the everlasting Priesthood, and who seek to magnify it in the spirit thereof.

Read, too, of the transformation that occurred when Jesus laid His hands upon His apostles. The lowly, the ignorant, and the unlettered fishermen were transformed into mighty men, men of power, men of influence, men who had communication with the heavens, unto whom God revealed His mind and will, and through whom He performed mighty works. These men previously were obscure men, men of humble lives, fishermen, probably one of the lowest occupations that men followed in those days, as it is in our day. It is a lowly occupation is that of a fisherman. It is not one that brings great wealth; it does not bring men into public notice; it gives them no opportunity for distinction; but these men were men whose lives were hid with God. These were Princes in disguise, men who had been chosen, like their Lord and Master, according to my view, before the foundations of the earth were laid, to be His companions in the flesh, and like Him they were born in lowly and obscure circumstances. But when He chose them, when their hearts were touched by the great truths He taught, and they came forward, in obedience to His authority, to cast their lot with Him, then the power of God descended upon them; they performed mighty works, and while they lived upon the earth the Holy Ghost was their companion, and their fame has come down to us embalmed, it may be said, through the ages that have transpired, through the ignorance, and the gloom, and the darkness, and the apostasy that have since taken place—their names have come down to us from our ancestors, and the most glorious edifices and structures that the world know anything of, are dedicated to their memories. God made them mighty in the midst of the children of men. And so it was with all the prophets. When God made promises unto them they received them. But they did not receive these things without exertion on their part, without their seeking industriously to magnify that Priesthood which had been bestowed upon them. The spirit and power of God will rest upon a man if he listens to it. It will impel him to action. If he cherishes it, it will be his constant companion. It will be with him in times when he will need it, and when he does need it, if he magnifies his calling, the spirit and power of the Almighty—that spirit and power and those gifts which belong to his particular office—will rest upon him, and he will be made equal to every emergency, to every trial, and will come off victorious.

How was it with the Prophet Joseph Smith? Whose origin could be more lowly in a land like ours than his, springing from the humblest ranks of life, of parents that were not distinguished, or of any family that was known particularly, bearing a name more common than any other name in our language. Yet this man, because God had chosen him, manifested extraordinary power. Those who saw him, those who listened to him, those who witnessed his acts, know how mighty he was in the midst of his fellow men, and how mightily God wrought through him. God chose and ordained him. He gave unto him His everlasting Priesthood. He gave unto him the full authority to organize His Church. He did so—organized this Church, the most glorious fabric that ever was established upon the face of the earth; because it is God’s Church: it is the Church of Jesus Christ, unparalleled by anything else. No other organization approaches to it in perfection; nothing lacking, every detail, beautiful, harmonious, symmetrical, leaving nothing to be desired. Such is the Church and such the organization that the Prophet Joseph was the means in the hands of God of restoring once more to the earth. The plan, the pattern, had been lost entirely. The officers that formerly filled the Church were withdrawn. The Priesthood that they held was taken back to God, and the men who bore it also were taken from the earth. There had, therefore, to be a complete restoration. It could only come from the God of heaven, and Joseph, inspired of God, was the means through which the restoration was made—Joseph, a youth, obscure, illiterate in some respects—that is, he was not what men would call learned, but afterwards, through industry and perseverance, became learned, and if he had lived, he would undoubtedly have become one of the most learned of men through the gifts God gave him. The progress he made when he did live was very remarkable. By his faith, and inspired of God, he laid the foundation of this work, and not only did this, but he laid his hands upon other men and they partook of the same spirit and influence that rested upon him. They were able to drink at the same fountain which God, through him, had opened up for them to drink at. They could go to that fountain, and partake of its holy influence, and their eyes were opened and their minds were illuminated by the power of God. They were able also to go forth in the power which He had restored, and thus once more among men was witnessed the mighty gifts that were characteristic of bygone ages, when God had a Priesthood on the earth, when He had prophets and apostles, and mighty men whom He clothed with a portion of His Spirit and power.

And when Joseph was taken, how was it then? Were the people left without some man or men to stand up in their midst to declare to them the counsel of their Almighty Father? No: the Lord did not leave His people without a shepherd. He had anticipated the dreadful tragedy which would rob us of His anointed one; rob us, the Church of Christ, of our Prophet and Patriarch. He had anticipated this, and previous to this horrid tragedy, He inspired His servant Joseph to call other men, upon whom He bestowed all the keys, all the authority, all the blessings, all the knowledge so far as endowments were concerned, so far as the power to go unto God and ask Him in the name of Jesus, and obtain His mind and will, was concerned. He bestowed upon these men the same gifts, and blessings, and graces, he had received; so that there was a body of men with all the authority, a body of prophets with all the gifts of seers and revelators—a body of men left instead of one man—a body of men were endowed with this power when Joseph was taken, and the earth was not robbed of that Priesthood which God had sent His angels from heaven to restore once more to the children of men, and to act on the earth in the plenitude of its power. There was no more need, therefore, for angelic visitation to restore it. It was not taken back to God by the slaying of the Prophet and Patriarch, but remained with mortal man here on the earth. And, then, when the question arose as to who should lead Israel, notwithstanding Sidney Rigdon stood up in the congregation of the Saints, and plead for the leadership of the people, the spirit and power of the Almighty descended upon the man whom God had chosen to hold the keys. In the midst of all Israel, in the face of the entire congregation of believers and unbelievers, God clothed His servant with such power and in such a manner that every man that had the least portion of the spirit of God, and every woman, knew by the manifestations of that spirit, and by the outpouring of the gift of God upon that man, that he was the chosen one, and that upon him rested the authority, and the power, and the gifts that had been borne by the Prophet Joseph during his lifetime. No more plainly was the power of God manifested in behalf of Elisha, after the taking away of Elijah, than it was manifested in behalf of President Brigham Young, when the Prophet Joseph was taken from the earth, and from that day, while he lived on the earth until he died, the Lord magnified him in the eyes of the people and blessed those who listened to his counsel.

When he departed there was no contention, there was no strife as to who should be the leader. The men of God had learned by experience concerning the Priesthood, and as to who should bear the keys. There was, therefore, no contention among the leaders nor among the people. There was no special necessity for any particular manifestation. But I appeal to you, my brethren and sisters, today, in this conference assembled—has not God accompanied the President of His Church who succeeded Brigham Young—has He not accompanied him, has He not accompanied his acts, his counsels and his leadership of the people by every sign, by every blessing, by every manifestation of power necessary to confirm in the hearts of Israel the truth that he is indeed the man whom God had designated, whom God had chosen, and whom God desired to lead His people Israel? I have no doubt of it, never had any. I knew it before anything was heard or anything was said. I knew it by the revelations of Almighty God to me, that God had chosen His servant John Taylor, to preside over this Church. I know it today. I rejoice in this knowledge, and I rejoice that God still continues to manifest His power through His anointed one, and through the channel of the Holy Priesthood, having but one man at a time on the earth unto whom He gives the keys to preside over the Church, and give revelations to the entire Church, as a church and as a people. He has chosen him from among the prophets, apostles, seers and revelators, to bear the keys of the everlasting Priesthood upon the earth in the flesh, he having the power and authority to act for the entire people, and to receive the mind and will of God for the entire people. And thus God up to the present time has confirmed His work by signs following: every man in his place, enjoying the spirit of God, and the gifts of his office—the President of the Twelve in his office and in his calling; blessing the Apostles who act as the council of the Twelve; blessing the Presidents of Stakes with the spirit and power and gifts of that calling—blessing their counsels and filling them with the power necessary to magnify the Priesthood to which they are called; blessing the Presiding Bishop and his Counselors; blessing the Bishops and their Counselors; blessing the High Councils; blessing the Seventies, High Priests, Elders and Lesser Priesthood; every man in his place and station receiving his portion of the gifts and blessings and power of God according to his faith and diligence, and his obedience to the commands of God, and also according to the office and position that he holds in the Priesthood of the Son of God.

God in His marvelous kindness and mercy has organized His Church in perfection, and has given to every man that bears a portion of the Holy Priesthood, if he will magnify the same, the gifts and graces necessary thereto; to given to every woman and to every child who is faithful in the Church of God, the spirit that belongs to the position of each, according to the faith and necessities of each. And thus it is that heaven is moved on our behalf; thus it is that the power of God is manifested from time to time; thus it is that the people are led and guided as they are and as they have been from the beginning until the present time, and thus it will be until the end, until the Church shall be as a bride prepared for the coming of the bridegroom, for the coming of the Lord Jesus, who is our head, and who will preside over us and over the Church and Kingdom that will be organized upon the earth.

Oh, my brethren and sisters, God is not working in vain in our midst. He is not working in hidden places. He is not concealing His hand and His power. He is ready to bless every man in His Church who will magnify His office and calling. He is ready to bestow the gifts and qualifications of that office upon every man according to his diligence and faithfulness before Him. But the idle man, the slothful man, the man that shirks his responsibility, the man that avoids duty, the duty of a Deacon, Teacher, Priest, or Bishop, Elder, Seventy, High Priest, or an Apostle, or one of the First Presidency—every man that does this God will take from him His gifts and His blessings; He will withdraw them and give them to the faithful one. He will clothe His faithful servants with the power that belongs to the Priesthood in proportion to the diligence and faithfulness in seeking to magnify their calling, and to live near unto their God. Mark this, and let it bear with weight upon your mind, for I tell you it is so. You may ordain a man to be an apostle, but if he does not seek to magnify that office and priesthood, the gifts of it will not be with him as they would be with a man who does seek to magnify his calling: no matter how great his ability, the power of God will not accompany him unless he seeks for it, for God will be sought after, and God will be plead with for His gifts and graces and for revelation and knowledge; He will be sought after by His children, and then when He is sought after, He will bestow.

Now, when I speak about one who has a right to give revelations to the Church, I do not mean by that to say that others shall not receive revelation; for this is a day of revelation. We know the sentiment of Moses when Joshua became jealous of two of the Seventy Elders prophesying. The Seventy were gathered around about the tabernacle to receive the words of the Lord from Moses, when the Spirit rested upon them, as also upon two of the men who had remained in the camp. Joshua was jealous for the honor of his master, and asked Moses to forbid them prophesying. But, no, Moses replied: “Would God that all the Lord’s people were Prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them.” He had no jealousy about prophecy. He desired that every man in the whole camp of Israel might have the spirit of prophecy, and he gave utterance to that beautiful, glorious expression which I have just quoted. So with the Elders of Israel today. Would to God all the Lord’s people were Prophets. Would to God that every man in Israel had the spirit and power and gift of prophecy resting upon him. Would to God that every woman had the spirit of prophecy resting upon her, and every child. Would to God that all the hosts of Israel, those of the Church of God, had the Holy Ghost and its gifts resting in power upon them. There is no room for jealousy in regard to the possession of this gift in the breast of a servant of God. The only feeling that it ought to produce in the breast of a faithful man is one of thankfulness, one of thanksgiving to God that others share in this blessing, that others can partake of this power, that others have received of this glorious gift from our Father in Heaven. There is no room for jealousy, therefore, in such cases. Let every man press forward humbly and obediently in the path of exaltation, in the path that leads to God. Let every man press forward. He need not be afraid that any Latter-day Saint will impede his progress. Let every man speak and act and do as though he were a servant of God, as he is, as a son of God; let him do this and rejoice in it. At the same time let him be careful not to be lifted up in pride, not forgetting who he is, but obedient to constituted authority, that authority which God has placed in His Church, and, then, if he does not forget these things, there is nothing to prevent his onward progress. If he be an Elder, if he should have the gifts and power that an Apostle should have, who will be jealous? Certainly no servant of God. If he be a Deacon, and he has gifts from God, through faithfulness, that belong to an office higher than his own, is there anyone who will not rejoice in it, or anyone who will retard him or throw obstructions in his way? God forbid that there should be.

Now, in connection with this subject, a man a few days ago—it suggests itself to my mind and I will speak upon it—brought a communication addressed to President Tay– lor and his Counselors, and we read it. It purported to be a message from God—a message from God to us, that is to the First Presidency, and through us to the Church. We read the message, but could see nothing in it particularly; there was considerable said, but there was nothing tangible, or that gave us light upon any point that we did not understand before. The man said he had been in the Church three years, but he had not received the Priesthood. He had had some spiritual manifestation, in which he heard a voice say, “thou art a Priest after the order of Melchizedek.”

I wish to speak upon this point, that is, in connection with this subject that I have been speaking upon. God has organized His Church. He has placed in that Church its officers. As I have said, He has given to one man, and to one man only, at a time, the keys to preside over and to communicate the mind and will of God to that Church. While that man is in that position, seeking to magnify it, he will not speak to other men and give them revelations for His Church. I wish you all to understand what I have endeavored to impress upon you—that it is the privilege of every one to receive revelation. It is the privilege of every mother to receive revelation from God for guidance in the training of her children; to be in communication with the Father through the Holy Spirit. It is the privilege of children to have the same Spirit, and to have knowledge from God through that Spirit. What for? To teach the parents? No. If their parents are in the path of duty, it is not so; but it is, as I have said, the privilege of every man, woman and child in the Church to have revelation, to have knowledge, to be instructed of the Lord. But that does not give them the right to give revelations to the Church. God did not design it. God never has warranted or sustained any such action. Therefore, he that cometh in by any other way than by the door, you know what is said of him; he that climbeth over the wall, he that receiveth authority from some source outside of that which God recognizes, we as a people are not bound to receive anything that may be communicated to him. Out of that which is communicated in that way, there may be nineteen truths out of twenty statements; but there will be error, there will be falsehood, there will be something that will mislead, because there is not the authority from God to lead and to act. God has His own method of doing things. He chooses whom He will; He takes away, and removes from the path those that He wishes. It is all according to His good will and pleasure. He gives unto us authority, and, as I have said, He confirms it by signs following; and this Church from the day of its organization, up to the present time has never been one hour, yea I may say, one moment without revelation, without having a man in our midst who can tell us as a people the mind and will of God, who can point out to us that which we should do, who can teach us the doctrines of Christ, who can point out to us that which is false and incorrect, and who can, upon all matters that come within the range of our experience, and that are necessary for us to attend to give us the necessary counsel and instruction. This has been the case always. Therefore, a man may receive mighty signs—I heard the Prophet Joseph, when I was a boy, say that the time would come when false prophets would work mighty miracles in the eyes of the people of the earth, and they would seek to establish their authority by the performance of mighty miracles, and we have heard of such things in our day since his death—but this does not sustain a man in claiming to be leader of a people, and to give revelations from God. But there is a spirit that God gives; there is an influence that accompanies His word when it is proclaimed by His servants that seals itself upon the hearts of the honest, upon the hearts of the meek and lowly, and those who are living in close communion with God themselves seals upon their hearts the truth of that which He says: I have no fears of any of you, my brethren and sisters, if you will only live near to God. I said the leaders of this Church do not come bolstering up their own claims. It is not necessary. You are the witnesses. You are the witnesses whether John Taylor is President of the Church; whether his Counselors are the men they should be; whether the Twelve have the authority they claim; whether the Presidents of Stakes have the authority they claim—you have this testimony, you are our witnesses, and all the Israel of God, wherever they live, are witnesses of the truth of these things. You can testify because you have received—if you should live as you should do—a testimony independent of that which we can give to you, or any argument that we may urge—you have received it, if you have received it properly, from our Eternal Father. You received it in answer to prayer, direct to yourselves—not through any intermediate source, not through any man, but through the Eternal Spirit of our Father descending upon you and bearing witness to you—a testimony that these things are true. You, therefore, are living witnesses of the truth of these things, and know for yourselves whether they are true or not.

Now, I have heard that there are men among us who are professing to cure witchcraft and other evils of that kind. I believe they call themselves astrologers. More injurious ideas and practices than these cannot be introduced among a people to lead them to destruction, and I wish to warn you before sitting down, in regard to this. Do not seek for those who have peepstones, for soothsayers, and for those who profess to be able to counteract the influence of witchcraft. They who say so, seek to play upon your fears, they seek to take advantage of superstitious fears, and seek to use them for their own advantage and bring those who will listen to them in bondage to an influence and spirit that is as foreign to the spirit of God as hell is foreign to heaven. Any man who professes to have this authority, to have this power, and to use power outside of that which the Priesthood authorizes, is a man that should not be listened to; his claims are false, and his methods are from beneath and not from God. And I say to all of you, witchcraft you may defy if you live as you should do—defy it, not in a spirit of defiance, not in a spirit to bring evil influences upon you, but in the power and strength of our Father and God. No evil influence of that kind, if you live as you should do, can have power over you; you are entrenched in the power of God, in the spirit and gifts of God; you are entrenched round about so that none of these wicked influences can have power over you. I wonder if Job thought there was somebody bewitching him when his property was stolen and destroyed, when his servants were killed, when his son’s house fell and killed his children, when his boils came upon him. I wonder if he thought that he was bewitched. Why, I hear of some people, if anything happens to them, even if any of their chickens die, who are ready to say: “I am bewitched; there is somebody bewitching me.” Such expressions and ideas are prompted by the worst folly that ever possessed the mind of a Latter-day Saint. Do not such persons know that not a hair of their heads can fall to the ground unnoticed? Has not the Savior said so, our Lord and Master? And if so, do you not think He will care for us? Do not your angels stand continually before the face of our Father in heaven? And yet shall people unto whom God has made such glorious promises, and upon whom He has poured out such glorious blessings—shall they bow to these wicked influences, these spirits that are not of God, that are full of vileness and darkness and evil, and do that which they say, and seek to wizards and to soothsayers, and to diviners and to men and women who, by hidden works of darkness, profess to obtain knowledge—will the Latter-day Saints do this to take their vile remedies, and if their children are sick, seek unto them? The men and women who do this—I do not want to prophesy evil about them—are in great danger of losing the spirit and power of God, and having it withdrawn from them, and if they do not repent it will most assuredly be withdrawn from them. All who take these methods and encourage these practices I say that the anger of Almighty God will descend upon them unless they repent, and they will find that their hidden works of darkness will not avail them when the Lord feels after them, and when His condemnation rests upon them; they will find this out to their everlasting sorrow. Men who are guilty of these practices, and who seek to lead away the unwary, and to prey upon the ignorant and unsophisticated, and to take advantage of their fears, and instil superstition into the mind, cannot escape condemnation. These methods are not of God, and beware of them, all of you, and tell all your friends that it is sinful in the sight of God to yield to such influences. Pray, rather, to the Father, in the name of Jesus, to let His angels be around about you, to let His power encircle you, to let His Spirit be in your hearts and in your habitations, and rest down upon your little ones, and be of strong faith, and say, like Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Yes, that righteous man, though God should slay him, yet he would not fail to trust Him to the uttermost.

Let these truths rest upon your minds and be not forgotten, and let us seek as a people to have the gifts and power and blessings of our Father and God resting upon us continually. I pray God for this blessing to be with you always, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Evening, December 14th, 1884.

We hear a great many things associated with the Church and Kingdom of God in which, as a people, we are very much interested.

We meet together, from time to time, to sing, to pray, to speak, to hear and to attend to the various duties and responsibilities that devolve upon us. We are taught of things pertaining to time and things pertaining to eternity, and perhaps we are more favored—well, there is no perhaps about it—we are more favored than any other people that dwell upon the face of the whole earth. We have been gathered together from among the nations of the earth in order that we may be instructed in the laws of God, and in the principles of truth and life, that we may be able to comprehend our relationship to our heavenly Father, to his Son Jesus Christ, to the Priesthood that exists in the heavens, and to the inhabitants of the earth by whom we are surrounded, and among whom we dwell.

There is something very peculiar about the position which we occupy among the nations of the earth. We have not received any of the intelligence which we possess from these nations, with the exception of some matters pertaining to science, to art, and the common education of the day. But as regards our religious principles we are not indebted to any men who live upon the earth for them. These principles emanated from God. They were given by revelation, and if we have a First Presidency, if we have High Priests, if we have Seventies, if we have Bishops, Elders, Priests and Teachers, if we have Stake and other organizations, we have received them all from God. If we have Temples, if we administer in them, it is because we have received instruction in relation thereto from the Lord. If we know anything pertaining to the future, it comes from him, and in fact we live in God, we move in God, and from him we derive our being. Men generally will not acknowledge this, but we as Latter– day Saints believe in these truths. Not one of us could have entered this house this evening without being sustained by the power of God. Not one of us could leave this house without guidance, strength and power from him to accomplish it. We have been taught to believe that he is the Creator of all things visible and invisible, whether they be things in the heavens or on the earth, whether they belong to this world or other worlds, and that there is an all wise, all powerful Being, who controls, manipulates and manages all the affairs of the human family, and this is true whether it relates to the world in which we live, to the heavens that are above us, or to other worlds by which we are surrounded. It relates to our bodies and to our spirits, and to all things associated therewith. Hence we are very dependent beings. In the organization of man, in the organization of this earth, and in the organization of the heavens, there were certain things designed by the Almighty to be carried out, and that will be carried out according to the purposes of the Most High, which things were known to him from the beginning. There exists all manner of curious opinions about God, and many people think it impossible for him to take cognizance of all men, but that is very easily done. If I had time to enter into this subject alone I could show you upon scientific principles that man himself is a self-registering machine, his eyes, his ears, his nose, the touch, the taste, and all the various senses of the body, are so many media whereby man lays up for himself a record which perhaps nobody else is acquainted with but himself; and when the time comes for that record to be unfolded all men that have eyes to see, and ears to hear, will be able to read all things as God himself reads them and comprehends them, and all things, we are told, are naked and open before him with whom we have to do. We are told in relation to these matters that the hairs of our heads are numbered; that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our heavenly Father’s notice; and predicated upon some of these principles are some things taught by Jesus, where he tells men to ask and they shall receive. What! The millions that live upon the earth? Yes, the millions of people, no matter how many there are. Can he hear and answer all? Can he attend to all these things? Yes. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” It is difficult for men to comprehend some of these things, and, as they cannot comprehend them they begin to think they are all nonsense—that is, many do—and, hence, infidelity and skepticism prevail to a great extent. A great many strange notions are entertained in regard to God and his dealings with humanity. This is because men do not understand the things of God. I read in one of our papers a short time ago, that there was some kind of a commission going to meet—some two or three professors or scientists, men who are supposed to possess superior intelligence—to examine the manuscript of the Book of Mormon, to find out whether it was true or not, and I suppose if these people—especially if they should be pious men, possessing a little learning and science—should come out and say the Book of Mormon was not true, we all of us should have to lay it aside should we not? This to me is the veriest nonsense. It would not make one hair’s difference with us whether such a commission should decide that the Book of Mormon is right or wrong. If they decide that it is true it will not increase our faith in it; if they decide that it is not true, it will not decrease our faith in it. Yet these are ideas that men entertain.

Speaking upon this point I am reminded of an incident that took place a number of years ago. Several prominent European scientists called upon me, and they talked a little upon our religious principles. Then they asked me if I was acquainted with the advanced ideas in regard to geology. I told them I knew a little about them from what I had read. “What do you think,” said one of them to me, of these views as compared with the scriptural account of the creation of the world?” “Well,” said I, “the great difficulty is that men do not understand the Scriptures.” They could not see any difficulty on that ground, for they all had their eyes to see, and they had an understanding of words, languages, etc. “Well,” said I, “we won’t go through the whole Bible, for that is quite a large book; but I will take one or two of the first lines in the Bible. ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ Will you please tell me when the beginning was? “We don’t know,” “When you find that out,” said I, “then I will tell you when the world was created.” A good many other things transpired associated with this interview, that I do not wish now to repeat. Suffice it to say that before they got through, one of them said: “I have read a good deal, I have studied a good deal, I find I have a good deal more to read and study yet.” I thought so too. I thought if men could not understand the first two lines of the Bible, it would be quite a task to teach them the whole of it.

In regard to the work in which we are engaged, as I said before and as you have heard over and over again, it emanated from God, and all the principles pertaining to it, came from Him. We talk sometimes about this work, and how it is going to be accomplished. The work we are engaged in is the work of God. If it is accomplished it will be accomplished by the power of God, by the wisdom of God, by the intelligence of God, and by the Priesthood that dwells with the Gods in the eternal worlds, together with that which he has conferred upon his people here upon the earth, and not by any other power or influence in existence. We talk of a Zion that is to be built up. If a Zion is ever built up on this earth, it will have to be under the guidance and direction of the Almighty. We talk about a Church that is to be built up and purified. If it is ever built up and purified, it will be under the influence of the gift of the Holy Ghost, the power of God manifested among his people, whereby iniquity will be rooted out, righteousness sustained, the principles of truth advanced, honor, integrity, truth and virtue maintained, and hypocrisy, evil, crime and corruption of every kind be rooted out. That will have to be done by the aid and under the guidance of the Almighty. There is no man living in and of himself, can guide the ship of Zion or regulate the affairs of the Church and Kingdom of God unaided by the Spirit of God, and hence he has organized the Church as he has with all the various quorums and organizations as they exist today. Who can boast or has anything to say in relation to these things? No man living, no man that has lived. If Joseph Smith knew anything about these things, it was because God revealed it, and He has revealed many great and precious principles in which the children of men are interested pertaining to this world and to the next, pertaining to the living and the dead, pertaining to time and eternity, and pertaining to all things associated with the happiness and exaltation of man. All these things emanated from God. And if Brigham Young knew anything he received his intelligence from God and from the Prophet of God; and if any of us know anything we have received it from the same source. We are told that He is in all things, through all things, and about all things, and by Him all things exist. He is the light of the sun and the power thereof, by which it was made; the light of the moon and the power thereof, by which it was made; and the light of the stars and the power thereof, by which they were made; and it is the same light that enlighteneth the understanding of man. This may seem strange doctrine to some. We have been taught to believe that there was a difference between mental and visual light; nevertheless the above statement is philosophically true.

In regard to the earth, is it the Lord’s? Yes. We are told that he made it, that he created all things, visible and invisible, whether pertaining to the earth or to the heavens. And where did man originate? As we read it, he originated also from God. Who formed man according to the Bible record? The Lord. Whence came our spirits? We are told that God is the God and Father of the spirits of all flesh. Then He of course is interested in the welfare of all flesh and all people of all languages, of all tongues, of every color, and of every clime. That is the way that I understand these things. Our spirits are eternal and emanate from God. So we, as a people, have always understood and do understand today. We possess our bodies also, and they also emanated from God. The Bible tells us something in relation to these matters in tracing out genealogies. Who was Seth? He was the son of Adam. Who was Adam? The son of God. In another place we are told that “all we are His offspring”—that is, according to that, we are all the offspring of God.

Now, this earth was formed for a certain purpose, and man was also formed for a certain purpose. And there are certain principles laid down—you will find them in the Bible, in the Book of Mormon, in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and in the various revelations that God has made through his servants—there are certain principles laid down indicating that there are different grades of men possessing varied powers and privileges, and that these men have to pass through a certain ordeal—called by many a probation—that is, that we are here in a probationary state, in a state of trial; and that as men live and act according to the intelligence they are in possession of—the privileges which they enjoy, and the deeds that they perform, whether for good or evil, there will be a time of judgment, and that there will be a separation, of these various peoples according to the way in which they have lived and acted upon the earth. Hence Paul tells that there are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial, that there is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars, and as one star differeth from another star in glory, so shall it also be in the resurrection. Joseph Smith, in speaking on the same subject, tells us that there are bodies celestial, bodies terrestrial, and bodies telestial, which agrees precisely with the remarks made by Paul, only in other language. Thus there are many curious things associated with our existence here upon the earth, which the natural man does not and cannot comprehend. No man can know the things of God, but by the Spirit of God.

Now, then, on this earth—which we call the Lord’s vineyard—He has sent forth His servants from time to time to gather people into His fold, to gather out a few here and a few there who would be prepared to act and operate with Him, and then, generally, these have been a comparatively small number. Jesus said when He was upon the earth “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be who go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” And it would seem, according to the testimonies we have both in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon, that the Lord has taken great pains in different ages of the world to send forth His servants to preach the Gospel to the people. We find this especially so in Noah’s day, and in the days of Enoch. There was a remarkable work performed then according to the revelations which have been given to us, which will be more fully developed when the Lord shall see fit to reveal other things associated therewith. But we learn that there was a Church organized about as ours may be; we learn that they went forth and preached the Gospel; we learn that they were gathered together to a place called Zion; we learn that the people of Zion were under the guidance, direction and teaching of the Almighty; in order that they might be prepared for another Zion in the grand drama associated with the dealings of God and his purposes pertaining to this earth and the heavens. We read that they walked with God for 365 years. We are told in the Bible a little short story about it, because it was one of those things that it was not necessary that everybody should know. We are told that “Enoch walked with God, and was not, for God took him.” But there was more about it than that. Enoch preached the Gospel to the people, and so did hundreds of Elders as they are doing today; and they gathered the people together and built up a Zion to the Lord, and when Enoch was not, but was caught up, Enoch’s city was not, but was caught up, and there were certain things associated therewith that are very peculiar. Why were they taken away from the earth? Because of the corruptions of men, because of the wickedness of men, because mankind had forsaken God, and become as broken cisterns that could hold no water, because they were not fulfilling the measure of their creation, and because it was not proper that they should live and perpetuate a race that was so corrupt and abominable. But before this was done, the righteous, the virtuous, the honorable, the pure, the upright were gathered together, and taught and instructed in the things of God. And what came next? Why, the destruction of the world. It was overflowed, we read, by the flood. What! And all the people destroyed? Yes, except a very few, according to the statements we have. “Well,” say some of our wise men, “was not that cruel to destroy so many people?” Perhaps it would be according to your ideas, but it was not according to the Lord’s ideas: because he looked upon men as immortal beings. These men were accountable to their Maker, they had a dual existence, they were associated with time and with eternity, and we might go still further and say they were associated with the past, the present and the future, and the Lord as a great cosmogonist, took in the various stages of man’s existence, and operated for the general benefit of the whole. But was it not cruel to destroy them? I think God understood precisely what He was doing. They were His offspring, and He knowing things better than they did, and they having placed themselves under the power and dominion of Satan, He thought they had better be removed and another class of men be introduced. Why? There were other persons concerned besides them. There were millions of spirits in the eternal worlds who would shrink from being contaminated by the wicked and corrupt, the debauchee, the dishonest, the fraudulent, the hypocrite, and men who trampled upon the ordinances of God. It might seem harsh for these men to be swept off from the face of the earth, and not allowed to perpetuate their species thereon; but what about the justice of forcing these pure spirits to come and inhabit tabernacles begotten by debauched corrupt reprobates, the imagination of whose heart was only evil, and that continually—what about them? Had they no rights that God was bound to respect? Certainly they had, and He respected them. He cut off the wicked. What did he do with them? He did with them as we do with some of the wicked, and that we do not do with a great many others—that is, they were put in prison. Had He a right to do that? I think He had. They were his offspring. I think He had the right to act according to the counsel of His own will. At any rate he took the liberty of doing it. And who was there to say, “Why doest thou this?” First, He called upon them to forsake their wickedness, but they would not, and a while after He destroyed them. Had He a right to do it? He had and He sent them to hell. Some people talk about roasting there. That is something of man’s getting up. He sent them to prison, and they were confined there, and when the proper time came, Jesus, when He was put to death in the flesh, was quickened by the Spirit, and went and preached to those spirits that sometime were disobedient in the days of Noah. Perhaps they had time enough during their stay, to reflect upon their acts, and to become a little steadier, and to reflect upon God and His laws. At any rate Jesus went and preached to those spirits in prison.

What, then, became of the inhabitants of the world? There were a few who went through the narrow gate that Jesus spoke of, and they were caught up and Zion with them, and the Lord is taking care of them in his own way. They will be dealt with according to His purposes and designs, and be numbered among His jewels. The others, as I have said, were cast into prison, and there they remained about 2,500 years. It was a pretty long imprisonment. Still the Lord had a right to manipulate these things as He pleased, and He so manipulated them, and although this time seems very long, yet in the eternities to come it would only be a comparatively short period; and if they needed a schooling of this kind He, as their Father and Creator, was the proper one to adjudge their punishment.

Sometime after this there were certain cities that had become very corrupt, such as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Lord had a reckoning with them, handled them in His own way according to His best judgment. Abraham was a man who feared God, and God said: “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do.” So He informed Abraham about it. Abraham plead with the Lord, “Why,” said he, “Lot lives down there, a nephew of mine, and a pretty good sort of a man, and there may be a great many others.” The Lord said: “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous, within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.” Abraham, however, thought this was more than he could pick out. I expect there was a crowd of mean “cusses” among them as we have among us. And finally the Lord said that if ten righteous could be found in the city, He would not destroy it for ten’s sake. But ten righteous people could not be found, and therefore the city had to be destroyed. What! All the people? Yes, all the people. But before they were destroyed he sent two angels and they brought out Lot, his wife and daughters. His wife was a little tinctured with gentilism: she looked back, and the Scriptures tell us she was turned into a pillar of salt. When they got away, brimstone and fire fell upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed them. Thus the Lord has taken the privilege in many instances of correcting mankind. He used the children of Israel to kill the people who dwelt in the land of Canaan, and directed them to spare them not, because of their wickedness, to cut them off root and branch. He raised up one nation and put down another, and raised up one king and put down another.

There were times when the iniquity of these people was not yet full. In Abraham’s day the Lord told that Patriarch that he should go to his fathers in peace, but in the fourth generation his posterity should “come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full:” by the days of Moses they appear to have filled the cup of their iniquity, for he enjoined upon the Israelites, thou shalt utterly destroy them,” “as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.” So that the Lord takes upon Himself to manipulate the nations according to the counsels of His own will, and as they all of them have to do with eternity as well as time, He adjudges them according to the eternal laws and principles by which He is governed; and hence we are told that eternal punishment is God’s punishment, and everlasting punishment is God’s punishment, thus men and nations are adjudged by the Almighty, according to the infinite and eternal laws and principles which exist in the heavens, and with a reference to eternal duration and not according to the finite, erratic and limited ideas of men. Jonah was sent to the city of Ninevah, to tell the people to repent, and that if they did not repent they would all be destroyed. But they listened to the voice of the Prophet. They clothed themselves in sackcloth and sat in ashes and repented before the Lord, and then the Lord forgave them. Why was it that a great many people were thus judged by the Almighty? It was because of their iniquity. The same thing prevailed upon this continent. The spirit of evil and contention, war and strife, existed among the ancient Jaredites, when they forsook their God, and violated his laws. They fought one with another. They were maddened by fury, even that fury which was lit up by the fires of hell and by the spirit of fiends, until they completely destroyed one another. So it was with the Nephites who had departed from the law of God, and trampled under foot his ordinances. They and the Lamanites were stirred up one against another, until at last they gathered together thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of fighting men—they were four years in gathering their armies, and they fought and shed blood and spread destruction and death wherever they went. We can read the account of it in the Book of Mormon, and I do not propose to repeat it here this evening.

Now, how is it pertaining to the last days? As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it also be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. In what respect? In the days of Noah did they have the Gospel preached unto them? Yes. Did the people generally reject it? Yes. Did the people gather together and build up a Zion? Yes. How is it in these days? The Lord has revealed his Gospel to us as he did to them. He has sent forth the words of life, and is sending them to the nations of the earth. Hundreds of Elders are going today, and taking their lives in their hands, and some of them have to sacrifice their lives! And others, in this land of liberty, because they will be virtuous and keep the commands of God, are today weltering in prison. Woe! to those who have a hand in these things. I tell you and I tell them, as a servant of God, in the name of God, that he will be after them and they shall suffer worse than that which they inflict upon innocent, pure and virtuous men. Now, I bear testimony to this, and you will know it when it comes to pass. Woe! to them that fight against Zion, for God will fight against them—hypocrites! who are wallowing in filthiness, corruption, adultery, fornication and deception, in the name of virtue are seeking to destroy a virtuous people, and those who dare honor and obey the commandments of God.

Then, in regard to the work in which we are engaged. Will it go on? I tell you it will. Will Zion be built up? I tell you it will. Will the Zion that Enoch built up, descend? It most assuredly will, and this that we are building up will ascend, and the two will meet and the peoples thereof will fall on each other’s necks, and embrace each other. So says the word of God to us. Will we go on with our work? With the help of the Lord we will. He has told us to do a work, and we will try to carry it out—we of the First Presidency, we of the Twelve, we of the Seventies, we of the Elders, we of the High Priests, we of the Presidents of Stakes, we of the Bishops, and we of the Holy Priesthood in all its various forms. By the help of the Lord, we will try, first, to purify ourselves, to purify our households, to get rid of covetousness, deception and fraud of every kind, to act honorably before God and before all men, and to love not the world, nor the things that are in the world; for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Anything that we may have or possess comes from God; and if we are exalted, if we possess the good things of the world—which I tell you in the name of Israel’s God we shall, in spite of all men and all their influences, for the people of Zion will be the richest of all people. This is in accordance with the Scriptures. The Scripture tells us: “For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring sliver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in the land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders.”

The Lord has gathered us together that we may learn His law; that we may be instructed in the principles of truth, righteousness and virtue; that we may be prepared to honor and magnify our calling, and glorify our God.

Well, what would you have us do when men are so corrupt—when it is enough for a man here, because he has the kindness to take some chickens for a poor woman to sell for her—when that is enough evidence to convict him that he is an adulterer, and must be placed under bonds and subjected to trial and punishment. What do they do with their Christian whores that they have in our midst? Where do they come from? They are not our institution. But they are protected, they can vote, they can do as they please, no process can be introduced against them, for they are a part of their institution, and must be protected; but anything “in the marriage relation,” you know, is different from that.

Well, what shall we do? We will treat all decent men very well, and we will give the others a wide berth. These corrupt and villainous men who are seeking to trample under foot the rights of free men and deprive them of everything in life that is worth having, will suffer the bondage they are seeking to bring upon us. I tell you that, and we need not try to make these affairs any worse. We will treat them as well as we can. There are thousands and tens of thousands who despise their meanness and corruption—honorable Americans, thousands and tens of thousands of them who are ashamed of the meanness and corruption of these wretches; and there are thousands of men abroad who have just the same feeling. I saw and conversed with a member of the British Parliament recently, and in speaking about Rudger Clawson’s case, said he: “It is one of the most infamous things I ever heard of, and if you will permit me I will go to the President of the United States, and ask him to pardon that man.” “Why, yes,” said I, “you have my permission certainly.” That is the way a British member of Parliament talked about the acts and doings of some of our officials here right in our midst. Yet, notwithstanding the wickedness, the corruption, venom, the hypocrisy, and the deception that is practiced here, right under our noses, we will stand still and see the salvation of God, and God in His own time will remove these vindictive men out of their places. Meantime we will continue to fear God, and work righteousness; we will cleave to the truth, live our religion, be humble before God, train up our children in purity, virtue and holiness, and set ourselves against everything that is corrupt, hypocritical, fraudulent, and contrary to the principles of righteousness. We will trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe. We will do right, we will treat all men right, and we will maintain every institution of our country that is according to the Constitution of the United States, and the laws thereof, and we will sustain them. By and by, you will find they will tear the Constitution to shreds, as they have begun now; they won’t have to begin; they have started long ago to rend the Constitution of our country in pieces; and in doing so they are letting loose and encouraging a principle which will react upon themselves with terrible consequences; for if lawmakers and administrators can afford to trample upon justice, equity, and the Constitution of this country, they will find thousands and tens of thousands who are willing to follow in their wake in the demolition of the rights of man, and the destruction of all principles of justice, and the safeguards of the nation; but we will stand by and maintain its principles and the rights of all men of every color, and every clime; we will cleave to the truth, live our religion and keep the commandments of God, and God will bless us in time and throughout the eternities that are to come.

God bless you and lead you in the paths of life, in the name of Jesus, Amen.