Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, Dec. 7th, 1884.

The speaker commenced by reading the 24th chapter of Matthew; after which he spoke as follows:

I have read this chapter to call your attention to the predictions of the Son of God concerning the last days, and the circumstances which would surround His people previous to His making His second appearance on the earth. Great interest has been manifested at different periods by the inhabitants of the earth who have believed in Jesus, respecting His second coming. Great desires have been manifested from time to time to understand the signs of His advent, and some have gone so far as to predict the day and even the exact time when He would make his appearance. According to the revelations that we have received upon this subject, the day and the hour are not revealed unto man, neither is it probable that they will be, but we have been told that that time is near at hand, and that it is our duty as the people of God, to prepare ourselves for that great and terrible day. The message which the Elders of this Church were commissioned to declare unto the inhabitants of the earth 54 years ago, and which they have since that time been declaring wherever they have gone is, that the time is near at hand for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to make His second appearance, and the Elders of this Church have been sent with a warning message to all the nations of the earth, to declare unto them that the hour of God’s judgment is near at hand; that the time for the fulfillment of the prediction of the holy Prophets has arrived, and that it is the duty of the inhabitants of the earth to prepare themselves for the great events that are about to take place connected with the last days. And in order that they might the better prepare themselves, the servants of God are commanded to call upon the people to gather out from the various nations where they are living to a place that God has designated as a place of gathering for His elect, where they might prepare themselves for the coming of our Lord and Savior. This was the message which the Elders were sent forth to bear 54 years ago, and from that time until the present they have been, to the extent of their ability, proclaiming it to the various nations to which they have had access, warning them in meekness and in humility, that the time was near at hand for the fulfillment of all that had been spoken by the mouths of the servants of God in ancient days concerning the last days. Yet, as I have said, we have had no authority given unto us, no message to designate the hour nor the day, nor even the year when the Lord would make His appearance. That has been kept by the Father. The angels did not know the hour nor the day when our Savior spoke the words that I have read in your hearing; and if the angels have since been informed of it, we have not been advised to that effect. We have been told that the time is near at hand, and as an evidence of the near approach of this event we have seen the fulfillment of many things that were told should take place. This Gospel of the Kingdom, Jesus said, had to be preached unto all nations as a witness—the same Gospel that was preached by Him and His disciples when they were upon the earth—that Gospel of the Kingdom had to be preached unto all nations before the end should come. And it is being preached in that manner now. The same principles, the same doctrines, the same plan of salvation, the same gifts and graces, the same organization of the Church, the same authority that was in the Church in ancient days—these having been restored are now being preached as a witness by the Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unto all nations, in order that every inhabitant of the earth should be warned, that every man should hear the glad tidings of salvation in his own tongue, and have the opportunity of embracing or rejecting the same, and of being gathered out and numbered with the people of God.

I need not say to you, my brethren and sisters, who are familiar with this work, that God has accompanied the preaching of this Gospel by signs following. You know this. You are living witness yourselves of the power of God, of the manifestation of the Holy Ghost, and of the gifts that pertain thereto. This whole people, called Latter-day Saints, living in these mountains, from north to south, from east to west, are a body of living witnesses of the truth of that which I say respecting the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and its gifts upon the people; for by the power of the Holy Ghost have they been gathered; by the manifestations of the power of God have they wended their way from the various lands they formerly dwelt in, to this land—impelled by the Spirit of God to do this, in a most extraordinary manner, ready to abandon homes, ready to forsake their friends, ready to sever their connection with all that was near and dear to them previous to their reception of the Gospel. What a host of witnesses could rise up if they could be gathered together throughout these mountains! Men, women and children, who in their various languages—every language almost of Europe, and I see here some from the Pacific Islands, others from far off Africa, others from far off Australia, would testify, had they the opportunity, to the outpouring of the Spirit and power of God upon them in the lands where they dwelt when they heard the Gospel and obeyed it, as taught to them by the Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In this manner God has borne witness to the inhabitants of the earth, and is still bearing witness to them wherever they receive His Gospel, whenever they bow in humility and submission to His requirements, whether in the United States, in Canada, in Mexico, in Central or South America, in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, or in any Islands of the sea—wherever the Elders of this Church go, carrying this message of salvation, and the people receive it, they receive with it a testimony from God, not given by man nor by man’s wisdom, nor through man’s power, but through the power of the Eternal God—that testimony resting down upon them in fullness, burning within them, impelling them to do that which they never contemplated doing before—that is, impelling them to forsake all their old associations, and sever the ties that had heretofore bound them to their kindred and their homes, and to come to the land which God has designated as the place to which they should gather. In this manner God is fulfilling, as I have said, the testimony of His ancient servants, for John the Revelator, testified that there should be a cry go forth unto the inhabitants of the earth to come out from the midst of Babylon. Jesus says in this chapter that the elect should be gathered from the four quarters of the earth, from the four winds of heaven they should be gathered together, and this preparatory to His coming. And that which I have read in your hearing is abundantly fulfilled this day in our sight and to our knowledge. Speaking of His disciples and to His disciples, He said: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” If this is not fulfilled this day in our sight and in our hearing, then when can it be fulfilled? How can it be fulfilled? Today here is a people gathered in these mountains, brought from the nations of the earth, as I have said, dwelling here in peace and in quiet– ness, free from strife, free from litigation, free from war, free from everything that disturbs and annoys, in every settlement from north to south, from east to west, wherever they have formed themselves into a community; living in the possession of unexampled peace. Take the settlements of this people in Colorado; visit those in Arizona and New Mexico; go north and travel through Utah and visit Idaho—go where you will, wherever they have settled, you will find a community dwelling in peace and in quietness, loving one another, obeying the law of God, striving to keep His commandments, seeking to overcome evil, endeavoring to live themselves in accordance with His requirements, and to teach their children to do likewise. These are the characteristics of the settlements of the Latter-day Saints throughout all these mountains. So far as we are concerned ourselves, we have scarcely any need of lawyers. They are very necessary as conveyancers, they are very necessary in drawing up papers, in making wills, in making deeds, in forming contracts, in doing business of this character; but so far as the practice of the law in litigation is concerned, there is no need for their services in any of the settlements of the Latter-day Saints. The law of God to us when obeyed is sufficient to lift us above these petty strifes and difficulties. We should live, if we do not, in a purer and higher atmosphere, in a region elevated far above that which is occupied by people of this character. If you travel through the settlements where the Latter-day Saints have control you will not find drunkenness prevalent, in fact, if they be true Latter-day Saints, there will be no drunkenness. You will not hear the name of God blasphemed where Latter-day Saints live; you will not hear quarrelling; you will not hear of adulteries and seductions; you will not witness Sabbath breaking; but you will see the people living in the observance of the laws of God, a moral, pure, peaceable, orderly people. These are the characteristics of the communities of the Latter-day Saints where they live according to the requirements of their holy religion. And though we are far from being perfect in these respects, though there are many things to complain of and to find fault with among us, nevertheless these characteristics do prevail to an extent that cannot be found in other communities of the same size and in the same circumstances. And yet these words that I have read in your hearing are this day fulfilled. “They shall deliver you up to be afflicted,” said Jesus, “and shall kill you” (this has been and is our fate) “and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” Most singularly has this prediction been and is being fulfilled in regard to us. There is not another community on the face of the earth today who are hated by all nations for the sake of Jesus as are the Latter-day Saints. Go where you will throughout our own nation; go where you will throughout Christendom; travel among all people and ask them concerning the Latter-day Saints, and they will tell you that they hate them, that they are a people to be hated, that they are a people that should be destroyed, that they should not be tolerated, and that measures should be taken for their entire extirpation from the earth. One of the most remarkable features connected with this work is this hatred that exists in the minds of men and women concerning it. I look upon it as one of the greatest and most striking evidences of the truth of the words of the Savior, and of the divinity of this work. There is no other people with whom I am acquainted who so strikingly fulfill the words of the Savior, and the promises which He made unto His disciples respecting the consequences of obeying His doctrine as do the Latter-day Saints. And it is not for their wickedness, because when their lives are compared with the lives of others, they stand out in striking contrast with them. This is admitted even by our enemies. They give us credit for not being adulterers, they give us credit for not being seducers; they give us credit for not being thieves; they give us credit for keeping our word; they give us credit for being honest in our dealings. Today, our bitterest enemies in this city, the men who hate us the most, who would destroy us if they had the power, never dare say that we are dishonest in our dealings. We keep our word. We abstain from drunkenness. We abstain from gambling. We do not support houses of ill fame. We maintain order and peace wherever we go. But we are accused of many crimes. We are accused of being guilty of many misdeeds. But when the proof is asked for it is something that has happened some time ago, something that somebody else knows.

We can be truthfully accused of nothing except this: that we marry wives, that we sustain them honorably, and that we keep our children and train them up in the fear of God, and make good citizens of them. This is the head and front of our offending. It is not truthfully said that we prostitute women; or that she is degraded here by making her a prey to lust. It is not said we destroy our offspring. No such charges are made against us. But the crime is that we honorably take wives in wedlock and rear children, and bring them up legitimately, teaching them the principles of righteousness as we understand them. We could vote today—you men who are disfranchised, and you women who are disfranchised—you could vote today if you were adulterers and adulteresses. Yes, in this land of ours, in this Territory of Utah you could go to the polls and cast your vote if you lived outside of wedlock, if you prostituted yourselves, if you made women the victims of vile lust, if you trampled upon everything that is holy and pure in the sight of God and of good men, you would not be disfranchised. You could cast your vote. You could hold office—that is, you could be a candidate for office, and if elected you could hold it. Therefore, it is not for adultery, it is not for seduction, it is not for crimes of this kind that we are hated, but it is because in righteousness and in truth, without deception and without fraud, we honorably and in the sight of day—that is we have done so in times past—married wives in accordance with what we believed to be the command of our Great Creator.

We are hated of all men and of all nations for Christ’s sake. It is because of our religion. If we discarded the forms of religion; if we did not attach importance to the solemnization of the marriage ordinance; if it were done in any other name, or in any other form, or for any other purpose, it would pass, doubtless, as it does in other society, without being challenged or receiving particular condemnation. But it is admitted—I have been told it hundreds of times—that it is because you make this religion. “That is why we hate it,” they say. “That is why we will legislate against it. If you had not made it religion we would not care anything about it.” When I have plead with members of Congress in Washington, and told them this institution was part of our religion, they have said: “Yes, Mr. Cannon, that is the difficulty. It is because you make it religion that we want to legislate against it. If you did not make it religion there would not be that objection to it that there is.” Therefore, as I have said, the words of the Savior are fulfilled. Because we make this the religion of Jesus, because we profess to be the followers of Jesus, and because of being His followers, therefore, as Jesus said, “you shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake;” not for anything else, but for the sake of the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whose religion we have espoused, whose followers we claim to be, and because of being his followers we do as we are doing. Most signally, then, has this prediction been fulfilled in our sight and hearing. One of the most remarkable features of the present age is the hatred that is manifested against this people. It might be that as a people of our numbers, situated as we are, so far removed from other communities in these remote regions, might escape observation, and that we might be left to pursue our own course, quietly, so long as we did not intrude upon our neighbors. We came to this land a band of religious exiles seeking a home amid these mountain wilds, content to live here if we had only bread and water, if we could get sufficient to sustain life; for the sake of that peace and quiet which was denied us in the lands whence we were driven, we were content to endure all the hardships that could possibly be encountered in this mountain region. If we could only sustain life we would have been satisfied with our home here. And we thought we might escape persecution. We thought we had got so far away that we could worship our God henceforth without let or hindrance. We did not wish to injure others. We did not wish to force our religion upon others. We had no design upon any human being, no design to injure any soul upon the face of the earth. Our hearts were filled with the desire that others might comprehend the truth as we comprehend it, that they might partake of the blessings of the Gospel as we had received them, and to do this—that is to make them familiar with these things—we were willing to spend our lives in traveling from land to land and from continent to continent, without purse and without scrip, preaching, in humility and in meekness, the Gospel of the Son of God, as we understand it as a witness unto all nations before the end should come. We went from land to land preaching this Gospel, calling upon the inhabitants of the earth to listen to our message, and this was the extent of our wrong doing. We had not, as I say, any designs against the peace of any soul upon the face of the earth, but our hearts overflowed with a strong and unquenchable desire that they might also receive the Gospel and the blessings of the Gospel as we had received them. That Gospel has brought to us happiness, peace, joy unexampled. That Gospel had filled us with a foretaste of heaven. Through that Gospel we had received the Holy Ghost and the gifts thereof, and because of that precious gift we were able to endure all the hardships and all the persecutions that the wicked might see fit to bring upon us for the sake of our religion. We were willing to do this. We rejoiced in it. We knew it was more precious than life itself, and many have been willing to lay down their lives for the sake of the Gospel. We had left everything that men held dear upon earth for the sake of this great truth that God had revealed to us, and our souls burned with an overpowering desire that others might also partake of the same blessing. Therefore we traveled from nation to nation, bearing these glad tidings and calling upon the inhabitants of the earth to receive them and partake of them as we had done.

Now, it might be thought that a people thus situated would be left alone to the enjoyment, the peaceful enjoyment of their religion. If their religion was a heresy they were the sufferers. If their religion was false they would be the ones that would receive the punishment. But not content with driving us out, not content with compelling us to flee to these mountains, the same foul and deadly spirit of persecution followed us up here into these mountain recesses. They envied us the possession of these sterile, barren valleys. That cruel spirit of persecution still followed us, envious of the quiet homes we had reared by untold and uncounted toil out of the elements that surround us. We had raised a scanty subsistence from the soil; we had struggled with difficulties and had eventually succeeded in surmounting them, that we could hope to live, live without fear of starvation at least before us. But scarcely was the experiment decided—for it was but an experiment at best—than the same spirit that had made our residence in the States intolerable and unendurable to us, followed us across these plains that stretched out between us and our old homes and the old civilization which we had left—followed us here, and it has followed us from that day until the present, it has sought to kill us, and it has sought to destroy our liberties. It has sought to do to us that which was done before—to drive us from our homes, and send us forth homeless wanderers upon the face of the earth. This has been its manifestation in our midst in this Territory, and it seems as though it would not be fully gratified or satisfied until it has made victims of every one of us; until we should be numbered with the silent dead, and our voices no more be heard in proclamation of the Gospel of the Son of God, that we have been authorized to proclaim to the inhabitants of the earth.

My brethren and sisters: I do not wish in my remarks to harrow up your feelings. I wish merely to impress you with some of the events that are occurring around about us, that you may know that they are only in fulfillment of the word of God, spoken hundreds and hundreds of years ago by the Son of God Himself, and by His inspired servants. We are only moving in the sphere that He intended we should move in; we are only enduring the trials and afflictions that in His providence He foresaw and deemed necessary for us to encounter in our passage through life, and in the establishment of His work upon the earth, and in preparing the way for the coming of the Lord. Let not your hearts fail you, therefore: be not discouraged nor consider yourselves in the least degree oppressed beyond that which is right and proper. All these things are necessary in the providence of our God. We shall have more to encounter; but we shall have the strength and the grace necessary to enable us to meet them and to bear them patiently, and to come out of them victoriously; for as you are often told, whatever may be the fate of individuals connected with this work, it is decreed in the heavens by our Eternal Father, that this work, the foundation of which He has laid, will never be taken from the earth again, it will never be overthrown. There is no power that can overthrow this work of our God. Men may be sent to prison, as Brother Rudger Clawson has, as Brother Joseph H. Evans has, as others in Arizona have, for their religion, for practicing that which they believe to be of God—men may be sent to prison by hundreds, men may be slain, as our brethren were in Tennessee lately, and as Joseph Standing was in Georgia, and as brethren were in years gone past in Missouri, as our Prophet and Patriarch were in Illinois, as our revered President was shot to pieces at the same time—men’s blood may be shed, the blood of the Saints may stain the ground, the soil may be drenched with it, but though this may be the case, yet as sure as God lives so sure will this work that He has established, roll forth and prevail. The principles of truth connected with it are unalterable and eternal. They cannot be changed, they cannot be destroyed. You might as well try to destroy the throne of the Great Eternal Himself, as to destroy this work, for it is eternal. The truths of this Gospel are imperishable. They cannot be changed; they cannot be obliterated nor overthrown. And God has said this concerning this work—that it will stand forever. It will overcome every obstacle. It will grow, it will increase. Everything done against it will only be the means of accelerating it, or pushing it forward, or insuring to it the victory that God has promised. I testify this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for I know it to be true, and I know that every power that opposes this work will perish. God has said it, and His words, thus far have been fulfilled. Recount the list of the opposers of this work, and who is there among the vast host that has ever succeeded? Is not failure, is not shame, is not ignominy written upon every man’s character and the character of every community that has fought against this work of our God from the beginning up to the present time? The enemies of this work have perished, they have gone down into oblivion, and they have not succeeded. Look at the list from the beginning, from the 6th of April, 1830, until this day of our Lord, and go through it, and where can you find, where can you put your finger upon a man or upon a community that has prospered in fighting against Zion, against this work of our God? They have gone down, while this people have gone forward, have risen, gone upward, have confirmed to increase in influence, in power in the earth and have become more and more solidified. And it will be so to the end; for this work is designed in the providence of our God to prevail, and there is no power nor influence that can prevent it.

It behooves us as Latter-day Saints to be faithful to our God. I will tell you, my brethren and sisters, there is only one thing that can injure this work, and that is the sins of the people themselves. You can injure it, that is, you can injure yourselves in connection with it. There is no man can prevent another from receiving salvation. God has not placed it in the power of man to prevent either a man, or a woman, or a child from receiving salvation. He has placed that within the power of the individual himself or herself. If a man be damned it is because he takes a course to be damned; he breaks the laws of God. So it is with us as a people. If we are chastened, if we are scourged, if our enemies have power over us, it will be because we do not live as we should do, and this is a subject that I would like very much to speak about. I would like very much to tell my feelings upon this point to the Bishops and to the Teachers and to the officers of the Church. There are practices being indulged in among us that are sins in the sight of God, and the officers of this Church will be held accountable for them, unless they take a course to eradicate them from the midst of the Saints. There should be no man allowed to remain in this Church who is a Sabbath breaker, and when you know that there are men and women or children who are Sabbath breakers you should take steps to have them warned, to have them reproved, and if they will not repent to have them severed from the Church of God. No man in this Church should be allowed to have a standing in it who is a drunkard; God does not approve of drunkenness; and if there are any drunkards remaining in the Church, hear it, O ye Bishops, and O ye officers, you will be held accountable for their sins—the condemnation will rest upon you. The same with men who blaspheme, either young or old, who take the name of God in vain, they ought not to be permitted to remain in the Church. It is a sin in the sight of God, and He will visit a people with condemnation who per– mit these things to exist in their midst. And so with fornication. No fornicator, no adulterer nor adulteress, should have a place among us. They should be warned, they should be dealt with, they should be cut off from the Church. And so with every other sin. We have been too lenient, and have permitted things to exist which are wrong in the sight of God. Now that our enemies are waging war against us, there is only one way in which we can expect to withstand assaults made upon us, and that is in being a pure people, in being a people who live according to the laws of our God. This we must be, or the favor of God will be withdrawn from us. Therefore, let the Church be cleansed. Let the Teachers visit under the influence of the Spirit of God and the gift of discernment, and where they find those that are living in opposition to, or in violation of the laws of God, let them, by the Spirit of God, which will rest upon them, teach and warn that household, and thus take steps to purify the Church. Let every Priest and every Teacher go forth in that spirit in the midst of the Latter-day Saints, and you will see good results; and then let hell boil over, let hell array itself with all its forces, let earth and hell combine against this work of our God, and they cannot succeed. I am not afraid of all hell; I am not afraid of all the earth, if the Latter-day Saints will be pure, if they will live their religion. I know that we shall triumph and come off victorious in every contest, which may God grant in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered in the Stake Meetinghouse, Provo, Sunday Morning, November 30th, 1884.

I am pleased to have an opportunity of meeting with you in your conference, and of talking with you on some principles associated with the Gospel of the Son of God, in which we, all of us, are more or less interested. We are gathered together from among the nations of the earth. We have assembled ourselves thus together because of a work which the Lord has commenced in the interests of humanity, not only pertaining to ourselves, but pertaining to the world of mankind. In obedience to the revelations of His will, and the command that He has given unto His servants through the restoration of the everlasting Gospel, we have many of us gone forth among the nations of the earth to proclaim those principles which God has revealed for the salvation, happiness and exaltation of the human family. We have been gathered together according to the word of the Lord which He spake by His ancient Prophets who have lived in the world in generations that are past, and who, under the influence of the Spirit of God, have given a very graphic account of the gathering of the people together, in the last days; and of the instructions they should receive preparatory to other events that will necessarily transpire upon the earth, as spoken of by all the holy Prophets since the world was. We are living in what is called “the dispensation of the fullness of times,” wherein it is said God will gather together all things in one, whether they be things in the heavens or things on the earth. And we are gathered together to this land of Zion, (which has been spoken of also in the Scriptures) where we might learn more perfectly the law of God, and carry out those principles which He has made known for our information, for our instruction, for our guidance and direction, as regards the course that we should pursue, and the blessings that should attend those who have obeyed His laws and kept His commandments. We are here really to build up and purify the Church of the living God. We are here to build up and establish the kingdom of God. We are here also to build up a Zion unto our God, wherein His laws can be taught, the principles of eternal truth be communicated, the relationship and communication opened between the heavens and the earth, and men placed in a position whereby they will be enabled to act intelligently, in regard to all matters pertaining to this world as well as to the world that is to come.

We have been told, and it has been prophesied of, that great calamities will overtake the nations of the earth. One of the ancient Prophets (Isaiah, in the 24th chapter) makes use of very peculiar language in relation to this matter. He says:

“Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

“And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.

“The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. * * * * * *

“The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

“Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.”

In relation to these matters we as a people have been very much interested, and these things have been spoken of for a long, long time. I have been preaching them between forty and fifty years, and a great many others who are now living, have borne testimony of these things; and have gathered together as we have done. This places us in a very peculiar position, for we not only bring our religion with us, and the spiritual ideas connected with it—we not, only bring these things that are spiritual, but we bring our bodies along with us which are very temporal; and when we gather as we have done here in this land and form a people such as we are, we necessarily become part of the body politic of the nation with which we are associated—that is, of the United States. We are organized here in a Territorial capacity, as other Territories are organized, and are now living in what was before the unsettled portions of the United States; we are organized according to the general provisions made and provided by the nation in which we live, and we are organized under what is called an Organic Act, whereby the action of the Government of the United States has placed us in the position that we now occupy. We have, for instance, as other Territories have, a governor. We have district judges of the United States; we have a U.S. marshal, an attorney, etc., etc., and the same kind of officers that exist in other Territories that are under and associated with the government of the United States. We have granted unto us in the instrument called the Organic Act certain rights and privileges. We send a Delegate to Congress, and are authorized so to do. We have our Legislature, and have the right of voting for it. We have our County Courts and Probate Courts, as other Territories have, and are placed under general regulations pertaining to these matters as exist in the order that prevails in the United States. In this respect we act as others do—that is, we are placed pretty much under the same laws, not quite; pretty much under the same form of government, not quite; we have certain rights and privileges ceded to us, not like others have exactly; but to a very great extent similar to others. In this respect we act and operate as other citizens of the United States do, and in this respect we have rights, privileges and immunities as others have so far as they go. But they don’t go with us quite to the extent that they do with other people under the same circumstances. Nevertheless, perhaps we enjoy as many privileges and as many rights as we are capable of comprehending and of magnifying, and it may be possible in the inscrutable wisdom of the Lord, that we should be subjected to certain kinds of prohibition and enactments, that differ materially in many respects from those of other people. But so it is, and these things are quite as beneficial to us as other things. If we had nothing to cope with or to contend with, we might feel as the Methodists do sometimes when they talk about sitting and singing themselves away to everlasting bliss; but as we are not going to the same place as they are, it don’t make much difference; they can take their road, and we will take ours. We have other ideas of a religious nature from those entertained by other people. But take it as a whole we enjoy very many great blessings. We are living here in a goodly land. We have many privileges in this land: and in our endeavors to preach the Gospel and gather together the people under the blessing and guidance and direction of the Almighty, we have been very successful thus far. Although in our history there are many things which have been unpleasant for people to meet with—such as mobbings and drivings, killings and imprisonment, and a variety of other things that are not pleasant to the feelings of human nature, yet upon the whole the Lord has controlled these things for our good, just in accordance with the words of the Psalmist, where he says: “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” It has not been pleasant for people to be driven, say as I have been, and as many of you have been from our homes; but, then, we had to endure it, and there is no use grunting about it. We had to do it in Missouri. We were driven from our homes there. Then we went to Illinois, and at first we were treated very kindly. But when we began to grow and increase, they did not like our religion, and they don’t like it today, and we don’t fancy their’s much either; so on the religious question there is not much love lost. We had to leave Illinois and come here. It was not very agreeable, as I have said, to have to leave our homes and our farms and come out here to live among the Redskins; for this was a desert when we first came here. It was not full of beautiful farms and houses, orchards and gardens, cities, villages and hamlets. It was a desert where the red man roamed unmolested, where the crickets had full sway, and where the white man had scarcely trodden. There had been a few pass through before we came here, and it had been discovered perhaps a hundred years or two by some travelers that had existed in those days; but to all intents and purposes it was what was called then and marked on the maps as the “Great American Desert.” Since then the solitary place has been made glad, and the desert has been made to blossom as the rose. The Lord has been very kind and merciful to us, and opened out our way, and provided for our wants, and although we may have some little things to complain of—all of which are very trifling in comparison to many things that exist among other peoples—yet are we abundantly blessed all over the land. Is there anybody here in your conference, or is there anybody in any of the conferences of the Stakes of Zion, that lacks the necessaries of life? Is there anybody that is destitute of food, or of clothing, or of habitations? Not that I know of, and if there are any such things, they ought not to exist among us.

Now, then, if we are blessed we have not to thank any man, or any set of men for it. If we are provided for, we have not obtained it from anybody else, but from the Lord God of Israel, who has watched over and protected His people just as He said He would do. He said it was His business to take care of His Saints, but, then, it is our business to be Saints. And being gathered together as we are under these circumstances, we are organized according to certain laws laid down in the order of God, and given by revelation of God, for our guidance and direction, wherein we are instructed in things pertaining to this world and to the next; pertaining to things that are past, things that are present, and things that are to come—pertaining to time and eternity. By this means man, the noblest work of God, is brought into closer rela– tionship with God than he has been for generations past. Many things have been revealed, and there will be many more yet revealed that have been hidden from before the foundation of the world according to the word of God to us, and we are trying to act wisely, prudently and intelligently, to live and act and conduct ourselves in a manner that will be honorable before God, that will be honorable before the holy angels, that will be honorable before all honorable men and all men who love righteousness and truth and virtue, and who are inspired by the principle and integrity and by those principles that emanate from God, and that always lift up and exalt and elevate those that have embraced and are governed by them. These principles are revealed to us according to the laws which God has introduced, and through the medium of the Holy Priesthood, which He has again restored unto the earth, and we are here to learn His laws that we may walk in His paths. We are here that we may build temples unto His name, and that we may administer in those temples. This is the object of our being gathered together, that we may be brought into a closer union and relationship to God our heavenly Father, that we may be instructed in the laws of life, and that we may comprehend the relationship that exists between us and Him. And while we are looking for calamity and trouble—wars, pestilence and famine, and all those things that have been spoken of by the holy Prophets—yet there is to be a voice heard before that day crying: “Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues”—that is, speaking of a certain something that is called Babylon. Well, we have been doing that, and we have been gathered together that we may comprehend those principles of which I have spoken. We have come here that we may enter into covenants that are eternal, and which continue behind the veil. And we expect that while we are organizing Zion here upon the earth, and seeking to establish the kingdom of God, we have those who are cooperating with us above, those who are building and preparing for us in the heavens mansions to go to. Jesus went to prepare mansions for those of His followers in His day. Says He: In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.” There is something very peculiar about those things, about the preparing of those mansions for those that go behind the veil. But it is for us to learn to comprehend all these matters. We read about beautiful cities. We read of the new Jerusalem and the old Jerusalem. We talk about cities the most magnificent that can be thought of. Do you think they grow out of nothing? No, they have to be made just as we make things here, only more intelligently. What is meant by a certain saying: “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Ah! indeed. Well, you can guess what it is. I will leave it with you.

People find a good deal of fault with us about our having more wives than one; but, then, that is nothing; we attribute that to their ignorance. If they were better informed they would know better. Abraham was a friend of God, and he practiced polygamy, under the direction of the Lord; David was a man after God’s own heart, and he had wives given to him of the Lord. They would have put them in the Penitentiary, if they had been here today. But then because of many things that transpire in these days, the Lord will make the earth empty. Why? Because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant. We are gathered together here in order that we may observe the laws which have been restored unto us, and keep the everlasting covenant. While they make covenants for time only, we make covenants for time and for eternity. There is the difference. Ours is everlasting; theirs until death do they part. We as wives and husbands expect to be associated after death in the eternities that are to come. We believe in an everlasting covenant, and in an everlasting Gospel. An angel was to bring the everlasting Gospel, and everything associated with it is everlasting. It existed before we came here. It exists with us in time, it reaches into eternity, and people that do not have the Gospel have no everlasting covenants. They think we are very low, on the one hand, because we cannot comply with their ideas, and we think they are very ignorant because they don’t understand ours. But so it is. We are here to do the will of God, to carry out His law in all humility and faithfulness to God our heavenly Father—faithfulness as men to the nation in which we live—faithfulness to all men—to make known the things that God has communicated to us.

Now, then, in speaking of covenants, let me follow that subject a little further. Have we to do with time? Yes. Have we to do with eternity? Yes. Did we exist be– fore we came here? Yes, and we shall exist when we leave here. The principles that we are in possession of, go back into eternity and reach forward into eternity. We are here in a state of probation, and God, in the infinitude of His mercy and kindness, has seen proper to bring us together as we are, and then we are nothing to brag of when He has got us here. Still while many have rejected the truth, we have received it. God has given us His grace to enable us to comprehend the Gospel and to give us power to obey it, and some of us have kept faithful for quite a long time, and it is pretty hard work for some of us to be faithful. It is good to be a saint. When we get the Spirit of the Lord upon us, we feel to rejoice exceedingly, and sometimes when we don’t have much of that, it feels rather what we used to call hard-sledding. But there is nothing that makes things go so well among the saints of God as living their religion and keeping the commandments of God, and when they don’t do that, then things go awkward and cross and every other way but the right way; but when they live their religion and keep the commandments, “their peace flows as a river, and their righteousness as the waves of the sea.”

Now, in regard to these matters there is a subject I have referred to at one or two of the conferences we have visited lately, and I will mention it here. The ancient Israelites had a very peculiar law among them, and yet it was a very proper law, namely, that if a man died, his brother was to take his wife and raise up seed to him. That would be a curious kind idea among the world, where they did not believe anything of that kind; singular kind of a doctrine; but it was a thing that was practiced among the Israelites, and it is a thing we ought to be practicing among us. That is, if a man has a brother dead who has left a widow, let the woman left in that kind of a position be just as well off as a woman who has a husband. Here is a principle developed which then existed, and I will speak a little on that subject and show certain reasons and certain whys and wherefores for these things. If a man should die and leave a wife and she should be childless, why not her be taken care of as well as anybody else? Would not that be just. Would not that be proper? Would not that be right? Yes. But says the man, “I do not know about that. I would rather raise up seed for myself.” Perhaps you might do both. You might if the law did not prevent you carrying out the law of God in the United States. If these worthy ancients had lived here, they would not have allowed them to carry out such a law. Still there is a principle of that kind exists. Why should it not be put into practice? We do believe, you know, more or less in this principle. But then there are a certain class of men who will say: “I would rather somebody else attended to that business; I would rather attend to my own affairs, and let everybody attend to theirs.” All right. Suppose you do it. We will carry the thing a little further. This woman’s husband has gone behind the veil, and he is operating there, and probably he will be called upon in a family capacity to look after those that were coming there, or help prepare mansions for somebody who is yet on the earth, as Jesus did for His disciples. He has left His wife behind here, but he is there operating for others. Now, what would you think of making to yourselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness; that, when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations? What would you think of that? We talk about angels taking care of us, and all sorts of things like that. But I expect that when we get behind the veil we shall have business to do as much as we have here, and one thing will be, perhaps, to look after the arrangement of our family affairs, and things associated therewith.

Now, then, a man here says: “I would not like to embark in a thing of that sort—marry a brother’s wife, and raise up seed for him.” What did they do with such men in olden times? The woman had an opportunity of loosing his shoe and spitting in the man’s face that would not raise up seed unto his brother, and it was said: “So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house. And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of him that hath his shoe loosed.” (See Deut. xxv, 5 to 10. See also Ruth iii and iv.)

But we will go again to the other side, and find those there engaged in doing certain works in the heavens and preparing mansions for those that are coming. Now, when Jesus went to prepare mansions I do not suppose that He did it Himself. He had plenty of hands to set to work of that sort, same as we have here. This man that has died hears his brother say,” I would rather attend to my own affairs,” and he says, “All right, come here and attend to your affairs also. If you are selfish perhaps I will turn selfish too.” Now, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. That is the way it presents itself to me in relation to these matters. If a woman is left by her husband, let her have somebody to take care of her; if not her husband’s brother, then his next of kin. That is the order so far as I understand it, and I wanted to say so much in relation to these matters. Why should not women have equal rights with men? They have these rights and they ought to be sustained and maintained among us as Saints. We ought to look after the welfare and interest of all.

I shall now refer to what is known as Utah Lake and Jordan River dam water question. This is a subject that has troubled you a great deal and upon which there has been much awkwardness and unpleasant feeling. It was adjusted some time ago, but the agreement, it appears, was not carried out: in consequence of which considerable trouble was likely to ensue. President Angus M. Cannon showed me a letter in which it was stated that a lawsuit was commenced in regard to the affair, some of the parties, thereto being outside of the Church and some inside. In commencing this suit those inside the Church were not taking the right course, and they would have subjected themselves to be cut off the Church, because God has given us laws in relation to these matters whereby they can be properly regulated wisely and in accordance with His laws. Brother Cannon (who is President of the Salt Lake Stake) came to me and wanted to know what to do. He said he could not regulate these matters as his jurisdiction did not extend beyond Salt Lake Stake, nor could President Smoot because his jurisdiction did not go beyond Utah Stake. Here was a dilemma. What shall be done? Could I show him a way out of the difficulty? I told him I could; that a council had been provided through the Prophet Joseph Smith, for just such cases. Some people don’t know anything about that, but yet that is a fact. They did not know that it had ever been used before. It is a council of twelve High Priests over which the First Presidency of the Church should preside to adjudicate upon difficult cases that might arise in the Church, and this should be the highest council in the Church, and from which there should be no appeal. We called together this council and met here in this house, and the parties were heard—some outside of the Church and some inside. Finally we got the matter adjusted, and I am informed that the decision is satisfactory to all parties. The council was composed of the following brethren, viz.: Abraham O. Smoot, President of Utah Stake; Angus M. Cannon, President of Salt Lake Stake; Warren N. Dusenberry, Probate Judge of Utah County; Elias A. Smith, Probate Judge of Salt Lake County; Jonathan S. Page and A. D. Holdaway, Selectmen of Utah County; Ezekiel Holman and Jesse W. Fox, Jr., Selectmen of Salt Lake County; Presiding Bishop Win. B. Preston; John T. Caine, Delegate to Congress from Utah; Bishops Thos. R. Cutler and John E. Booth. After the first session of the council, in consequence of Hon. John T. Caine being required at Salt Lake City on official business, Elder L. John Nuttall was appointed a member of the council in place of Elder Caine. Myself and Brother George Q. Cannon presided in all the meetings of the Council. In selecting the council we selected men from the two counties who were conversant with county affairs, and both counties were equally represented. But some people will say—How is it the High Council could not settle the question? Because the High Council in Utah Stake has no jurisdiction over affairs in Salt Lake Stake, nor has the High Council of Salt Lake Stake any jurisdiction over affairs in Utah Stake, and the other council was formed just to meet such an emergency. I speak of this for your information; and, as I have said, when the matter is thoroughly completed, it will prove to be satisfactory to all parties.

Now, I want to read you a curious Scripture. We talk a good deal about water, and about certain laws—laws of hydraulics and hydrostatics—we have had a good deal of talk about these things lately, I have heard some very singular remarks made pertaining to the waters of the Utah Lake by Brother Madsen, who has kept a very accurate account of the condition of the waters of the lake under various circumstances for a great number of years. Among other things he said that it was very difficult to tell how and in what manner the waters of the lake were sometimes increased. That he had frequently seen large fountains or springs rising in the lake, that he should think furnished more water than any of the rivers that flowed into it—and these springs were very fluctuating, so much so, that it was found very difficult to make any accurate calculations pertaining thereto.

It is thought and so stated by some writers that there are subterraneous passages for water flowing from Lake Superior.

This may appear strange to some. But in regard to the flood, the laws governing hydraulics, as we understand them, were not strictly carried out on that occasion. Speaking of the flood we read:

“And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second mouth, the seventh day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”

What was done? “The windows of heaven were opened,” and the immense bodies of waters that exist in the upper firmament were let down, or as it is expressed, “the windows of heaven were opened.” What else? “The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up.” You have got a Brigham Young Academy here. I would like to give the professors and pupils of that establishment a problem to solve, and that is—How they could manage to get enough water out of the seas, and out of the oceans, and out of the rivers, and out of the clouds, to cover the tops of these mountains and fifteen cubits above, and let that spread all over the earth? I would like to know by what known law the immersion of the globe could be accomplished. It is explained here in a few words: “The windows of heaven were opened”—that is, the waters that exist throughout the space surrounding the earth from whence come these clouds from which the rain descends. That was one cause. Another cause was “the fountains of the great deep were broken up”—that is something beyond the oceans, something outside of the seas, some reservoirs of which we have no knowledge, were made to contribute to this event, and the waters were let loose by the hand and by the power of God; for God said He would bring a flood upon the earth and He brought it, but He had to let loose the fountains of the great deep, and pour out the waters from there, and when the flood commenced to subside, we are told “that the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained, and the waters returned from off the earth.” Where did they go to? From whence they came. Now, I will show you something else on the back of that. Some people talk very philosophically about tidal waves coming along. But the question is—How could you get a tidal wave out of the Pacific ocean, say, to cover the Sierra Nevadas? But the Bible does not tell us it was a tidal wave. It simply tells us that “all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.” That is, the earth was immersed. It was a period of baptism.

I will find you another Scripture. It will be found in the book of Job. Job had been complaining. It is said he was the most patient man on the earth. Still he had been complaining about the treatment he had received. He had lost his camels, and sheep, and his children; the lightning had struck his son’s house, and finally he was smitten with boils, etc. He was not very patient then, not any more so than any of us would be under similar circumstances. He got a little out of humor; did not fancy it very much; found himself scraping his body with a potsherd, and wallowing in ashes. After some of his friends had talked to him, the Lord spake, saying:

“Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.

“Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched line upon it.

“Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;

“When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

“Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?”

Who managed that matter? “Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?” Why, the Lord did it. These are singular expressions. It is said in the other place that “the fountains of the great deep were broken up.”

Now, then, I want to say to the Latter-day Saints, that God has more to do with the earth, with the waters, with the fountains of waters, with all the affairs of men, and with everything we have to do with, than men are willing to acknowledge in a great many instances. What means the saying, “In the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.” Do any of you know of such things? I guess you do. Plenty of them. What means that Scripture where it speaks of Moses in the wilderness, when the children of Israel cried out for water in the desert land, and called on him for water? The Lord told Moses to smite the rock, and it should give forth water. Moses felt angry with the people because of their murmuring. And when the people were gathered together before the rock, Moses said: “Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” And he smote the rock and water came out of it. But Moses did not honor the Lord in that instance as he ought to have done. The Lord felt angry with him, and would not allow him to go into the land of Canaan because he did not sanctify the God of Israel. At the same time the Lord fulfilled His word to Moses, for when he smote the rock the waters came out. By what principle? Was that according to the law of hydraulics? It was the power of God that manipulated that affair. So it was in the case of Elijah. There had been a drouth in the land of Israel, and there was great suffering in consequence of it. Elijah went and prayed to the Lord that the drouth might pass off, and that rain might come. The Lord heard his prayer, and sent the rain. At first, we are told, a little cloud arose out of the sea, like a man’s hand; but by and by the heaven was black with clouds, and there was great rain. Who was it that manipulated these matters? It was the Lord. It would appear to some to be according to the laws of nature, etc. So it would; but at the same time this was done by the prayer of faith, and the water flowed forth. And I want to say one thing here, and that is, that if we are sustained in these latter days, God must sustain us; if we are upheld, God must uphold us. Men are raging and have been raging against us; but I will say, as I have often said, Woe! to them that fight against Zion, for God will fight against them, and He will have His own way of doing it. It is for us to pursue the even tenor of our way, and if we will work righteousness and fear God, and keep His commandments, the wilderness and the solitary places shall be made glad, (as it has been already abundantly among us) and the desert shall blossom as the rose. But it will not be to me, or to Brother Cannon, or to President Young, or to anybody else, that the glory will belong. We will give God the glory for all our deliverance. He has been very kind and merciful to us all the day long.

Therefore, let us do right. Let us observe the laws of God, and keep His commandments, and the blessing of God will be with us. We will go forward and build our temples and labor therein. We will go forth and build up the Kingdom of God; we will go forth and purify the Church of God; we will go forth and establish the Zion of God. When Zion existed upon the earth it took 365 years to prepare the people thereof to be translated. But the Lord in these last days will cut His work short in righteousness. Therefore let us do right. Do right by everybody. Bear with the infirmities of men and the follies of men. Treat all men kindly, no matter who they may be—whether they are insiders or outsiders, or apostates, or anybody else—treat everybody kindly. But do not be partakers of the practices of the wicked. Do not mix up with the corrupt and evil. If they are hungry, feed them; if they are naked clothe them; if they are sick, administer to them; but do not associate with them in their abominations and their corruptions. Come out from the world and be ye separate, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord, and let “Holiness to the Lord” be written in every heart; and let us all feel that we are for Zion and for God and His Kingdom, and for those principles that will elevate us in time and throughout the eternities that are to come.

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

Remarks by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, Nov. 23rd, 1884.

There are a few moments remaining, which it is desired I should occupy.

It is very interesting to hear the testimony of the Elders who have been on missions and who have re– turned therefrom as our brethren who have spoken this afternoon, and to me particularly so in the case of young men like Brother Leo Clawson, whose voice we have heard and whose testimony has been given to us. Sending young men upon missions is an excellent method of testing their integrity and also of giving them an opportunity of proving for themselves whether the testimony they have heard from their parents and others is true. When a young man leaves home to go to a foreign land, in the midst of a cold-hearted and prejudiced world, without purse or scrip, with no funds in his pocket to depend upon to pay his way, and has to depend upon his Maker, and upon the promises which He has made, he is in a most excellent position to learn for himself the truth of the words of the Savior and the truth of the testimonies that he has heard from his parents and friends. I rejoice exceedingly that our young men have this opportunity, because it brings home to them in a most unmistakable and convincing manner the truth of those testimonies they have heard. When a man has no food to eat, when he has no friends, and is a stranger in a strange land, traveling as a servant of God, he has a good opportunity of testing for himself whether there is a God, and whether that God hears and answers his prayers. In this way faith becomes knowledge; because if a man prays to God and asks for that which he wants and God gives it to him, he then knows for himself that God hears and answers prayer. It is in this way that the knowledge of the Gospel that we have received is perpetuated in our hearts and in the hearts of our children—transmitted from one generation to another, as it has been and is being done at the present time among these Latter-day Saints. Today there is a host of young men growing up in this country who have in this manner proved for themselves the truth of that which I am now speaking of. It was in this manner that I learned most convincingly in my youth that this was the work of God. I believed it, yes, I may say I knew it to be true, but when I was sent out as a missionary without purse and scrip and compelled to feel after God and ask Him for those things that I wanted, I learned to my entire satisfaction that when I did need God’s blessings He was at hand to confer them upon me according to the desires of my heart and the necessities of my case. In this manner men who are now of middle age have grown up with this knowledge, and the youth today are in their turn acquiring the same knowledge, obtaining it through the means which God has appointed and in the manner He has designed.

There are two objects to be accomplished by the Elders going out without purse and scrip upon the apostolic plan. In the first place, they learn for themselves that God lives and that He hears and answers prayer; in the second place, they test the world. The Savior says: “Whoso receiveth you receiveth me, and the same will feed you, and give you money. And he who feeds you, or clothes you, or gives you money, shall in no wise lose his reward; and he that doeth not these things is not my disciple; by this you may know my disciples.”

We test the world in this manner and prove whether they will receive the servants of God and supply their simple wants when they travel preaching the Gospel without salary or pay of a pecuniary character; but looking unto the Lord for the reward that He has promised to bestow. When a man has been gone as Brother Clawson has, and as Brother George Goddard has—Brother Clawson for two years and upwards—he becomes acquainted with the Lord, he learns to know God is his friend, and he through his life afterwards, if he cherishes that knowledge which he has then acquired, is a faithful servant of God. There are today hundreds of our youth scattered throughout the various fields acquiring this knowledge of God, becoming familiar with the things of God, learning for themselves that which they have been taught in theory, and having it so thoroughly instilled into them, and becoming so indoctrinated in these principles, that they never will forget them.

My brethren and sisters, we can rejoice exceedingly in the prospects before us. We may be hated as our brethren have described; we may be maligned and calumniated and called all manner of evil names; but with all these things we can rejoice, because it is the legacy that was left to us and left to every follower of Jesus Christ by himself when he was upon the earth. He that lives godly in Christ Jesus, Paul says, shall suffer persecution. He did not say that they might suffer it—He did not put it in a doubtful manner—but He said they should suffer—“they shall suffer persecution.” We have proved the truth of that saying of the Apostle’s. But notwithstanding all this, we can look around us, and see what God is doing for us. We have the most abundant causes for thanksgiving and praise. He is blessing us as no other people today upon the face of the earth are being blessed. Outside of our community there is hatred, there is animosity, there is a feeling of wrath entertained against us. We are hated by those who know us not. But inside there is peace, there is happiness, there is joy, there is health, growth and development—a people growing up in these mountains that will yet astonish the world by the exhibition of those grand virtues that God is developing in our midst through the teachings of the everlasting Gospel that we have received. A union unparalleled, unexampled at this time upon the earth exists throughout our settlements and in all our associations from north to south, from east to west—a people dwelling together in peace and in love, loving each other with an intensity of love, begotten of God, and that is unknown elsewhere—the fruits of the outpouring of the spirit and power of God upon us. Men say that this is imposture; that these are the fruits of ignorance; that the binding of this people together in the manner in which we are associated in these valleys is merely the result of the combination of shrewd men. A most extraordinary spectacle this! That wherever you go throughout our settlements, in whatsoever house you enter, if the owners are Latter-day Saints, you will find there the spirit of peace and of love; a willingness to do everything possible for each other. And then when we contemplate the growth of the people in intelligence, to me it is something marvelous what God is doing for us in this direction. There is no community upon the face of the earth today among whom you will find so many men who have traveled, who have mingled with people in foreign lands, who are so familiar with the religious and social usages and with the history of the people of other lands, as you will find in this community of Latter-day Saints. Scarcely a man among us now of middle age who has not been in foreign lands, who has not traveled throughout his own country, and acquired a knowledge of human nature such as cannot be acquired under any other circumstances. The effect of this upon the community I can perceive; we all can observe it wherever we go. It is uplifting the people—not very rapidly, it is true, but still in such a manner that it is easily perceived. You can perceive the effect upon the people of the education thus gained by the Elders in traveling and preaching the Gospel abroad. Nearly all returning missionaries express themselves as our brethren have this afternoon. Brother Clawson has said that he is determined from this time forward to do his share in helping forward the work of the redemption of the human family. When such men return, bringing with them the spirit that they have upon their missions—the Spirit of God—what a strength it is to their Bishops, what a strength it is to their Teachers, what a strength it is to the entire Priesthood in the Ward where they reside, or the Stake to which they belong. And when they come back, as they do by scores, this effect is felt throughout the entire body of the people, and excellent results follow, a higher tone is developed, a higher standard is aimed at, and there is an uplifting of the people, as it were, to that higher standard.

This is going on all the time, and the effect is marked and already felt. Those who travel through our settlements see many things that strike them, and strike them more forcibly because of the different impression created by the falsehoods told concerning us. These falsehoods have their good effect in this respect; for when a man hears so much about the “Mormons,” he naturally pictures to himself the kind of society that he will meet when he goes among them. If he has never met “Mormons,” he has an idea in his mind, from what he has read, or from what he has been told, as to the kind of people he will meet when he sees them. But he is thrown into “Mormon” society. He finds that they have no horns; that they have no cloven feet; that they do not garnish their conversation with oaths; and that if he had not been told these were “Mormons,” he would not have discovered it by any outward sign. When he comes into our cities, instead of seeing drunkenness, instead of hearing blasphemy, instead of seeing the profanation of all that is holy, he sees a people dwelling in peace, he sees quietude prevailing, and the contrast strikes him very forcibly. “Why,” says he, “this is not what I expected to see; these are not the people I expected to meet; this is not the society for which I looked when I came into the settlements of the Latter-day saints in Utah.” These very falsehoods, therefore, have the effect of impressing—where men have the opportunity of mingling with the people, more forcibly upon the mind than otherwise would be the case that which they see. It takes time, however, to remove prejudice, to disabuse people’s minds. They think that there is something hidden, something that is very bad, that they have not yet discovered, and this sometimes remains in the mind a good while.

But, as sure as God lives so sure will we live down these false charges and impressions, and the day is not far distant when lovers of good government, lovers of peace, will turn their attention to these valleys in which we dwell and to this society of which we form a part. For there is trouble in the future; there is perplexity not very far off. We can hear a faint rumbling of it, as it were, in the distance. The time will come, as sure as we live, when distress and calamity will fall upon the wicked, and our own nation has a great deal to answer for. They have to answer for deeds that cannot be easily paid. The blood of innocence has stained the soil of free America—the blood of a Prophet, of a Patriarch, and of other righteous men and women who have suffered for their religion, and for no other cause than that they chose to espouse the truth and to advocate it, living lives of purity, offending no one—that is, no one who should be offended—breaking no law, trampling upon no human right. They were cruelly murdered, and we as a people were driven out by violence, driven out from the midst of civilization, driven out from our homes and our hard-earned possessions, and our track is marked with the blood and with the graves of our own people from the borders of civilization till we reached these Rocky Mountains, and for no other cause for which we could be punished legally. We broke no law; we committed no offense against the majesty of the law. We have lived lives of purity as we do here in these mountains. But prejudice was created; men became excited; mobs were formed, and extermination was decided upon, and there was no alternative presented to us but this: either to submit to be killed off, men, women and children, from the face of the earth, or to take our flight as best we could in our poverty to some remote land where we could worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience in peace and in quietness. We chose the latter alternative. We preferred to face the wilderness with all its untold terrors. We preferred to come out among tribes of Indians of which we knew nothing, and live in their midst and trust to their mercies, savages though they were, than to remain among civilized men, men who called themselves Christians. We did this thirty-seven years ago.

Fifty-four years and a half have passed since the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in this land there has never been a man punished for killing a “Mormon,” never been a man punished for burning a “Mormon’s” house, never been a man punished for engaging in mobs and banding together for the extirpation of the “Mormons” and the destruction of their property. And this, too, in this land of boasted liberty; this in this land, the most glorious under the canopy of heaven, the most free that ever existed, the best government ever formed by human wisdom; this in this land with the constitution as free as God Himself has revealed it, so free that every human being may dwell under it without let or hindrance, without interfering with the rights of his fellow man, giving me the perfect freedom to worship God according to my own conscience, and giving no man the right to interfere with me in that worship, and giving every other man the same right, and depriving me of the right to interfere with any other man in his worship, if he worship according to the dictates of his own conscience and does not interfere with the rights of his fellow man. But in this land Latter-day Saints have been murdered, murdered for no other cause than because they believed in God and believed He was a God of revelation, and today Utah exists because of this. Because of this spirit of persecution today, Utah is a Territory, a grand Territory, and we as a people are living in these valleys of the mountains for that very cause. We are a standing monument before God and before all men of the inhumanity of man to his fellow man. This is the position that we occupy.

Will not these things be remembered? Yes, they will, and they will bring down the anger of a just God upon the nation. Not for this alone. There are other things; and the time will yet come when men will flee for safety to the land where the Saints dwell; for we design, by the help of our God, to maintain freedom, freedom for every man, freedom for every creed, freedom for every race wherever we live and can have power. All men shall have equal freedom with us, they shall be protected with us in every human right, in the exercise of every belief that they choose to indulge in as long as by its exercise they do not trample upon the rights of their fellow man. And we shall maintain organized government. Others may trample upon the laws of the land; others may seek to bring us into bondage; but we shall be free through the help of our God, and our country shall be a free country; for if others trample upon the Constitution, we will elevate it, we will bear it aloft, we will invite the men of all cities and all parts of our lands to come and dwell in peace and safety protected by that glorious instrument, and the principles it contains, that God helped the founders of this government to frame.

Therefore I say, my brethren and sisters, let us be encouraged; let us cultivate the virtues that belong to our religion; let us love each other; let us cultivate peace wherever we go, and extend its blessings as far as our influence will permit.

May God help us to endure all the trials that we may be called upon to pass through, and may He bless you my brethren and sisters, and all who are seeking to do His will, I ask in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Provo, Sunday Afternoon, Nov. 20th, 1884.

In attempting to address you this afternoon, my brethren and sisters, I trust I shall have the assistance of your faith and prayers, that I may be led to speak upon those principles that are adapted to your circumstances and wants. We as a people are living at a time when we need the assistance and direction of the Spirit of God. To be taught by men and by men’s wisdom in our position would be of little or no avail to us, from the fact that the conditions which surround us are different in many respects from those which surround every other people. We are a peculiar people. We are not bound together by associations such as exist among other peoples. We have not come together because this land suited us, and was desirable for us to make a living in, but we have gathered to this land through force of circumstances over which, to a certain extent, we had no control. We have come together impelled by motives such as do not operate upon ordinary people, and having objects to accomplish such as are not thought of nor labored for by others. Other people, when they form settlements such as we have in these mountains, are generally drawn together, if they are new settlements, by the advantages of locality, by the opportunities for making a living or in creating wealth, or for some consideration or reason of this character—that is in the first place. Afterwards, in succeeding generations, they stay there because it is their birth place, because it is the home in which they have been reared. But these considerations have not influenced us in our settlement in these valleys. It is due to none of these causes that we are organized in communities as we are today, but it is due to causes that are higher and diverse from those that operate upon other people where they form settlements such as we have done. Hence, this being our condition, it requires wisdom, it requires strength, it requires enlightenment from God, to enable us to maintain ourselves upon the principle that we came here in the beginning for, and to escape the evils by which we are threatened. We believe that it was God who led us to this land; that it was God who prepared this land as an abode for us; that it has been His Almighty power that has preserved us thus far, and has ameliorated the condition of affairs—that is the soil and the climate and the water—that has produced changes that have made this land desirable and a delightful home for us—and that there has been a purpose and a design in all this, and that we have been the instruments in the hands of God of working out and accomplishing that design up to the present time. Hence there is, as I have said, a necessity that we should receive from the same source that has hitherto guided us, continued guidance and continued instruction, so that we shall not stop half-way in the work that we have undertaken, but by divine help be able to accomplish it.

There were some reflections that passed through my mind as I sat in your meeting this morning concerning the circumstances which surround us, that if I can get the Spirit I would like to speak upon.

In the first place it will not do to judge or measure us by the standards that obtain among other people, and by which people are measured in other places. To form a correct judgment of the Latter-day Saints, men must understand the motives which prompt them to action, the considerations which affect them, and the objects they have in view to accomplish; to form a correct estimate of our character these all must be taken into consideration. But it is often the case that we are measured by standards that do not apply to us, which may very well answer for measuring other people and other communities, but not for us, and in consequence of this we are frequently misjudged, and men and women come to incorrect conclusions respecting us. Fault is constantly found with us by our enemies because of these peculiarities which they do understand, or which if they do not understand, they pay no attention to. For instance, it is frequently said to us that we are a disloyal people, that we are not friends to the government, that we respect a power and an authority in our midst which we consider paramount to the authority of the government; and because of the circulation of this accusation and its widespread belief, we are refused rights to which we are fully entitled, which belong to us, which should not be withheld from or denied to us. It is very remarkable when we think about our numbers, how few we are, comparatively speaking—it is very remarkable that there should be such jealousy entertained about us as there is. Pharaoh and the Egyptians were never more afraid apparently of the great power of the children of Israel in their midst than our fellowcitizens, and many of them too that are in high places, appear to be afraid of us. They seem to look upon us as aliens, as an alien power, and treat us accordingly, when there is not the least justification for doing so.

Now, you remember, doubtless, Pharaoh’s treatment of the Israelites. He saw that they were increasing, and he became alarmed. “Why,” said he, “If we were going to have a war, these Israelites are becoming so numerous they may join our enemies and take away our kingdom from us. We must stop their increase.” And he counseled with his people as to the best method to stop this increase. He issued a decree that all male children that were born of the Israelites should be destroyed and cast into the river Nile, but that the female children should be spared. In this way he hoped to check the increase of the children of Israel in Egypt. There is nothing in history that has come down to us to furnish grounds or justification for this cruel action on the part of this king. But this action was well adapted to force the children of Israel into the feeling that the government under which they lived was a harsh, a cruel and an unfriendly government, and to create antipathy in their breasts against it. In this way this tyrant—as all tyrants have ever done—in trying to accomplish the object he had in view, took the very means to bring upon himself and his nation the evils that he dreaded; because if he had desired to make the Israelites join the enemies of the nation and be traitors in the midst of the kingdom he could not have taken a more effective method than that which he did take.

And so it is with us. If we had not had a profound attachment to the Constitution of the United States and to the institutions of this government, the course that is taken against us by those who have represented the government has been and is of a character to have driven us into open and avowed enmity to the government years and years ago. Without that deep-rooted attachment we should have lost all our respect for a government under which we have suffered such cruel wrongs. There could be no better evidence of the kind feeling and the loyalty of the Latter-day Saints to the government of the United States, than the fact that in our breasts and throughout these mountains, there prevails an unquenchable love and respect for the Constitution and the institutions that spring therefrom, notwithstanding we have been denied our rights and been treated with the utmost cruelty. There is scarcely an act of oppression that could be practiced that we have not had to endure, from the time the church of which we are members, was organized up to the present time. We have been falsely accused of all kinds of crimes, have been mobbed and repeatedly driven from our homes with the entire loss of our property, have been outraged, warred upon, subjected to violence of almost every description, and murdered. One by one our rights have been assailed. We have been stripped of them under forms of law; we have been denied justice, and treated with extreme vindictiveness. Our families—if those who had the execution of the laws in their hands could have accomplished it—would have been rent asunder; wives would have been torn from their husbands, children from their parents; households would have been destroyed; distrust and enmity and hatred would have been engendered in the breasts of the people one towards another—that is, if the measures that have been framed against us could have been successfully carried out as they were designed by those who framed them. Just think of it! Think of the manner the women of this community have been tempted to turn traitors to their husbands and their friends! Every inducement possible has been offered to them to turn against and betray their husbands, and the seeds of enmity have been sown, or have endeavored to be sown, in the breasts of families, and of children against parents, and against each other, throughout the entire land. When you contemplate all these acts, they equal in cruelty and perfidy, and inhumanity, any of the acts of which we read in the Scriptures. Men are shocked when they read the story of the treatment of the Israelites by Pharaoh. All the preachers throughout the land, when they read that, comment more or less upon it to their congregations, and talk about the cruelty of which that king was guilty, and praise the Israelites, and praise Moses for that which they did. At the same time they are guilty themselves of as great crimes. They are guilty of inciting a government against its citizens—its peaceful citizens—and stirring up the government to acts of harshness, of cruelty, and even some of them go so far as to defend the use of the army by the government to destroy a peaceful people from the face of the earth.

Now, as I have said, no people in the world have given greater proofs of attachment to their own government, and of devotion to those sacred principles of liberty that we have inherited than the Latter-day Saints have done in these mountains. But, as I have said, the cry is still that we are disloyal; that we unite church and state; that we have an authority in our midst that we respect and obey, while we disregard the civil authority of the land. These things are a frequent cause of complaint against us, and we are denied our rights. We today, should be a State. This Territory of Utah should be one of the United States. We should have the right to elect our own Governor, to elect our own Judges, to elect every officer in fact that executes the laws or has anything to do with the administration of the government in our own land. We have been here 37 years, and during 34 years of that time we have been an organized Territorial government, longer than any other community on the continent except New Mexico, which was organized at the same time. Other Territories have sprung up and had speedy recognition as States, and are now numbered as members of the Union years after we settled this country. There is no good reason why we should not have had this same right granted unto us; no good reason whatever. We have shown our capability for good government, for maintaining good government. Our Territory today is an example for maintaining to all the Territories and to many States, so far as good government is concerned, and freedom from debt, and everything in fact that makes life enjoyable and easy for the citizen. We are lightly taxed, and we have maintained ourselves without aid from the general government or from any other community; while other communities that have had nothing like the difficulties to contend with that we have had, have been beggars either at the door of the National Congress, or of their neighboring States and their fellowcitizens. When other places were visited by grasshoppers, the whole land resounded with appeals for aid; but though we for five years in succession, in some of our settlements, had crops destroyed by the same cause, yet no wail went up from Utah, asking the nation for help. We have been so independent, and so disposed to sustain ourselves, and to fight our own battles with the difficulties that environed us, that we have managed to get along without having recourse to this method of obtaining assistance, and in this respect our course has been unexampled.

Now, as I say, there is no good reason why we should not have been admitted as a State in the Union, except for the reason, and that has no foundation in truth, that we are not to be trusted, that we are in such a condition that if we were to get a State government there would be danger resulting from that grant of power unto us. Of course all of you, my brethren and sisters, know how untrue this is, how utterly without foundation such accusations are, but, nevertheless, they are listened to and believed.

Efforts have been made among us to change this condition of affairs. There have been, and still are, perhaps, some who call themselves Latter-day Saints, who are almost ready to lend themselves to any scheme that has for its object the obtaining of a State organization for Utah. Such persons look upon this as so great a blessing and so great a boon, that they are almost willing to forego their religious belief and to pander to those who have got power, and to make some sort of a concession to them, in order to achieve this, what they consider, very desirable end. There has been some agitation in years past respecting plural marriage, and some people, calling themselves Latter-day Saints, have been almost ready to go into the open market, and bid for a State government, at the price of conceding this principle of our religion, for the privilege of becoming a State of the Union. Those who are ready to do this are ready also to cast off obedience to the Priesthood of the Son of God, and to say, “We do not believe that men who hold an office in the Church should have any voice in the affairs of the State.” They are ready to sell out their belief as Latter-day Saints, and their veneration and reverence for that power which God has restored, for the sake of obtaining a little recog– nition of their rights as citizens, on the part of those in power. It does not require much familiarity with the Spirit of God, or with the principles of our holy religion to understand exactly the position that such persons as these to whom I allude, occupy among us. When a man is ready to barter any principle of salvation for worldly advantage, that man certainly has reached the position that he esteems worldly advantage above eternal salvation. Can such persons retain the Spirit of God, and take such a course as this? No, they cannot. That other spirit will lead such persons astray, and they will be left to themselves. Will there be such persons continue among us and be associated with us? I do not question it. I expect we shall have such characters with us, during our future career as we have had in the past. We have had all sorts of people connected with this Church. As the work rolls forth, as it increases in numbers, so will these characters increase—that is, for a certain time, until the day comes when the kingdom of God and the reign of righteousness shall be fully ushered in.

Now, regarding this accusation that is made concerning the Priesthood. It is the most common charge that is made against us that we listen to the Priesthood, that we are more obedient to the Priesthood than we are to those who hold civil authority. The question may be very properly asked: Have we not had good reason for this? Should we not be most consummate fools it we did not listen to our friends instead of our enemies? From the time that President Young was superseded as Governor of this Territory, until the present time, what kind of officers have we had sent into our midst to administer the affairs of the government? Has there been a man who has come here as Governor, who has had the ability, even if he had the disposition, to guide and to counsel the people of this Territory, and to manage its affairs as well as the men among us who have had leading positions in the Priesthood? Why, there is not an instance of the kind. You take the best disposed Governor we have had—and they are easily mentioned, the few that we have had who have been well disposed—you take them and compare them with the men who laid the foundation of this commonwealth, who laid the foundation of this Territorial government, and built up this government, and there is no comparison between them. So that, aside from every other consideration, men are justified in seeking wisdom and guidance at the best fountain, at the best source. If I want counsel I will go to the men who are fitted to give me counsel. If I were not a Latter-day Saint it would make no difference to me who the person was if he could give me good counsel. If he was a man of ripe experience I would feel justified in going to that man and getting his advice.

This has been our position as a people. We have had men among us who have proved themselves in the best possible manner, beyond dispute, to to be entirely capable of directing and managing and counseling in all matters that pertain to our earthly existence. Have they not shown this through years and years of experience? The people have proved them. Now, would not the people be great fools, would it not be the height of folly for people who have this knowledge to say: “No, I won’t ask these men for counsel; I won’t go to them for advice; I won’t listen to anything they say, because if I do so, I am listening to the Priesthood; but I will go to somebody who does not know anything; I will go to some”—I was going to say ass—(laughter)—for if ever men have proved themselves to be fools, it has been some of our governmental officials—“I will go to some man of this kind and ask his counsel, and have him to tell me what to do, because I am anxious to show that I am loyal to the government of the United States.”

Now, would you not call any man who would do this an idiot, when he could have got good counsel from his friends; when he would turn his back on his friends, and go to somebody for counsel who did not know anything, not as much as he, the person, did himself about the question he submitted to him? I would say, and you would say, that people who would do such a thing were little less than idiots.

Well, now, what crime are we guilty of? If we have men among us who have more experience than they, and who have proved themselves capable of guiding the people, what crime are we guilty of in giving heed to their counsel and seeking it? Because they hold the Priesthood are their mouths to be stopped up so that they cannot speak; are they to be deprived of the rights of citizenship, and all the rights that men have that are born free, because they hold the Priesthood? Is that a good reason? A more senseless reason never was given. If these government officials and these men that represent the government are so much better and so much more capable of guiding the people, and have so much greater right to be listened to and obeyed, let them show it by their works. When they have proved it, I suppose there will be no lack of disposition on the part of the people to go to them, and to listen to them, and to expect from them all the necessary teachings and counsels. There will be no lack of disposition on the part of sensible men and women such as we profess to be; but until they do this, until they show this capability and this power, they had better hold their tongues and say nothing about others leading the people. The fact is this, and it is apparent to all of us, that there are certain men who can destroy much easier than they can build up. It required a great deal of skill to build the Temple at Ephesus: it required the highest skill in architecture: but a fool destroyed it with a little blaze. It takes men to build up, but children can burn down and destroy. It takes men to build a commonwealth, and lay the foundation of that which we see around us; it takes labor and years of experience and wisdom to accomplish such results; but any poor creature that is half-witted can destroy all these labors in a very short time, and those that have come among us in too many instances representing the government have been men of this caliber; they would like to destroy, tear down, and reduce to chaos. That would suit them far better than it would to build up.

My brethren and sisters, I would like to have us as a people look at these matters, if we can, from a sensible point, from the standpoint of common sense and reason, and not allow ourselves to be diverted from the course that we have adopted by the outcry that is made against us and by the howls that are raised about us. It would be exceedingly foolish for us to do so.

God has given unto us, as we believe and as we testify, His Gospel; He has given unto us His Church; He has given unto us the authority by which men and women are led into His Church and governed in His Church—the authority which He Himself recognizes and the only authority that He has given to man on the earth to act in His stead. We believe this, we testify of it. At the same time while we have this belief, and form ourselves into a Church organization, we never have at any time in our history attempted to make our Church organization the only organization and the dominant organization in matters that pertain to everyday affairs and to civil government. There has always been among the Latter-day Saints, great respect shown for civil authority, and for the laws of the land. In fact, as soon as possible after our first settlement here, a Legislature was organized and the provisional government of Deseret was formed, when there was no one but Latter-day Saints in the country at the time. We could have been governed by our Church organization; it was sufficient for our purpose during the winter of 1847-8, and during the summer of 1848. It was quite sufficient. There was no other organization. But as soon as the Pioneers returned, President Young and the rest of the brethren—there was no time lost in organizing a civil government—the Provisional Government of the State of Deseret—and laws were enacted in due form by the civil authority, and from that day until the present it has been respected and honored among us, and will be from this time forward, as long as this people exist. There is no people on the face of the earth that draw a nicer distinction than we between that which belongs to the Church and that which belongs to the State. But it is frequently said—and I have had to meet it often in my life time, particularly in Washington; they have said and do say, “Why, your Probate Judges are Elders and Bishops, and your other officials hold offices in the Church.”

Well, is this a crime? Is there anything in the law or the Constitution of our country, or is there anything else that is recognized as binding among men that would prevent Elders and Bishops from holding office? I do not know of anything. I do not know that a man is any worse for being a Bishop or an Elder, or any more unfitted for civil employment, or the discharge of civil functions, than if he were not a Bishop or an Elder, especially among a people organized as we are. As I say this charge has been frequently brought against us in my hearing, and I have had to meet it before committees of Congress and elsewhere. The reply I have made to such charges is this: that among the Latter-day Saints in Utah every reputable man in the community bears some office in the Church. As soon as he arrives at a sufficient age if he is a reputable man he receives an ordination in the Priesthood. The best and the most active men in our community are the men who become prominent in Church affairs. Our Bishops live without salaries, or support from the people, they, before being chosen, having shown their ability to sustain themselves. They are not like members of other denominations who are a burden to the people, or who receive an education especially for those duties, and thus live by the salaries that are furnished them by the members of their congregation. In a community where there is a class of that kind there may be some propriety in saying that ministers of religion shall not take part in the affairs of state, although there is nothing of that kind said anywhere in the constitution or the laws; but there may be some propriety in saying this where men are educated especially for the ministry—where they devote themselves to that labor and withdraw themselves from the practical affairs of life and depend upon their parishioners furnishing them support. There might be some propriety in saying to a class of that kind, “you are not fit to take part in civil affairs, and the practical, everyday affairs of life, because of your calling and because of the nature of your duties.” But we say there is great impropriety in saying that those who labor in the ministry among us shall not take part; for this reason: that all the men among us who are the most practical, the most energetic, and the most business like—from these men the ministers are chosen, that is, men who labor in the ministry as Bishops, as Elders, as missionaries, and in other capacities. They have proved that they are capable of sustaining themselves by their own efforts, and at the same time devote a certain portion of their time to public affairs. Hence, you will find among us as a rule that our Bishops are all practical men; our Presidents of Stakes and their Counselors, and the Bishops and their Counselors, the Teachers and others, are all active business men among us. They have gained experience, and because of that they are sometimes chosen to fill local offices. Take the Legislature of Utah Territory, composed as it has been of some holding positions in the Church, and you will find a body of practical men, the superiors of whom are not to be found—I say it without fear of truthful contradiction—anywhere in any Legislature in this country, men who understand the wants of their constituents and of the people, and the kind of laws that are best adapted to them. I have had some experience in mingling with men in public life, and I must say that for practical wisdom, and for a knowledge of the affairs of the country and of the people represented in Utah Territory, there was found, previous to the passage of the Edmunds law, a class of men that had not their superiors anywhere in this land, for practical wisdom and the ability necessary to lay the foundation, and to perpetuate the institutions of a great country.

Is it wrong for men who have the Priesthood, and who act in this capacity, to act in civil offices and to let the people have the benefit of their experience in these matters—is there any wrong in this? I can see none, and I am sure that no man who is a true friend to his country can. There is no good reason why these men should be excluded; in fact there is every reason why they should be invited to take part in establishing the affairs of the country. I have often said, in speaking to our brethren and sisters in various parts of the Territory, that that which we behold today in our Territory—the good order, the peace, the freedom from debt, the lightness of taxation, and all the circumstances that are so favorable to us as a people, are due to the men who have borne the Priesthood, commencing with President Brigham Young, his Counselors, and the Twelve Apostles, and the leading men in Israel—the circumstances which surround us, I say, are due to the wisdom that God has given unto them in managing these affairs. At the same time, because this is the case, there is no necessity that there should be a blending of church and state. There is no necessity for this; it is not wise to blend church and state. I do not believe that as members of the Church we should pass decrees or laws that would bind other people. I have no such belief, never did have. I do not think I ever shall have. But because a man is a member of a church, and because a man is a servant of God, and because a man bears the Priesthood of the Son of God, he should not be prevented because of that from acting in any civil capacity, from taking part in civil matters and executing the laws that are enacted by civil authority.

The province of the Kingdom of God that Daniel saw, the kingdom that would be established in the last days, is to be as a shield to the Latter-day Saints, to be as a bulwark around about that Church, and around about that Church alone? No. The apostate will have his civil rights under that kingdom. The non-Mormon, or Gentile as he is called, will have his rights under that kingdom. The Chinaman, the Negro, and the Indian—each of them will have his rights under that kingdom, and yet not be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A good many of our people confound the Kingdom of God with the Church of God. Now there is a very wide distinction between the two. A man may, in one sense, be a member of the Church of Christ, and not a member of the Kingdom of God. The two organizations are entirely distinct. The Kingdom of God when it shall prevail in the earth—as it will do—will be the civil power which will shield and protect the Church of Christ against every attack, against every unlawful aggression, against every attempt to deprive it of its legitimate rights. At the same time it will protect the Methodist just as much as it will the Latter-day Saint; it will protect the Roman Catholic just as much as it will the Methodist; it will protect men of every creed; it will protect the worshipper of idols in his civil rights, in his rights as a man and as a citizen. A man may be an infidel; a man may have been a Latter-day Saint, and denied the faith and lost his standing in the Church of God, and yet so far as the civil authority is concerned, so far as the power that is wielded by that which we call the Kingdom of God is concerned, that man will receive the amplest protection; he will have the fullest enjoyment of his rights.

President Taylor told us this morning—told us as plainly as it could be told—the manner in which all men should be treated. And that is the design of God; and therein our friends in the east are trampling upon the true principles of liberty in their attacks upon us, and in their treatment of us. Such treatment will just as surely bring down condemnation and destruction upon a government that practices these things, as that the setting of the sun will bring darkness upon the earth. It is not possible for men to continue in such a course of oppression and wrong doing as has been pursued by our fellowcitizens that have had the reins of government in their hands, without involving themselves in trouble. It is impossible that they can perpetuate their power, and conduct themselves as they have been doing towards us and towards others. There are eternal principles of justice that cannot be violated without injury to the person who violates them. A government that lends itself to the oppression of its citizens, will sooner or later receive punishment. That which it sows it will reap. It will be a harvest that will be most bitter and sorrowful for those who reap it.

We are now citizens of this Territory. We fled here. As Latter-day Saints we came here as exiles, seeking for a home in the wilderness. God led us to this land, in which, notwithstanding all that maybe said to the contrary, we have laid the foundation of this Territory, we have made this land a peaceful, a happy land. There is no man in the country, no matter what his creed may be, that is oppressed or has been oppressed by the Latter-day Saints. We have not been tyrannical in the exercise of our power. We have not discriminated against those not of us. We have given them the same rights that we have ourselves. The same peace that we have desired to enjoy we have been willing that they should enjoy, and we have extended these privileges to them in common with ourselves. We have sought in no manner to interfere with their belief, nor with the exercise of it. The Roman Catholic in Salt Lake City, has been as unmolested as the Latter-day Saint has been. We may not believe in their religion; we may think the Methodist religion a poor religion to believe in and practice, and so with other forms of religion; but while we believe this, we have no right, neither have we ever exercised any power towards restraining them or restricting them, or in any manner depriving them of the free exercise of their rights of conscience and of faith, and no government can stand and prosper that will do it upon this land, for God has made promises concerning this land that no government can stand that will do this. None of us has any right to interfere with the faith and the worship of our fellowcitizens, unless their faith and their worship interfere with our rights. That is a proposition that is easily comprehended. If I do not interfere with any man’s right by my worship, and by that which I consider right to do to my Maker, no man has any right under any form of government to interfere with me.

Hence it is that all this action concerning marriage is wrong—this interference with marriage—it is all wrong from beginning to end, especially in view of the fact that it is an important principle of our religion. We are ready to testify that our belief in marriage and our practice of it, is interwoven with our hopes of eternal salvation. Select every man who has had more wives than one and retained the faith of the Gospel; take him and his wives and interrogate them respecting their faith, and every one would say: “this principle is so-intimately interwoven with my hopes of eternal salvation, that I would be afraid that I would be damned if I did not obey it.” I believe that in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand where people are in the faith they would make this response.

Well, now, what right has any number of people—there may be unnumbered millions who say this is not religion—but what right have they to do this? If there was only one person on the face of the earth that entertained that belief, and he were alone and all the rest of mankind were opposed to him, it would be just as precious to him as if millions entertained a belief in common with him. Therefore, because there are millions who say it is not religion, this does not make it so. We testify in the most solemn manner that it is a part of our religion, and that we cannot forego this principle without feeling that we forego our salvation, our eternal exaltation, by so doing.

Then the question arises in the practice of this principle—do those who practice it infringe upon the rights of their fellowcitizens? Is society disturbed? Are there wrongs done to society at large by the practice of this principle? Let those who have lived among us answer this question. There never was a more peaceful society than our society—that is, not for the past few hundred years at least. Go through our settlements, and is there quarreling, is there strife, are there bad examples set to the rising generation, is impurity taught, or any examples of impurity shown? No, there is not. We all know this, and we know that in practicing our religion we do not infringe upon the rights of our fellowcitizens.

But this attempt has been made just as it was in ancient days. I look upon it as a revival of the same spirit that prompted Pharaoh to seek the destruction of the male children among the Israelites. If we were guilty of those crimes so fashionable in the world whereby the increase of families is prevented, I do not suppose there would be one word said about our system of marriage; I have no idea there would be. But the fact that we do raise children—the fact that our houses and settlements are full of healthy offspring, is a standing protest against the crimes of the age; it is a standing protest against those abominable practices that are destroying the foundation of many communities within the confines of the United States, and they are determined—those who are guilty of these things—that we shall not exist. The loudest outcry against us, and the most devoted efforts against us, come from the region where these dreadful practices prevail, where women murder their offspring before they are born, are guilty of this prenatal murder, among the people of the United States who think themselves the most enlightened. Twenty-five years ago when I was laboring in the ministry in that region I visited one of the towns, and the President of the branch of the Saints there, (an old resident, whose ancestors were among the first settlers of the town) told me his wife was continually jeered at—and this was 25 years ago—by her associates, because she bore children, and bore them regularly—that she did not take means to prevent the increase of her family! If I had not known him I could scarcely have believed it, it was too horrid. I have learned since, however, that that is a common practice in that region. The feature of that society that impresses most vividly a traveler from Utah is the fewness of children in what are called the best families. And yet it is from there that the principal outcry is raised against us, and the determination expressed to break up our families and to destroy us.

God has gathered a few people out from the nations of the earth, out of Babylon. But shall they partake of these influences? I say to you, my sisters, you teach your daughters against this accursed practice, or they will go to hell, they will be damned, they will be murderers, and the blood of innocence will be found upon them. A man that would sanction such a thing in his family, or that would live with a woman guilty of such acts, shares in the crime of murder. I would no more perform the ordinance of laying on of hands on a woman who is guilty of that crime, if I knew it, than I would put my hands on the head of a rattlesnake. We must set our faces like flint against such acts. These dreadful practices are coming up like a tidal wave and washing against our walls; for there are women among us who secretly—so I am told, I know nothing about this personally, but I am told there are women among us who are instilling this murderous and accursed idea into the breasts of women and girls in our midst. Now just as sure as it is done, and people yield to it, so sure will they be damned, they will be damned with the deepest damnation; because it will be the damnation of shedding innocent blood, for which there is no forgiveness; and I would no more, as I say, administer to such women, baptize them, or perform any ordinance of the Gospel for them, than I would for a reptile. They are outside the pale of salvation. They are in a position that nothing can be done for them. They cut themselves off by such acts from all hopes of salvation.

As a people we should encourage marriage. I am always delighted when I hear President Taylor speak as he did this morning on the principle of brothers taking their brothers’ widows to wife. There are many young women among us pining away, that should be mothers in Israel, that should be raising posterity, because the brothers are so indifferent to the rights that belong to the institution of marriage as to let these young women stay in this condition. And there is one thing that I am impressed with, and that is, there will be considerable condemnation rest down upon the Elders of this Church for their neglect in these matters. Women are led astray and fall into the hands of wicked men because of relatives to the dead neglecting to do that which is their duty; acting as though the Lord cannot reward a man for keeping His law. “Oh,” says a man, and as President Taylor has remarked, “I want to raise up a family for myself.” He forgets God can bless him and his seed after him. Look at the case of Boaz and Ruth. He took Ruth, who was the wife of his kinsman. She had no children, but he took her when another kinsman who had a prior right to her, rejected her. From that alliance sprang the noblest men that were in Israel—Obed, Jesse, David, Solomon, and through Boaz and Ruth came the Son of God. And that was a proxy case, as it is called. Ruth was the wife of Boaz’s kinsman who had died. Boaz took her to wife, and raised up an honorable posterity. And it is a wicked thing among us to allow such cases to go uncared for. A young woman is left a widow, sometimes without a son to represent her deceased husband; she should be cared for, and not left to fall into bad hands, as frequently is the case among us for the want of care on the part of those whose duty it is to attend to such matters.

My brethren and sisters, God is watching over us, and He holds us to a strict accountability for the things He has revealed to us. He has revealed to us eternal principles. Let us be faithful to that Priesthood which He has gives unto us; let us honor it, and not be intimidated by the outcry that is raised against us that we are doing wrong because we listen to the Priesthood. There is no such thing as wrong connected with this. God has inspired His servants, and has given them wisdom to manage the affairs of this people, and to guide them in spiritual matters. They have full authority to do this, and they will do it if the people will listen to them, and then in temporal matters they will guide them as far as they have the opportunity. Because they are Priests of the Most High God, they are no worse for that; they are not handicapped because they have the Priesthood. In a civil capacity they can act as fairly, justly, wisely, as those who do not have the Priesthood. They do not act with any less wisdom or any less power because they have the Priesthood than they would do if they did not have it. I have heard so much of this sort of talk that to me it is perfectly ridiculous. They talk about our management of elections, and management of other affairs. I will tell you my experience, and I have had some experience in these matters. I have attended caucuses elsewhere; I know the machinery that is used; I know the wire pulling; I have seen it in operation, and I say to you that there is not the interference on the part of leading men here with the will of this people that there is in the States in political circles. And I tell you this: that leading men in other communities seek to exercise more influence and lay their plans to have their wishes carried out to a far greater extent than the leading men of this community do among us—I mean those who have the Priesthood. There is a disposition on the part of the leading Priesthood to let the people have their way, not to interfere with their selections. There is that disposition, and it is encouraged, and the desire is to have all the people be wise and exercise wisdom, and have the Spirit of God to discern who are suitable for office. If the people could do this I can tell you that President Taylor and his Counselors, and the Twelve, and the other leading men of Israel would be very glad indeed. But you know as well as we do that there are unwise men among us who would, if they had the power, destroy the people; not because they would design to do it, but because of their ignorance; they are ignorant and would do it, without knowing what the consequences would be; and on this account it is right that experienced men should give the people the benefit of their knowledge, not however, interfering with the rights of the people, not in the least; and it never has been done, at least within my knowledge, in my public experience among the people. And I repeat there has been less of this among us, considering the influence the Priesthood have, than in any other community or any other people that I am acquainted with anywhere in the land. I wanted to say this much, because I know there is a great deal of misapprehension upon these points. There are men, agitators, who talk about interference on the part of the Priesthood, and try to breed disturbance and confusion among the people, unsettle their minds and have them think there is something very wrong going on here. I speak of it to remove these wrong impressions, and to disabuse the minds of those who entertain them, for they are not correct. There are more caucuses, more plans, more pipe laying, more log rolling, more wire pulling in the States in one day, than you will see in a month or a year among us. They resort to all sorts of devices to get their man elected under promise of preferment and office. Why, there is scarcely a man that gets an office in the United States that is not bound by pledges of this kind. A man cannot be Speaker of the House of Representatives, without being hampered by promises he is compelled to give in order to get the position, promises to put this man on this committee, and the other man upon another committee, some to be chairmen of committees, and so on. So with the President of the United States. Probably Grover Cleveland will be an exception, because he has not been much in public life: but it is a rule that the nominees of the different parties give certain promises as to what they will do, and who will get leading positions. They are just as much fettered as though chains were on their wrists and ankles. They cannot move only in a certain direction. All freedom is taken away. A President is nearly killed after he gets his position in endeavoring to satisfy the clamors and wishes of those who claim they elected him to office. This is the case all through the government. There is no office, even to that of a constable, but is obtained in the same way.

I hope we shall never be in such a position as this, for it would lead to the destruction of liberty and free government among us, if we should ever give way to these things. Let men go into office free and untrammeled. Let them be elected because they are the men most suitable, and not because they want the office. Let us, as a people, endeavor to find men who do not seek for office, and who do not want it, but who take it because it is the wish of their fellowcitizens. And let us keep our salaries so low that men will not scramble for office and live on the people as officeholders, than which there is nothing more hateful in a free land.

I pray God to fill you with the Holy Ghost, to guide you in the path of righteousness, to enable you to avoid the many evils abroad in the world, and as Zion progresses to avoid evils that will crowd upon us; because as Zion increases there will be new temptations and circumstances thrown around us that will be a trial to us, unless we have the aid of our God to help us contend with and overcome them; and that we may have this aid is my prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Stake Meetinghouse, Ephraim, Sanpete County, November 16th, 1884.

I will read a portion of the 7th chapter of Deuteronomy:

“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

“For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

“But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

“For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

“The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:

“But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

“Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

“And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

“Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.

“Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers:

“And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

“Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male nor female barren among you, or among your cattle.

“And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.”

These words that I have read in your hearing are found in the 7th chapter of Deuteronomy. In many respects these are most applicable to us as a people; for the same covenant which the Lord made with the children of Israel, and which are contained in part in this chapter, have been renewed unto us. We are their descendants; God has revealed this, and it is manifest that we are the descendants of the house of Israel, by the operations of the Gospel among us. No doubt many of you have been led to wonder in your experience how it was that you should receive the Gospel, and that others who had equal opportunities with you, probably belonging to the same household, and numbered among your friends and acquaintances; that when you received the Gospel, they could see nothing desirable or attractive about it, while your hearts were kindled into a glow, and felt like fire within you when you heard the testimony of the servants of God concerning the Gospel that He had revealed. Nothing that I know of more plainly demonstrates the fact that this is the blood of Israel, that has been gathered out: that we are of the chosen seed, though we have been mixed, or our fathers have been mixed, among the Gentiles. God has saved to himself a seed among all nations; and when the Gospel came to the lands where this seed dwelt, there was, on their part, a natural affinity, a natural attraction to the principles of righteousness, and they received them gladly, and were gathered out by the wonderful power of God to this land, and are numbered now among His Saints. The covenants that our Father made with his ancient chosen people have been renewed in our day and unto us, and there is no promise that was made in ancient days unto the house of Israel, that has not been renewed unto the Latter-day Israel. Every blessing that God promised and that I have read in your hearing, besides many others that are contained in the Scriptures—all these have been fully renewed unto the Latter-day Saints, and they are accompanied by blessings as we see them around us today, and as has been related by Brother Woodruff, in regard to our settlement of these valleys. God intended—and I wish that we all could realize it as it really is—God intended when He preached unto the people the Gospel, and gathered them out from the various lands where they lived, to make of them a peculiar and a distinct people upon the face of the earth. Nothing is plainer than this to those who will open their eyes to see, and their hearts to understand the providences of our God. As soon as the Latter-day Saints join the Church, they become a distinct people. All of you, those of you, at least, who embraced this Gospel before you gathered, know this. You know that no sooner were you baptized into the Church, than you were distinguished from all those who surrounded you. If you had brothers, if you had sisters, if you had parents, if you had friends, who did not receive the Gospel, did not enter into the Church, you became distinct from them, they felt that you were different from them, and you felt that they were different from you. The love that your kindred had for you, previous to your espousal of the Gospel, in many instances turned to hatred. The friendships that had existed between you before you embraced the Gospel, turned into enmity, and they with whom you were most closely associated and towards whom you felt the strongest ties of friendship, became your open and avowed enemies. There are instances even where your own parents, your own brothers and your own sisters rejected the claims of kindred, and turned their backs upon you, and treated you as though you were aliens to them, and had no claim upon their affection, and that they had no desire to mingle with you, or to be any longer connected with you. This has been the case in almost every instance where people have joined this Church and their kindred have not joined it. And that distinction has not been confined to the homes where the Saints embraced the Gospel; but it has continued here and until the present day. A Latter-day Saint may be descended from the oldest families that have peopled this continent, his ancestors may have fought the battles that freed this land from oppression; he may be entitled to all the rights and privileges that belong to a native of this country, and yet if he be a Mormon not a single claim of that character is recognized. He is looked upon as a stranger and an alien. He is looked upon as a man not having the rights of full citizenship that others who are not of his faith are entitled to and enjoy. When we travel among the people as Latter-day Saints, we are conscious ourselves that there is a distinction between us and them; they are also conscious that there is this distinction, and that we are a different people. You can no more cause these Latter-day Saints, while they remain such, to mingle with the world and be one with them, than you can cause oil and water to mingle. There is no affinity between the two. You may shake oil and water together in a battle, and while you are shaking it, you imagine that the water and the oil have mingled; but the moment you let the bottle stand, the water sinks to the bottom and the oil rises to the top. The two elements do not comingle, they are entirely distinct, and you may shake them, and boil them, or do anything of that character, and you cannot cause them to become one fluid. So it is with this people called the Latter-day Saints and the world. There is a difference. God has created the difference. God has called us out from the world for the express purpose of making us His people, and placing upon us His name, that we may be known as His peculiar people in the midst of the nations of the earth.

Now, when I say this I do not say that, because of this, we are the enemies of mankind; I do not say this because I think there is no opportunity for them and us to unite, that there is no platform upon which we can stand and become united; I do not say this; because there is a platform upon which we can all stand and be a united people; but until we do stand upon that platform, this division and this distinction of which I speak will exist. We belong, because of our obedience, to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, to what is known as the Church of Christ, while those who have not embraced this Gospel and entered into covenant with God, belong to the other church—that is the church which is called in the revelations of God, the whore of all the earth, or the mother of abominations. That is the distinction which exists between the Latter-day Saints and the rest of mankind.

My brethren and sisters, there are some principles which it seems to me we should comprehend clearly in connection with our position as Latter-day Saints; and one is that which is alluded to in this chapter that I have read in your hearing, namely:

“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

“For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”

This was a command that was given unto Israel with great force and emphasis. They were commanded from the beginning that they were not to marry with those who did not belong to their family, or did not belong to the Israel of God, or were not the covenant people of God. And it was not a new law; it was not a law that was given to Moses, and through him to the children of Israel for the first time. If you will read back to the days of Abraham, you will find that the same sentiment filled the heart of Abraham, the patriarch, concerning his posterity. When he wanted a wife for his son Isaac, he took his eldest servant of his house and made him swear by the God of Heaven that he would not take a wife unto his son of the daughters of the Canaanites, a race with which he did not want his son to intermarry. And he sent his servant back to Mesopotamia, to his old country and his kindred, it being where his brother Nahor had lived, to find there for his son Isaac a wife that should be suitable to him. The servant took this oath, and he went feeling that God had given unto him a mission and that he would be prospered in obtaining a wife for the son of his master. He prayed unto the God of his master to give him success, and give him a sign by which he might know the girl that the Lord designed for his master’s son. And according to his faith so it was done. Rebekah came to the well, and as he had prayed so she did, and she proved to be the very girl that God had designed for Isaac, and the very girl that Abraham in his heart desired that his son should have. She was Abraham’s grand niece, and his wife Sarah’s grand niece, a double cousin of Isaac’s, her grandmother, Milcah, being Isaac’s mother’s sister, and her grandfather, Nahor, being Abraham’s father’s brother. You know it is said in the Bible, that Abraham married his sister. But though called his sister, she was not his sister, in our sense of the relationship. She was the daughter of his brother Haran; but at Haran’s death, Terah—Haran and Abraham’s father—brought up Haran’s children as his own. Two of these children were girls. One of them married Nahor, a brother of Abraham’s, and the other married Abraham, both of them sisters of Lot. They were, therefore, nearly related.

So you see that in those early days the same sentiment pervaded the minds of the servants of God, respecting the families with whom they should intermarry. You will remember also that this same Rebekah afterwards, when fear was begotten in her heart respecting her son Jacob, and the enmity of his brother Esau, said to Isaac in substance: “I do not want Jacob to marry the daughters of this land, I want him to marry the right blood, to marry into the right families.” Isaac sent Jacob back to his mother’s people, and commanded him not to take a wife of the daughters of Caanan; but to marry into his mother’s family. He did so; he married his two cousins, Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban, his mother’s brother. And from these families and from that blood sprang the promised seed. It was the lineage through which the Priesthood ran; it was the lineage that was entitled to the blessings of the father, and on this account they were very particular as to whom they should marry. Isaac was the promised seed, and his father and mother were exceedingly desirous that he should marry in the right direction, and if you will notice that this is the same sentiment that God inspired His servant Moses to speak unto the children of Israel. They were commanded to marry among themselves, and not to marry among the outside nations that had not the faith that the children of Israel had. Because, as it is said here:

“Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

“For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods.”

And this was the case with Esau. He was not a man of faith, he was not a man unto whose seed the promises were given as they were to Jacob; because he married the daughters of the land in which they lived, that is the daughters of the Hittites, one of the Canaanite nations, a race not entitled to the blessings and promises which God had given unto those of the family of Abraham, and the families connected with him.

And in every instance that is on record in the Bible where the children of Israel disobeyed this command of God, judgment and calamity always followed. It was so in the case of Samson. You remember Samson, a mighty man in some respects, a man whom God raised up to redeem His people, but he married strange women. He married a woman of the Philistines, and the result was that it brought about his destruction. And we need only refer to the great king who sat upon the throne during the golden days of Israel, a man who was considered the wisest man that ever lived—King Solomon. His heart, we are told in the Scriptures, was turned aside from the Lord our God, because he took to himself strange wives, women of the nations with whom God had commanded Israel not to marry, and because of this he was led as he grew in years into idolatry. He built in the groves where the strange nations performed their idolatrous rites, places of worship, and to gratify these wives he went and worshipped with them; and God in His anger, because of this, said that the nation should be rent asunder; and in fulfillment of this word the greater portion of the kingdom was taken from the house of David, and given to another. Ten tribes rebelled, and there was left to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, only the tribe of Judah for his inheritance, this kindness to the dynasty in leaving to it the tribe of Judah as an inheritance, was not because of favors to Solomon, but because his father had served God all his days with a perfect heart, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. God raised up enemies to Solomon, and at his death as I have said, rent the ten tribes from his son Rehoboam, and gave them to Jeroboam. This was in consequence of the violation of this command of God respecting the intermarriage of His people with strange women. In every instance on record in the Bible, it will be found that the violation of this law resulted in destruction, not only to those who made these marriages, but to their posterity after them. The history of the kings of Israel and Judah illustrates this. The kings who married strange women, women of those nations that God had forbidden Israel to marry, were never prospered; misfortune to themselves and the nation always followed these alliances. One of the most wicked kings that ever sat upon the throne of Israel married a woman of this description. Her name was Jezebel. She was a king’s daughter too, a woman of noble birth, but one of the most wicked women that ever lived. To gratify her desire she incited her husband to murder, and to almost every other crime that could be committed. She was an idolatrous woman and she brought numberless miseries and condemnation from the Lord upon not only her husband’s house, but upon the whole house of Israel because of her wickedness.

In looking around and traveling among our people, I have been deeply impressed with the consequences that follow these improper marriages among us. My attention has been called many, many times to circumstances of this character that have taken place among us. Not infrequently there is some case that comes up to us for counsel where women have made alliances of this character; and women among us have been more apt to do it than men. There have been a few instances of men marrying strange women, losing the faith and becoming alienated from the Church of God, but it has not been of such frequent occurrence among us with men as it has been with women. The alliances which our daughters, our sisters or our female relatives have formed of this character have been attended with the worst results, and it is a matter that should receive attention from us as a people; our minds should be directed to this. It should be the aim of every father in Israel to have his daughters married to those who are of the right lineage, who have a claim upon the blessings of God, through their descent, added to their own faithfulness in keeping the commandments of God. I deem it of great importance to us as a people, that we should look to this. When I hear of girls in our Church marrying those who are not of us, who have not our faith, I have said to myself—and my experience in watching these matches has warranted me in the thought—that such a proceeding was sure to be attended with trouble to those who entered upon it. The offspring of such marriages do not bring satisfaction or happiness to the hearts of their relatives who are faithful to the truth, and in many instances they bring trouble and sorrow to their hearts. The mother’s head is bowed with sorrow, if she retains her faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because of the acts of her children. There are some men who have so much Gentile blood in them, that their offspring partake of it, and of the unbelief of the father, and in such cases it is impossible for a mother who has such a husband and children, with all her faith, with all her zeal, with all the pains that she takes, to instill into the minds of her children faith in the God of Israel, and faith in the covenant that He has restored. They seem to belong to another flock. It seems as though they have no susceptibility for the truth. There is no good soil in their hearts to receive the seeds of truth, the Gospel of the Son of God. It is just like this: my family, who live on the banks of the Jordan River, have occasionally secured some wild duck eggs, and put them under some tame ducks, and hatched them. But the wild duck as soon as he grew large enough to fly, generally took his flight and left the home nest. It was not natural to be tame. And so it is frequently with marriages. A girl of our faith may marry a Gentile, and he may be a pretty good man as far as his conduct is concerned, he may be a good citizen, a truthful man, but there will be a lack of susceptibility to the truth about his offspring. There will be a lack of faith there. Some of the children may have a little faith in the truth, but many of them, probably, will have no faith whatever, and will give the mother uneasiness and trouble and sorrow, and she will have no satisfaction whatever in her children. I have in my mind today, an instance where a man joined the Church, in the very early days of the Church, one of the oldest families in the Church, but he had not much faith. He married one of the most faithful women I have ever known in my experience in the Church. She has raised a large family, and by dint of faith and perseverance, finally succeeded in bringing the family to the valley. But the husband was always in the background. It required all her faith, and all her exertions to keep him from breaking out against the Church, and from losing even a nominal membership in it. She has had a large family of children. One of her sons, whom she has brought up with all the care possible, teaching him constantly the principles of the Gospel, and endeavoring to foster faith in his heart, is today an avowed enemy of the work of God, of the Church of which the mother is a faithful member. Several of the children seem to partake of that unbelief, that inclination to apostatize, which they seem to have inherited from their father. But it illustrates that which I have endeavored to impress upon your minds, that when women make alliances of this kind, they are not sure, in the least degree, as to the character of their posterity. They may have faithful children, but as likely as not, like the wild ducks I spoke of, they will go back to their old element, and to their old associations, and it seems impossible to prevent them from doing so.

I have no doubt all of you have had some experience of a similar character here in your midst. Have you ever seen a marriage on the part of a faithful member of this Church, either man or woman, with one that is not faithful, that has resulted happily for all concerned? Can you not call to mind instance after instance where it has been attended with the worst results? Where the woman after awhile, tired of living in that condition, has been compelled, if she did not wish to lose all hope of salvation here and hereafter, to break the tie and to sever herself from the man with whom she had lived in early life, into whose hands she had committed herself as a maiden, and by whom she had raised children—compelled to sever herself from him, if she expected to obtain eternal life in the Kingdom of God. I know many, many such instances as these, and I think that as a people we should be exceedingly careful about these matters. I would rather my daughters—speaking about them—I would rather they would be the fiftieth wife to a good, faithful man, who had kept the commandments of God, and unto whom promises had been made—I would rather they would occupy that relationship, and raise children by him, than that they should be allied to a man unto whom the promises of God had not been made. But, says one, good men’s sons are not always good. I know that, we all know it. Adam, our Father, had Cain; he was a wicked man; but that does not alter the principle, it does not affect that which I am speaking of. Adam’s posterity had blessings sealed upon them that cannot be taken from them. There was no reason why Cain should not have inherited all the blessings that Abel did, and that afterwards Seth possessed, if he had been disposed to avail himself of them; and it may be that where men have the Priesthood, the power and authority of it, and the blessings that pertain to it, sealed upon their heads—it may be that like it was in the cases of Terah and Abraham, if they belong to the rightful lineage there will some one of that seed arise and be a faithful man, and attain unto all the blessings that God has promised unto such faithful persons. You remember very well how it was with Terah, the father of Abraham. He was of the chosen seed, but he was an idolater. Yet he was heir to the promises, and because of that Abraham, through that heirship, and through descent, or the blessing that came through that descent, was able to go unto God and to plead for and receive the blessings that God had promised through the fathers unto him and unto all who belonged to that chosen seed. And so it may be with us. There may be faithful men who will have unfaithful sons, who may not be as faithful as they might be; but faithful posterity will come, just as I believe it will be the case with the Prophet Joseph’s seed. Today he has not a soul descended from him personally, in this Church. There is not a man bearing the Holy Priesthood, to stand before our God in the Church that Joseph was the means in the hands of God, of founding—not a man today of his own blood—that is, by descent—to stand before the Lord, and represent him among these Latter-day Saints. But will this always be the case? No. Just as sure as God lives, just as sure as God has made promises, so sure will someone of Joseph Smith’s posterity rise up and be numbered with this Church and bear the everlasting Priesthood that Joseph himself held. It may be delayed in the wise providence of our God. There are many things that we cannot understand, cannot see the reason why they should be so; but these promises are unalterable; God made them to Joseph during his lifetime; and they will be fulfilled just as sure as God made them. He (Joseph) will have among this people, someone descended from his own loins, who will bear the everlasting Priesthood, and who will honor and magnify that Priesthood among the Latter-day Saints. Therefore it is a blessing from God, for a woman to bear children to such a man, or to any man who bears or holds the everlasting Priesthood of the Son of God, and who magnifies his calling, and through magnifying it, receives promises from God to himself, and his posterity after him. Hence it is, my brothers and sisters, that remarks are made from time to time about plural marriage, patriarchal marriage. It is designed of God, that it should be so. There are but comparatively few men among the family of mankind, who are capable of leading the daughters of Zion into the Celestial Kingdom of our God—comparatively few—for the Lord says: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Out of all the sons of God, there are comparatively few, I say, who are capable through their faith and faithfulness, and through their keeping the commandments of God, of leading the daughters of Zion in the path of exaltation, and leading them into the Celestial Kingdom of our God; and therefore it is of the utmost importance that in these matters we should be exceedingly careful. We should seek by revelation, if we can obtain it—and it is the privilege of all to obtain revelation, that is, all who live as they should do—we should seek by revelation to obtain a knowledge for ourselves, respecting these matters. Our daughters should be taught to control their feelings and affections, and not let them go out without any regard to these circumstances to which I have alluded. A woman should be exceedingly careful, a girl should be exceedingly careful, and parents should be exceedingly careful in instilling into her mind the principles that must be observed by her and by her husband to obtain exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom of God. How often is it the case among us, that women desirous of salvation are compelled to leave their husbands that become drunken, that become apostates, that become careless and indifferent, that do something or other that forfeits their standing in the Church of Christ? And then what is to become of such women? According to our faith no woman should be connected with a man who cannot save her in the Celestial Kingdom of God. What I mean by this is: if a man apostatizes and breaks covenants and loses his standing in the Church of Christ, he is not in a fit condition to save himself, much less to lead his wife aright. He cannot lead her in the path of exaltation, because he has turned aside from that path; he has gone into another path. If she follow him, she will follow him to destruction; she will take the downward road. She will never find, while following him, and he in that condition, the path of salvation. Therefore, how careful men should be, that in marrying they should marry into good families, and not marry into apostate families. Did you ever see any good result from a man taking the daughter of an apostate, that has been brought up an apostate? I never have. That woman and her companions, if there is not great exertions made, will lead that man’s heart away after other gods, away from the God of Israel, away from the covenant, away from everything that is holy and true. She will constantly fight him unless she is an exception to the general rule. There are instances where girls come out of such families, and are good, faithful women; but speaking of this as a rule it is not a safe proceeding. How can fathers and mothers of the Saints who marry into families that are not in the Church, or that are apostates—how can they mingle together upon terms of equality? The grandchildren, having in them the blood of the apostate, and the blood of the faithful man, can they come together on the same platform and be united with each other, part of them being out of the Church and part of them in the Church? No, they cannot. There is a distinction there, and there must be a letting down of the bars on the part of those in the Church to associate with others out of the Church, on terms of equality, or else there must be a rising up of those who are not in the Church to the platform of those who are in the Church, in order that they may be on anything like terms of equality. There must be some breaking down in some direction. The apostate must sink his difference and try and feel like the Latter-day Saint, or else the faithful family must yield a little in their feelings in order to mingle upon anything like terms of friendship or equality with those who are not in the Church.

My brethren and sisters: I consider that these are very important principles, and should be seriously considered. There is too much laxity among us in Salt Lake City, and elsewhere, upon this point. There are young men and young women, one or the other frequently belonging to good families, who are married not by the Priesthood, but by some civil authority, in order to accommodate the feelings of the girl, or of the young man, or of the families of one or the other. Can such marriages result in happiness? No, they cannot; they cannot result in happiness on the part of a man who claims to be a Latter-day Saint, or on the part of a girl who claims to be a Latter-day Saint. It cannot be a happy marriage. The fruits of such unions cannot be satisfactory, that is, to the faithful Saint, at least, and it is contrary to the mind and will of God. Our people are commanded to marry in their own Church. We are commanded to marry those of our own faith, and not to go outside of our Church for partners. Instead of being married by Justices of the Peace, or by other civil authorities, God has placed in His Church a Priesthood and one of the offices and functions of that Priesthood is to marry the sons and daughters of God—to marry them one to another in the new and everlasting covenant, and to seal upon them and their posterity the blessings that pertain to that new and everlasting covenant; and any man who desires to be a happy husband and to have a happy home, and any woman who desires to be a happy wife and a happy mother, and to have joy in their associations, will never permit themselves to be drawn aside to be married by any authority except that which God has instituted, namely, the authority of the Holy Priesthood. Our daughters should seek, by all the faith that they can exercise before God, to obtain good husbands—husbands who will build them up instead of holding them down; who will strengthen their hands in the work of God, who will make them mothers of a righteous seed and posterity, with whom they can rejoice in the eternal mansions of our Father and our God; and no woman who has the faith of the Gospel within her, will want to bear a child to a man of whom she will be ashamed, and who cannot lead her into the presence of the Lamb. She will rather exercise faith before the Lord that God will give unto her a husband in whom she can trust, in whom she can have confidence, whose word will be as the word of God to her. And in the midst of the troubles, afflictions and trials that belong to this mortal existence, she will feel comforted by the knowledge that her husband is indeed a man of God, a man who will be true and faithful to her under all circumstances. This is a constant cause of strength and comfort to every woman, to know that she has wedded a man whom she can trust, upon whom she can rely, who will never fail her, that is, as far as human nature will permit a man to be free from infallibility. This is the course we should all take.

But, says one, what shall be done with those who are not of this class.

I do not have a word to say against them. I do not want to say one word against this class. Let them marry. Let the Gentile marry with the Gentile. That is right. I have no objection to this. I do not want to say one word against their men or against their women. Let them marry among themselves. But I say to the Latter-day Saints, marry in your own Church. Let the Latter-day Saints marry faithful men, let them marry faithful women, and let them raise up a posterity which God will bless, and upon whom they can ask the blessing of our Father; and when they pass away, they can leave their blessing to be perpetuated upon them and their posterity as long as the earth itself shall last. That is what I say to the Latter-day Saints. At the same time I would not preclude any “non-Mormon,” or Gentile as they are called, from marrying; but let such marry their own class and among their own people. I say we have no right to allow them to marry our daughters, and we should use every influence against it. It is not right to allow apostates to marry our daughters, nor for our sons to marry apostates. This is all wrong, and we should guard against it, and use all the influence in our power to prevent it. And those who are weak in the faith and want to be married by officers of the law, let them choose those who have the same faith and feeling as they have; but let no faithful daughter or faithful son of faithful parents be influenced to marry such persons, and marry in that kind of a way. This is what I say to you this morning, and the counsel I would give to all my brethren and sisters. Let the apostates marry the apostates. Let the Gentiles marry the Gentiles. There are millions of them in the world. There is no need for them to take our daughters, nor to marry our sons. The apostates also can find plenty of their own kind. Let them marry them. I would not throw a straw in their way, I would do nothing to interfere with them; but let the faithful Latter-day Saints marry faithful Latter-day Saints. Let them seek unto God in the name of Jesus, that they may obtain women of virtue, women of probity, women of faith, women of steadfastness, women that will be a glory to the men throughout time and eternity, and who will raise them children in whom they can rejoice; and let the women seek in like manner to obtain men upon whom they can look with respect and love in the midst of every trial, in the midst of every affliction, no matter what the circumstances may be; that their faith may be unmoved in all the trials, difficulties and afflictions that pertain to this mortal life; that they may tread the straight and narrow path as long as mortality lasts, and then enter into the celestial kingdom of our God, when they obtain their resurrected bodies, united as husband and wife, for time and for all eternity.

Now, this is a privilege that God has given unto us His children, and I trust that as His children we will exercise it. Remember, my brethren and sisters, that as wise a king as Solomon, a man unto whom God appeared and unto whom God spake, was led away by strange women and lost his power, became an idolater, and God scourged him and his posterity for his wickedness in this respect. I have in my mind today a man among us who in like manner allowed his affections to go after a strange woman, and took her to wife, and when I think about his circumstances, it reminds me in a small degree of the fate of Solomon; the same result is in his case, and it will be in every case. I do not care how strong the man may be, he may have strength enough to hold the woman, to overpower her influence, but it is a risk that should not be taken; for if a man does he will almost be sure to be overcome, and fall into trouble.

I pray God the Eternal Father, to bless us as a people; to bless you, my brethren and sisters, and to give you strength and wisdom and grace to govern your families and yourselves, so that you will always be found in the path of righteousness, the path that leadeth unto the Lord, which I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, November 9, 1884.

I will read a portion of the 3rd chapter of the first epistle of St. Peter, and a portion of the 4th chapter; commencing at the 12th verse of the 3rd chapter:

12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

13 And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?

14 But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;

15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.

17 For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.* * * *

1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;

2 That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.

3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:

4 Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:

5 Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.

6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

8 And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.”

These words, my brethren and sisters, embody to us today, though written by the Apostle Peter, 1,800 years ago, the Gospel of life and salvation. They are exceedingly appropriate to Latter-day Saints, as doubtless they were when written to former-day Saints. The circumstances which surrounded our brethren and sisters in former days, no doubt were similar in many respects to those which surround us in this one day, probably, with this difference that we are not scattered to the same extent they were; we have been gathered together from the nations where the Gospel was preached to us, and are now living in one community in these mountains. But the same doctrines, the same principles, the same powers of evil, the same powers of good, the same Spirit of God, and the same spirit of evil, were extant then, and were experienced then by the Saints who took upon themselves the name of Christ, as they are by us who now live.

Since I have come into this stand my mind has reverted to a conversation which I had a few days ago with a minister of the Dutch Reform Church, who was passing through this city, and who was introduced to me, and had a good many inquiries to make respecting our doctrines. When I told him how God had revealed Himself in these last days, how He had restored the Everlasting Priesthood, the ordinances of life and salvation, the Gospel in its original purity and power, accompanied with the Holy Ghost and its gifts, and had organized the Church as in ancient days, and related to him what God had said concerning all the churches in Christendom, he had the question to ask, which is so frequently asked of all our Elders when they travel and declare the same message, “Why has God left the Christian world for so long a time without these blessings and these powers and these gifts that you now claim as belonging to your Church and having been restored from heaven? And what has become of those Christians whom you say died in ignorance of the fullness of the Gospel of salvation?”

These are very pertinent questions. They are questions frequently asked of all our Elders. They are questions which suggest themselves to the minds of every thinking man when he is told that God has restored the truth in its original purity, with the power and authority of the Priesthood which have been so long withdrawn. Our ancestors we may have known, at least some of them; we may have known the morality of their lives, the purity of their intentions, the goodness of their motives, their exemplary conduct; and if we do not understand the principles of the Gospel when we are told the message that the Elders have to bear, the inquiry naturally arises, “Is it possible that my grandfather, my grandmother, my uncle, or perchance my father and my mother, have not gone to heaven, that they are not in the presence of God? Why, better people I never knew, and I have always thought,” says the inquirer, “that they really had gone to heaven, and now you tell me that unless I am baptized I shall be damned, and yet they are dead and have not been baptized.”

I expect many feel as the heathen king once felt. He was a king of the Franks, one of the old races that invaded what is now called France. He had surrendered his old convictions sufficiently to consent to receive the rite of baptism. A Catholic Bishop from Rome was to sprinkle him. But before submitting to be sprinkled the thought suggested itself to the king to ask the question what had become of his ancestors. The Bishop, more ready than politic, said, “They have gone to hell.” “Then,” said the king, “I will go to hell with them; I shall not be separated from my ancestors,” and he refused to receive the rite of baptism.

Now, I expect that there are many people in the world who, in the absence, or for the want of knowledge concerning the plan of salvation would almost feel the same when told that if they did not obey the Gospel, they would be damned. But when people are enlightened concerning the plan of Jehovah, the Gospel of the Son of God, they can easily reconcile justice and mercy as being attributes of the Great Being whom we worship. As I remarked to this gentleman, “I might easily answer your question by propounding another question to you. You are a Christian minister; you preach what you believe to be the Gospel; what has become of the millions of heathen who died in ignorance of that Gospel which you profess to obey and accept as the plan of salvation—the millions of heathen who never heard the name of Jesus Christ, the only name given under heaven whereby man can be saved—what has become of them?”

“Oh,” said he, “but they were not Christians.”

Said I, “Do you think that God makes a distinction between the souls or the spirits of men? Is there one class of spirits for whom He has a greater respect than He has for others! Is a Christian soul more valuable, or more precious, in the sight of our Great Creator, than the soul of a heathen? I do not believe it myself. I have no such idea.”

But he could see a wide distinction between those who were Christians and those who were not.

Nevertheless the difficulty still remains, and it will ever remain to those who do not comprehend the plan of salvation as revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ. We must remember that God’s work is not confined to this life; that God’s plan of salvation extends throughout eternity; that according to our belief it began to operate in eternity, if it ever began at all—for it never really in truth began, it always operated, operated from eternity and will operate to eternity, for all the children of men, for every human soul. The plan of salvation devised by our Father and God, is intended to save every human being that will be saved; to reach them all, unless, during this probation, they commit what is termed the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, and become sons of perdition, in which even salvation ceases (so far as they are concerned) to operate; they put themselves outside of the pale of salvation.

There is a very interesting revelation contained in the new translation by the Prophet Joseph Smith, which is found in the Pearl of Great Price. The revelation says:

“And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying, How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains? And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there; and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever; And thou hast taken Zion to thine own bosom, from all thy creations, from all eternity to all eternity; and naught but peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it that thou canst weep?

“The Lord said unto Enoch; Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day that I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also gave commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection; and they hate their own blood; And the fire of mine indignation is kindled against them; and in my hot displeasure will I send in the floods upon them, for my fierce anger is kindled against them. Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is thy name; Man of Counsel is my name; and Endless and Eternal is my name, also. Wherefore, I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made; and mine eye can pierce them also, and among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren; But behold, their sins shall be upon the heads of their fathers; Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer? But behold, these which thine eyes are upon shall perish in the floods; and behold, I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them. And That which I have chosen hath plead before my face. Wherefore, he suffereth for their sins; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me, and until that day they shall be in torment; Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the workmanship of mine hands.”

A most important revelation, this, to Enoch, showing unto him the fate of the wicked after his city should be translated and taken to heaven. The inhabitants of the earth should grow worse and worse, more abandoned than ever in their wickedness, until the time should come for the Lord to send forth His floods and drown the inhabitants of the earth except Noah, and those who received His testimony. All this was shown unto Enoch; and he was shown that those who had thus acted, or who should thus act, “would be consigned to prison, they would be consigned to a place of torment, and because of their sufferings, because of that which they should have to pass through, the heavens themselves wept over their fate.” Enoch was told that they should remain there until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ, or in these words: “And that which I have chosen has plead before my face. Wherefore, He suffereth for their sins, insomuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me.”

That is, after the Savior’s advent in the flesh, after He has suffered for their sins; until then, when He should return unto the Father, they should remain in this prison and in this condition of torment. “Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the workmanship of mine hands.”

Those millions of spirits who had thus committed sin and iniquity until it could be borne no longer, until the earth groaned under their wickedness, and cried aloud as with a human voice against the wickedness upon its surface of which those inhabitants had been guilty—those millions of spirits were swept off with a flood, the whole family of man was destroyed, except Noah and those seven souls who received his testimony, a part of his family, and a part only, for there were children that Noah had who rejected his testimony, and who also shared in the destruction that came upon the inhabitants of the earth. But those eight, including Noah, were the sole surviving remnant of the entire family of man. The antediluvian world numbered millions doubtless; millions were swept away from the face of the earth, and consigned to a place of torment, or to a prison. In this prison they were immured, doubtless in utter darkness—in the condition that is so expressly described by the Savior Himself, when upon the earth—in outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, a place of torment, where they were kept until the Savior Himself came in the flesh, and proclaimed unto the children of men the Gospel of life and salvation.

Jesus Himself, on one occasion, went into the synagogue after His baptism by John the Baptist, and there was handed to Him a book containing the prophecy of Isaiah, or as it is written in the New Testament Esaias. He took it and read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” He there proclaimed in the words of the Prophet Isaiah, the exact character of the mission that had been assigned Him by His Father in heaven. He was not only commanded to preach good tidings unto the meek, and to bind up the broken hearted, but He was sent to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that were bound. Thus was a part of His mission foretold by the Prophet Isaiah a long time before His birth. He Himself confirmed the correctness of the prediction by reading it in the ears of the people; and when He left the earth, after having established His Gospel upon it, after having commenced the work of salvation here, after having ordained men to the authority of the everlasting Priesthood which He held, the Priesthood of Melchizedek, after having done this and was slain by wicked men, suffered for the sins of humanity in the flesh, He then went, in the words that I have read in your hearing from this epistle of Peter, and preached to the spirits in prison which sometime were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. He went and proclaimed liberty to the captive; He went to open the prison doors to them that were bound. He alone could do this. No Prophet that preceded Him had the authority, for none of the Prophets that had preceded Him had this mission assigned them. It was His duty as the Son of God, as the Redeemer of the world, after, as I have said, committing the Gospel to men in the flesh, after ordaining men to preach that Gospel and administer its ordinances in the power and authority of the everlasting Priesthood, to preach to those spirits in prison. It did not take a great while to commence the work; for He was crucified on Friday, and was resurrected on Sunday; but in the interim, while His body laid in the tomb, His Spirit, as is correctly stated in one catechism—I believe that of the Episcopalians—“descended into hell,” and, according to the mission that had been assigned Him, according to the revelation that God gave to Enoch before the floods descended upon the wicked world, according to the predictions of Isaiah, and according to the power and authority which He exercised as the Son of God He went and opened the prison doors to them that were bound, preached to them the everlasting Gospel, once more, and gave unto them the privilege of receiving it in the spirit even as though they were in the flesh. Therefore says Peter, “by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison which sometime were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.” Then he goes on and he says—after telling the Saints how they should live, how the wicked should act, and how they should be treated—he says: “For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”

Now, say some, “Oh, this means when men are dead in their sins. This is what Peter means—dead in their sins.”

It does not mean any such thing. That is not the meaning of it. It means just what it says. It means that the Gospel shall be preached to them that are dead; that the Savior should carry the glad tidings of salvation to them, and not only to those who were disobedient in the days of Noah, but to all the spirit world, to every soul of Adam’s race that had up to that time died who had not received the Gospel in the flesh. He commenced the work there just as He did here. He commenced, as I have said, by preaching the Gospel, by revealing it to His disciples, by giving them the authority to preach it, and then He descended into Hades or hell, and He there, doubtless, chose His ministers, the men who had the authority of the Holy Priesthood, and set them to the same labor that was commenced on the earth, the labor of preaching His everlasting Gospel to all the spirit world, to the millions of spirits who had died either in disobedience to the Gospel of Christ, or in ignorance of that Gospel, never having heard the sound of it. The Gospel was sent to the entire spirit world, except, as I have before stated, to those sons of perdition who had committed the unpardonable sin, or the sin against the Holy Ghost, and the labor has doubtless continued from that day until the present time in the spirit world. In the authority and power of the everlasting Priesthood the servants of God have been calling upon the inhabitants of that world to repent and believe in Jesus: first to repent of their sins and be willing to receive the Gospel of the Son of God in its fullness and in its purity, just as men would receive it in the flesh—that is, be willing to comply as far as possible with all its requirements, and also to have this further willingness, that if they were in the flesh they would submit to and receive every ordinance of the Gospel of life and salvation. They must not only believe in Jesus, as I have said, and repent of their sins; not only be willing to go that far, but be willing to go the full extent of the requirements of the Gospel, be willing to obey every ordinance and every law that is necessary, and say in the spirit, “Oh, if I were in the flesh I would be baptized for the remission of my sins; I would have hands laid upon me for the reception of the Holy Ghost; I would be willing to obey every law of God, my Eternal Father, if I had the opportunity in the flesh of doing so.”

Jesus illustrated this principle and the work which lay before Him very beautifully, in the case of the thief on the cross. One of the thieves reviled Him. The other turned and rebuked his companion for reviling the Savior, and asked the Savior to remember him when He came into His kingdom; for you must understand that the idea had become prevalent then that Jesus was a king, and they had written over His cross in three languages, “Jesus, King of the Jews,” partly in derision, doubtless; but it was the truth. Pilate asked Him if He was not a king, and this robber, doubtless, shared in the feeling that Jesus was a king. Therefore he besought Him to remember him when He came into His Kingdom. Jesus said to him: “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” “There I can speak to you,” He might have said, “more fully than I can now. This is our dying hour, and I am not in a position to preach to you or explain to you the plan of salvation that I have; but wait awhile, before this day ends you will be with me in paradise, and there I can make full explanations to you concerning all that you desire to know.”

And this in reality was the case. That day they were in paradise together. Jesus was in a position to preach to him in the spirit as He had done to men in the flesh. And you will remember—although it seems almost unnecessary to repeat it to this congregation who are so well instructed; but there are young people who are not so familiar with these doctrines, and, therefore, for their benefit I quote the Scriptures. You will remember when Mary, after she missed the body from the sepulchre, rushed forward to a man, supposing him to be the gardener, and asked him where he had laid the body. She did not recognize Him at first, but as soon as He made Himself known she essayed to clasp Him in womanly affection. He, however, told her to stand back, not to touch Him. You must not put your hands on me, Mary. Whatever your relations may be to me, you must not touch me now. “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father and to my God and your God.” This was His expression when His body had been resurrected from the tomb. He had not yet been to His Father—that is, directly to the immediate presence of His Father. Therefore it was not fit that any mortal should put hands upon Him. It was not the privilege even of Mary, closely connected as she was with Him—it was not her privilege to put her hand upon her resurrected Lord. He had not yet ascended to the Father.

Thus you see the Scriptures corroborate that which I have said in this respect. His body had lain, as I before remarked, from Friday until Sunday, in the tomb, and then it was resurrected. But during that period His spirit had been engaged preaching to the spirits in prison; they heard the glad tidings of salvation from the Savior. His voice penetrated the depths of hell, the gloom of darkness, and it awakened hope within their hearts. He proclaimed liberty to the captive. He opened the prison doors to those that were bound. He preached unto them the acceptable year of the Lord: for the time had come for them to be redeemed from their prison house in which they had been so long incarcerated for the sins committed in the flesh.

This is the Gospel of salvation that God has revealed. Every human being that has ever been born upon the face of the earth, every human being that ever will be born will hear these glad tidings of salvation proclaimed by those who have authority to administer it unto fallen man, whether they lived before Jesus, whether they lived at the time of or since Jesus, or whether they will live yet in the future. They cannot hear the Gospel. They cannot be judged until they do hear it. Every principle of salvation will be proclaimed to those who have died without the privilege of hearing it in the flesh—they must hear it in the spirit world as well as those who hear it in the flesh. Therefore, we need not be in any anxiety concerning our ancestors; we need not puzzle ourselves with questions as to the fate of the heathen; we need not be disturbed in our feelings to reconcile the justice of God with His mercy, or His mercy with His justice, to the children of men. None of these questions need trouble us, for the reason that by the revelation of these glorious principles God’s mercy is reconcilable in the most perfect manner with His justice. We see by this that God will not consign any soul to endless torment without first giving him an opportunity of receiving or rejecting the Gospel. If he be consigned to torment it will be as a punishment for violating law. Where there is no law there is no transgression of the law. There can be therefore no punishment if a man does not comprehend the law. If it is not made plain to him, its binding force does not operate upon him; but when he understands it, when his mind comprehends it, when it is declared to him, then it begins to operate upon him, and if he reject it, then the penalty begins to operate also, and unless he repents and obeys that law he will receive severe condemnation. Therefore in the spirit world there are grades of punishment just as there are grades of spirits. Some are ignorant. Some men who never heard the name of Jesus have lived according to the light that God gave them; for God has given to every man that is born into the world, according to the revelations we have received, His Spirit. He has given unto every man and woman His Spirit, not the gift of the Holy Ghost, but His Spirit by which they are led and guided. Some call it the light of conscience, the voice of conscience. No man ever committed a wrong that listened to that voice without being chided for it, whether he be Christian or heathen, whether he has lived according to the light of the Gospel or been in entire ignorance of it. Every man has within him a spirit which comes from our Great Creator, and if we grieve it not it leads us, guides us, though we may not know the Gospel, as has been the case with many thousands and millions of human beings. It leads all the children of men when they listen to it; it leads them in the path of peace, in the path of virtue, in the path of happiness; but if they violate that spirit or grieve it, if they go contrary to its monitions, if they harden their hearts against and sin against it, then it departs, and another spirit takes its place, namely, the spirit of the evil One.

Thus it is that the heathen, many of them have lived lives most exemplary, lives which are the admiration of posterity. Men not confined to one race, not to one nationality, but men of every race, men of every clime, men of every language, have received the same spirit and have been enlightened by it and their lives have been noble and admirable, and no doubt have been acceptable to God our eternal Father. Therefore, when you think about your grandparents whom you have known, when you think about your parents or some other relatives whom you have known, who died in ignorance of the Gospel, you have known their lives, you have known how good their desires were, you have known how they conformed to the law so far as they understood it, how moral they were, how exemplary, how correct in their conduct, in their conversation and in their dealings—when you think of these, you need not be afraid that they have lost anything because they died in ignorance of the Son of God. I tell you that God’s providence is over all His children, and He will reward every man and every woman according to his or her works, and He will reward those who have lived exemplary lives, those who have been moral, whether they be heathen or Christian, whether they have known the name of Jesus or not, whether they have the Bible, or the Koran, or some other book, or no book at all; whatever may have been their condition and circumstances, if they have lived according to the light that God has given them, and to laws that they understood, God will reward them, and will eventually bestow every blessing upon them which they are capable of receiving. Yes, those poor people who persecute us, those people who would, in their ignorance destroy us, we can well say to them and concerning them that which Stephen said, when about to give up the ghost. They stoned him. They treated him most cruelly for his belief. He had declared to them the Gospel; but they stoned him to death. Before he died he said—and it’s the spirit which every man of God, who comprehends the purposes of God, and the plan of salvation will cherish and always give utterance to under all circumstances—“Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” They were ignorant. He therefore besought the Father to forgive them. They did not know what they were doing. They did it ignorantly. This was proved by the fact that the young man at whose feet lay the clothes of those who committed this bloody deed, afterwards became a flaming light in the Church and Kingdom of God, and ultimately laid down his life for that Gospel which he had witnessed Stephen die for, and which at the time he thought was a righteous judgment upon Stephen.

My brethren and sisters, we can of all people be charitable. As the Apostle Peter says: “Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” And not only among ourselves, but have charity for an ignorant world who know not what they do in fighting against God, in fighting against His truth, in seeking to destroy His Priesthood from the face of the earth: they know not what they do. We would save them if we could. We would carry the Gospel of salvation to them. We are ready, as we have been, to endure all things for the sake of the souls of our fellow men. We have gone from continent to continent, from land to land, from island to island, wherever there was a door open, to preach the Gospel. We have forsaken home, forsaken wives and children, and all the endearments of home, everything that men love and hold sacred, even to the sacrificing of our lives for the salvation of our fellow men—gone without purse or scrip, gone forth in the midst of shame and ignominy, in the face of persecution of the most cruel and sometimes of the most dreadful character. We have done this, we are still doing it, we shall do it, until every soul under the broad canopy of heaven shall hear the Gospel of the Son of God, this message of life and salvation which has been entrusted to us. Every mortal shall hear the glad tidings of salvation. They shall be judged by this message. They shall receive the blessings of God or His condemnation, according to their willingness to receive or their determination to reject the Gospel; and then when this life is ended, when this mortal is laid aside, we shall go into the spirit world, endowed with the same Priesthood and authority of the Son of God; clothed with that authority; enveloped with it, even the fullness of it; we shall go into the spirit world and continue this glorious labor of warning our brethren and sisters who once were in the flesh, until throughout the spirit world the Gospel of salvation shall be heard from one end of it to the other. It is a never-ending work that which we have taken upon ourselves. It will never terminate until this earth shall be redeemed, until the power of Satan shall be subdued, until wickedness shall be banished from the earth, until He reigns whose right it is to reign, and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Then will this labor cease so far as the family of man is concerned; but it will never cease until all who belong to this earth, whoever were born upon it—no matter in what age, no matter what time, no matter what nationality, shall be redeemed who can be redeemed.

Now, my brethren and sisters, you have some little idea of the character of the work in which we are engaged. Do we set too much value upon our Priesthood—when we talk about Priesthood and authority—when these are the labors that attend the Priesthood and that devolve upon it? No, we cannot value our calling too highly. And I say to you that you have entered upon a pathway that leads back to God. You may dally by the wayside; you may fool away your time; you may be idle, indifferent and careless; but you only lose thereby the progress that you ought to make. Unless you commit the unpardonable sin, you will have to progress. It is written in the eternity of our God that every soul must progress that does not retrograde. Therefore, make good use of the time you have. Now is the time of your probation, now is the time of harvest, now is the summer of your days. Let it not be said, the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved. But let us bear in mind that now is the probation that God has given us. Let us make use of it by doing the works of righteousness, by keeping the commandments of God, by having our eye on the mark of our high calling in Christ Jesus; which may God grant in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered at Ogden, Sunday, October 19th, 1884.

I am pleased to have the opportunity of meeting with you in Conference here, and to talk with you a little on some of the principles associated with our duties in our connection with the Church and Kingdom of God.

The Latter-day Saints occupy a very peculiar position in the world, but I do not know that we have any thing very particular to say on that question. It is true, we have used our own agency in coming here, but there are certain purposes of the Almighty, associated with our gathering together, over which we had very little control. There is a remarkable saying in the revelation of St. John, in reference to a certain Babylon, which reads as follows:

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

“For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.”

There is something very significant in the text here quoted. It would seem that John, in a previous part of his vision, had seen an angel who would precede this other. He says:

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

“Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”

As Latter-day Saints we have listened to these things from time to time. We have talked about the opening of the heavens, the manifestations of God our heavenly Father, and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, about the restoration of the Gospel, and the organization of the Church and Kingdom of God. We have talked a good deal about the Holy Priesthood, and the authority of God having been conferred upon man from the heavens, which places us in communication with our heavenly Father; and also of the organization of His Church in a manner that is in accordance with His will and under His inspiration. We have heard quoted from time to time, passages like this:

“Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”

Again:

“And I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

“And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

Many other passages of a similar nature are contained in the Bible, which we all of us at least, profess to believe in; and by the manifestations of the power of God, and the light of revelation, we have been instructed in the things of eternity, and the organization of the Church of God has been effected. It commenced upwards of 54 years ago, and the work has been progressing from that time unto the present; and all the organizations that have been effected pertaining to the Priesthood have been made under the immediate direction of the Spirit of the living God, and have been given unto us by direct revelation in order that we might be instructed in the laws of life and be enabled to accomplish the things that God had designed from before the foundation of the world pertaining to these last days; and with these things we are generally familiar.

When Jesus was upon the earth, and His disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray, He said:

“When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

In this He had direct reference to the events which are now taking place among us as a people. “Thy Kingdom come.” Why? That Thy will may “be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” We are here for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the will of God, with the law of God, with the order of God, with the dominion of God; and we are here to establish the kingdom of God. We are here to be taught in things pertaining to the Church of God, and its purification. We are here to build up a Zion of God, which implies the pure in heart. Then we are here to send forth the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. We are here to build Temples to the name of the Lord, and to administer therein. We are here to represent God upon the earth as His Priesthood, and we are gathered in the different Stakes as you are gathered here today, to attend to various duties associated with that Priesthood, and to become acquainted with all the principal features associated with the Church and Kingdom of God upon the earth. It is for us as Stakes, as peoples, and as Saints of God, to learn to comprehend the relationship that we sustain to God our heavenly Father, and to His Church and Kingdom here upon the earth, to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the Priesthood that is behind the veil; and also to become acquainted with things upon the earth connected with the welfare of humanity, whether in the land of Zion or in any other land. And we are gathered together for the express purpose of being taught and instructed in all these principles. We are not here, as Jesus was not here, to condemn the world; as He says:

“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

This was the prominent object of His mission to the earth, “That the world through him might be saved;” and we are here to carry out His purposes. We have certain relationships with the world while we are in it, that cannot be ignored, and we have certain duties to perform associated therewith that should be respected. As it is, we are here as an integral part of the United States, and we have duties to perform as citizens thereof, and it is expected that we shall fulfill every proper requirement, observe every correct law, and govern ourselves with propriety and uprightness, honor, truth, and integrity, and be good citizens thereof; these are things that are expected of all honorable people. And it is proper for us to meet the obligations and duties devolving upon us pertaining to the nation with which we are associated. We have another duty to perform to the nations of the earth. It is to send forth the Gospel thereunto; and for this the Twelve are organized and Seventies, and the Elders are sent forth as the messengers of God, that mankind may embrace the eternal truths of the Gospel, by which life and immortality are brought to light; that they, with us, may have the privilege of partaking of the rich blessings of eternal life; that they, with us, may have the opportunity of being instructed in the laws of life, and that they, with us, may be made partakers of all things associated with the Church and Kingdom of God. These are their privileges, inasmuch as they will be obedient to the laws and ordinances pertaining thereunto, and live according to the requirements of heaven. Until these things are done, other things will not be accomplished which God has designed in relation to the nations of the earth; for the people of the earth are all His offspring, and He feels interested in the welfare of humanity, generally. He expects that we shall do the same. We are building Temples, and we are administering in those Temples. What are we doing that for? There is something very peculiar about this matter. Well, we may be doing it in part for ourselves, in part for our wives and our children, in part for our fathers and our mothers, and uncles and aunts, and many of our friends and progenitors that we have been acquainted with, and in part for many others with whom we are not acquainted; that we may be united together, and stand as saviors upon Mount Zion. You heard Brother Cannon tell you today, that there was a company of about 40 going to Logan this morning, with one Bishop to fulfill some of these duties, and these things are beginning to be generally understood among the Latter-day Saints.

All of these duties and responsibilities devolve upon us. All these things are within our reach. As a people, if we live our religion and prove ourselves worthy, we are privileged to enjoy all the blessings and mercies which God our heavenly Father has conferred upon us through the medium of the Gospel and our obedience thereunto; and we wish to perform our duty to everybody—to perform, as they say in the Church of England, our “duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call us.” It has pleased God to call us to these lands and to make use of us for certain purposes in the interest of humanity and for the welfare of a fallen world. This is the object of our being gathered together, and that we might build up a Zion unto the Lord, and be instructed in all the principles of righteousness, truth, integrity, and everything associated with our present and future happiness, and thus become the blessed of the Lord, and our offspring with us.

These are some of the things devolving upon us. Hence Zion is beginning to lengthen her cords and increase her Stakes, and we are spreading out in the north, in the south, and in various different directions. We are seeking to look after the welfare of the Saints of God, in their various settlements wherever they may be, and to protect them in every way that it is possible for us to extend protection, on the principle of union, harmony and brotherhood, inspired by the Spirit of the living God. Hence it becomes the duty of the First Presidency to look after all these things, and sometimes, under peculiar circumstances, we are obliged to send a few Saints from one Stake to strengthen other Stakes of Zion, that the people may be preserved in their rights and their liberties from the aggressions of unscrupulous people, who are seeking to take advantage of the circumstances with which our people may be surrounded.

We complain sometimes about our trials: we need not do that. These are things that are necessary for our perfection. We think sometimes that we are not rightly treated, and I think we think correctly about some of these things. We think there are plots set on foot to entrap us; and I think we think so very correctly. At the same time we need not be astonished at these things. We need not be amazed at a feeling of hatred and animosity. Why? Because we are living in a peculiar day and age of the world, which is distinctively called the latter days, wherein it is said that God will have a controversy with the nations of the earth. There are some things about these matters that men do not understand. They think that men manipulate the affairs of men. They do in part, and they are used ofttimes as instruments by the Almighty, and sometimes by another power that is called Lucifer, just as circumstances may be. But in regard to the nations of the earth, God sets up one nation and pulls down another, according to the counsels of His own will. And we read of nations that years ago flourished and were great, prosperous and powerful, of which we now know nothing only as we learn it from a few pages of history; they are obliterated and blotted out as nations, and do not exist today. Nations and empires have risen and fallen; they have grown, increased, and prospered, and then decayed, crumbled, and died. The Lord manipulates all these things according to the counsels of His own will. But men generally understand very little of these matters; for there has been very little communication with God for ages, until He was prepared to reveal His will in these last days. Yet men profess to fear God, and a great many of them seek to worship Him. There is something very remarkable said by the Prophet Isaiah, when he had his vision opened in regard to the events that should transpire in the latter days. He says:

“Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

“And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.

“The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.

“The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.

“The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

“Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.”

There are many statements made by the Prophets in relation to these things—that the Lord would pour out His judgments upon the earth. Jesus speaks of the destruction that should come upon the people, that should befall Jerusalem, that should encompass nations, and of scenes that should transpire in the latter days—that the sun should be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord should come. Associated with this is a part of the work in which we are engaged. A voice was to be heard, as I said before, saying:

“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

“For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.”

In accordance with this declaration, which is a part of the great program that we Latter-day Saints believe in, we have been gathered unto this land, which we denominate the land of Zion. We have come out from the world, and some of us hardly know why; yet we have come, having obeyed the Gospel and having received the gift of the Holy Ghost. There has been a feeling and spirit operating upon us that has enlightened our minds and propelled us forward. Our great aim was, when we were in other lands distant from this, to make every effort we could to come to the land of Zion. Did we understand what it was for? In part we did, in part we did not. We came to it because we thought it was the land of Zion. We came to it, if we comprehend ourselves, that we might not partake of the sins nor receive of the plagues of Babylon; and that we and our wives, and our children and our associations, might be free from the corruptions, abominations and evils that exist and prevail throughout the world; and that we might come to a place where we could learn the laws of life, where our children could be brought up in the fear of God, and where we had hoped to be able to worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences. Sometimes we think we have made a little mistake in this. I guess not; for we shall yet understand one thing, and so will the nations of the earth—that “The Lord reigneth: let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.” Yes, we shall all learn that “the Lord reigneth.”

Associated with these principles are all the common affairs of life—that is, we have bodies like other people; we need food, we need raiment, we need habitations to live in, we need land to cultivate, fields, gardens and orchards; our children are born as others are, and we live and exist pretty much as other human beings. They are the children of our heavenly Father, and so are we. But the Lord has seen fit to gather us together, and has opened our way, and our lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places. Yet every time the Saints have been gathered together there has been manifested on the part of the wicked a spirit of oppression, a spirit of persecution, a bloodthirsty spirit, a spirit which would seek to rob us of our rights, to despoil us of our homes and inheritances. This we have expected among other things. We have never dreamed of anything else than that such a state of things would exist. I remember when I had the Gospel first preached to me before I was baptized, I heard a lecture something like this: “Now, we have nothing particular to promise you, only the favor of God, if you will live righteously and keep His commandments. You may be persecuted, afflicted, imprisoned, or put to death for the testimony you may have to bear for the religion you are called upon to obey; but we can promise to you that inasmuch as this is the case you will have eternal life.” Well, we have had a little of the other mixed up with it. And I have seen mobs gather from time to time, in different parts of these United States, and I have had to meet them time and again. For instance, I was driven from Missouri years ago, together with the whole people. We were robbed and pillaged, and we had to take and throw in what little we had to help each other. Everybody that had a team turned it in to help his brethren away from whom? From their Christian persecutors, that is, so-called Christians. I wish we had another name for them. (Laughter.) We helped one another out until we reached Illinois. I was there, and I know what I am talking about. Did I feel very unhappy? Not at all. I enjoyed myself just as well as I do today. I felt quite easy. I have been accustomed to these things, and there is nothing very particular about them. By and by, we built up the beautiful city of Nauvoo. We also built a temple there and officiated in it, and received many precious blessings from the hands of God, that the world know nothing about, and never will know until they embrace the Gospel of the Son of God. But we were driven again, and we are here today. Did we leave our property? Yes, I did, quite an amount, and so did many others. We had a city there, and we left it. What was done to us before this! We were mobbed, plundered; we were brought before courts; we were persecuted and proscribed; that was done to us when we were there, and in many instances we had to defend ourselves by our own right arms, or suffer from crawling assassins who were seeking our lives. I had to do it time and time again, right in that land. I have had to have guards in my house, so had President Young, for nearly two years, to keep from being assassinated. I was in prison with Joseph and Hyrum, when they were shot down in cold blood. We were there placed under the protection, or professed protection, of the Governor, who told Dr. Bernhisel and myself that we had better not bring any arms with us to defend ourselves, and who pledged his faith and the faith of the State for our protection. I saw that faith violated and trampled in the dust. I saw these men, to whom protection was promised, shot down in cold blood by assassins gathered for the purpose. These are things that I have witnessed in the few years that I have lived upon the earth. When I left Nauvoo, I left a very good house, very well furnished. I left carpets on the floors, stoves in the rooms, crockery ware in the cupboards, and I got into my carriage, with my family, and left it to seek that protection among the Red Indians, that we could not find among the people who lived in this boasted land of the free and home of the brave, this vaunted asylum of the oppressed. We were protected here among the Indians, and I felt perfectly safe among them. I would as soon go among the Red men today who traverse these mountains, as I would anywhere else, and feel myself just as safe.

I speak of these things to show some of the feelings that have been exhibited. Well, says one, didn’t you feel angry? Oh, no, not particularly so. I felt it was all right. It was a part of the program. I needed education and other people needed it, and it was necessary we should be placed in a position that we could have it. We did not feel very unhappy. We felt quite comfortable. What! When you left your homes? Yes. I felt as easy as I ever felt in my life. I felt at least that I should be safe from the hands of bloodthirsty men and mobocrats, and that I should be put in a position that I could protect myself better than I could there, and others felt a good deal the same way. I remember we used to sing a song something like this: “On the way to California, In the spring we’ll take our journey, Far above Arkansas fountains, Pass between the Rocky Mountains.” (Laughter.)

That is the way we used to sing. I remember a little boy of mine—he was then, though he is not a little boy now, for it is about 39 years ago, used to sing this, and all the boys around. He met his grandfather one day, who calling him by name, said: “Joseph, you won’t sing that when you leave your home and go out yonder.” “Oh, yes, grandfather,” said he, “I will sing that then.” Finally, we got outside. By and by his grandfather came along, and he ran out to meet him. We were then camped out in about a foot of snow. He ran towards his grandfather and began to sing:

“On the way to California,” etc.

“There,” said he, “grandfather, I can sing that now.” Well, I speak of these things to show some of the incidents I have passed through. We came out here and we found this country a desert, covered generally with sagebrush, and a few scattered Indians straggling around. We had to commence to build our houses, for there were none here when we came; and since then the wilderness and the solitary places have blossomed as the rose, and the desert has been made glad, as foretold in the Scriptures. We feel that we are kind of half comfortable in these valleys of the mountains, but the devil is not dead yet. (Laughter.) We did not think he would be; we have a work to perform; and we purpose, by the help of the Almighty, to accomplish that work. We don’t expect to be disappointed in it either, and we don’t anticipate that it will be overturned. We believe that God lives in the heavens and manipulates the nations of the earth, and woe to them that fight against Zion! I tell them in the name of God that He will fight against them. (Amen.)

This is my testimony in relation to these matters. People may think they are very smart in persecuting the Saints, but by and by they will find they are on the wrong side of the question, and many of them will find it out when it is too late. They will find it out when the harvest is past and the summer is ended, and they will say, “My soul is not saved.” You Latter-day Saints that begin sometimes to be trembly at the knees, and afraid of certain circumstances, had better trust to the living God than give way to fearful forebodings in these matters; for Zion is onward and upward, and God is on her side, and He will protect His Israel if we will only be true to Him. We are here for that purpose. God will sustain Israel and stand by His people. (Amen.) There is one thing very certain, very certain indeed, and that is, whatever men may think, and however they may plot and contrive, that this Kingdom will never be given into the hands of another people. It will grow and spread and increase, and no man living can stop its progress. Hence I feel quite easy, as I said before, for the Lord reigns, and let the people rejoice.

From time to time we have certain raids made upon us. Something of that sort seems to be afloat today, and I wish—I was going to say I wish I could talk about something better—but these matters are as proper as anything else, as far as I know, for they are things we have to meet face to face. We Latter-day Saints—what are we? Professors of religion. Are we? Yes. There are laws being enacted in order to deprive us of our religious rights, whereas the Constitution of the United States says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Is that true? Read it for yourselves in the Constitution. This is what we profess as Americans. We have men in our midst who have introduced test oaths, whereas the Constitution says, that “no religious test shall ever be required;” yet they have introduced test-oaths, and people are obliged to swear certain things that the Constitution says shall not be permitted. Are we American citizens here? I think so. Have we any rights? I think we ought to have. Are they being trampled upon? Yes, they are; and these things are being done with impunity. How is it? Why, the Constitution is treated by the politicians of today as the Bible is treated by professors of religion. You talk with “Christians” upon the Bible, and you will find that they believe it when it is shut. They will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send it to the heathen, but when you come to open it, they themselves don’t believe in it. Ask them about Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers, and Deacons. Have they them? No, they do not even profess to have them. Ask them about being baptized in the name of Jesus, for the remission of sins by men having authority, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and you will find that they don’t want to hear anything about these principles. They do not believe them. Why they object even to people being married for eternity! They believe in men and women being married only until death doth them part. That is a very cold affair. We do not believe in being married for time only. We believe in making covenants for eternity, and being associated with our wives and children behind the veil. We have received instructions from the Lord in regard to these things, and we are desirous to carry them out. As I have said, the Constitution provides that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Yet men are asked what their religious faith is; right here in our courts today. These are things that we as American citizens have a right to look into; to look well after our liberties, and to watch well our enemies. For these are not only our enemies but they are the enemies of human liberty, the enemies of the rights of man and the enemies of God. It is for us to look well after these things, and in our elections and in all like matters, to see that we are very particular about the management of these affairs, and that we are not overrun and cheated out of our liberties by unscrupulous men. I speak of these things at this your Conference, for your information and for your warning; and would say, be united, diligent and energetic, and stand for your rights as men.

I remember some little time ago a gentleman named Mr. Pierpont (who was Attorney-General under President Grant) called upon me. I was pleased to see him, and am pleased to see all honorable gentlemen. I invited him to dinner, and we had quite a chat. But here let me introduce another affair. At the time when the Edmunds law was passed I was living in what is known as the Gardo House. I had most of my wives living with me there, and after looking carefully over the Edmunds law I thought to myself, why Congress is growing very wild; this Government is getting very, very foolish; they are trampling upon Constitutional rights. No matter, I said, I will obey this law. I had comfortable places for my family elsewhere, and I requested my wives to go to their own homes, and live there, and they did so in order that I at least might fulfill that part of the law; for foolish or not foolish, my idea was to fulfill as far as practicable the requirements of the law and not place myself and my family or my friends in jeopardy, through any foolishness of mine. It was expected by many of those corrupt men—I do not say in speaking of these that all are corrupt—that when these laws were passed we should turn our wives out and deal with them as they do with their women under such circumstances—make strumpets of them. There is no such feeling as that in my bosom, nor in the bosoms of this people. We have made eternal covenants with our wives, and we will abide by our wives, and God will sustain us in protecting the rights of innocence, and in fulfilling those eternal obligations which we have entered into. But we can once in a while yield a little to the follies and weaknesses of men, when no principle of truth is involved. Under these circumstances I had a sister of mine who was keeping house for me when Mr. Pierpont came there to dine with me. I said: “Mr. Pierpont, permit me to introduce you to my sister. It is not lawful for us to have wives here.” (Laughter.) After talking further with him upon the subject I said, “Now, Mr. Pierpont, you are well acquainted with all these legal affairs. Although I have yielded in this matter in order that I might not be an obstructionist, and do not wish to act as a Fenian, or a Nihilist, or a Communist, or a Kuklux, or a Regulator, or a Plug Ugly, or a Molly Maguire, yet, sir, we shall stand up for our rights and protect ourselves in every proper way, legally and constitutionally, and dispute inch by inch every step that is taken to deprive us of our rights and liberties.” And we will do this in the way that I speak of. We are doing it today; and as you have heard it expressed on other occasions, it looks very much like as though the time was drawing near when this country will tumble to pieces; for if the people of this nation are so blind and in– fatuated as to trample under foot the Constitution and other safeguards provided for the liberties of man, we do not propose to assist them in their suicidal and traitorous enterprises; for we have been told by Joseph Smith that when the people of this nation would trample upon the Constitution, the Elders of this Church would rally round the flag and defend it. And it may come to that; we may be nearer to it than some of us think, for the people are not very zealous in the protection of human rights. And when legislators, governors and judges unite in seeking to tear down the temple of liberty and destroy the bulwarks of human freedom, it will be seen by all lovers of liberty, that they are playing a hazardous game and endangering the perpetuity of human rights. For it will not take long for the unthinking to follow their lead, and they may let loose an element that they never can bind again. We seem to be standing on a precipice and the tumultuous passions of men are agitated by political and party strife; the elements of discord are seething and raging as if portending a coming storm; and no man seems competent to take the helm and guide the ship of State through the fearful breakers that threaten on every hand. These are dangerous things, but it becomes our duty as good citizens to obey the law as far as practicable, and be governed by correct principles.

I had some papers read over at the General Conference, giving my views in relation to some of these matters. They have been published, but I will have one or two extracts read for your information.

President Cannon then read as follows:

The distinction being made be– tween Polygamy and Prostitution:

1st. Congress made a law which would affect both; and cohabitation with more than one woman was made a crime whether in polygamy or out of polygamy.

2nd. The Governor turned legislator, added to this law, and inserted in a test oath to officials, the following words regarding cohabitation, “in the marriage relation;” thus plainly and definitely sanctioning prostitution, without any law of the United States, or any authority.

3rd. The United States Commissioners, also without legislation, adopted the action of the Governor, and still insisted on this interpolation, in the test oath in election matters, and placed all polygamists under this unconstitutional oath, and released prostitutes and their paramours from the obligations placed upon others.

4th. The Prosecuting Attorney has sanctioned these things, and pursued a similar course: and while he has asked all the “Mormon” grand jurors certain questions pertaining to their religious faith in the doctrines of the “Mormon” Church, and challenged them if they answered affirmatively as to their belief in polygamy, he has declined to ask other jurors whether they believed in prostitution, or whether they believed in cohabiting with more than one woman or not.

5th. Chief Justice Zane when appealed to on this question, refused to interfere, or give any other ruling.

Thus a law was first passed by Congress, which has been perverted by the administration, by all its officers, who have officiated in this Territory, and made to subserve the interests of a party who have placed in their political platform an Anti– Mormon plank; and have clearly proven that there is a combination entered into by all the officers of state officiating in this Territory, to back up this political intrigue in the interest of party, and at the sacrifice of law, equity, jurisprudence, and all the safeguards that are provided by the Constitution for the protection of human rights.

Congress cannot be condemned for these proceedings. The law as it stands on the nation’s Statute Books makes no such distinction, so far as the qualification of jurors are concerned, between those who cohabit with more than one woman in the marriage relation, and those who do so outside of that relation. All the rest has been aided by officials here. The law reads: “Section 5: That in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation, under any Statute of the United States, it shall be sufficient cause of challenge to any person drawn or summoned as a juryman or a talesman, first, that he is or has been living in the practice of bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation with more than one woman, * * or second, that he believes it right for a man to have more than one living and undivorced wife at the same time, or to live in the practice of cohabiting with more than one woman.” It will thus be seen that the same questions can be properly put to both classes; and such was the evident, unmistakable intention of Congress. But the Prosecuting Attorney with red-hot zeal changes all this, in his religio-political crusade against the faith of the Latter-day Saints he insists upon his right to propound the question with the Governor’s interpolation super-added, whilst he entirely ignores the other side of the case; hence those who cohabit outside of the marriage rela– tion can go scot free, without interrogation or questioning, and when attention is drawn to this perversion of the law, he asserts that he has the right to propound what questions he chooses, and decline to ask those he has no mind to; in fact that the whole proceeding was a purely optional matter with him. Thus the whole weight of the law is unjustly and unrighteously thrown on the shoulders of those who believe and act in the marriage relation, and entirely removed from the others, who develop into the jurors, who are to indict, try and condemn the other and far more honorable class.

I will have something further read. It is alleged that we are a very corrupt people, that we are a very lawless people; that we are a very wicked people; that we are a very lascivious people; and therefore it becomes necessary for them to pass and execute certain laws in order that we may be placed under the guardianship of people who are more pure and more virtuous. That is why I want some statistics read in relation to that matter, and I would not have had them read, nor have dwelt upon these matters, only on the principle of self-defense.

President Cannon then read as follows:

“The population of Utah may be estimated at 160,000 in 1883.

“Of these say 130,000 were Mormons and 30,000 Gentiles, a very liberal estimate of the latter.

“In this year there were 46 persons sent to the Penitentiary, convicted of crime. Of these, 33 were non-Mormons and 13 reputed Mormons.

“At the above estimate of population the ratio or percentage would be one prisoner to every 10,000 Mormons, or one-hundredth of one percent, and of the Gentiles one convict in every 909, or about one-ninth of one percent. So that the actual proportion of criminals is more than ten times greater among the Gentiles of Utah, with the above very liberal estimate, than among the Mormons.

“It is urged that those non-Mormon prisoners are not a fair representation of the average of crime throughout the country, but are the result of the flow of the desperate classes westward to the borders of civilization; with greater truth we reply that the Mormon prisoners are not representatives of Mormonism, nor the results of Mormonism, but of the consequences of a departure from Mormon principles: and of the 13 prisoners classed as “Mormons,” the greater portion were only so by family connection or association.

Arrests in Salt Lake City, 1883— Mormons 150 Non-Mormons 1,550 or more than ten times the number of Mormon arrests.

“Again, it is estimated that there are 6,000 non-Mormons and 19,000 Mormons in Salt Lake City, which shows of Mormons one arrest in 126 and 2/3.

“Non-Mormons one arrest in a fraction less than every four, or rather more than twenty-five percent.

President Taylor continued:

Make the best of this we may, it is a bad showing, and ought not to exist among the dwelling places of the Saints. What of our drunken Saints? Our violators of the Sabbath day? Our Sunday bathing trains? Whereon many of our youth mix up with the ungodly, and what of many other evils which exist among us? It is a shame that these things should exist in Zion in the cities of the Saints; but our would-be reformers are ten times lower and more depraved than we are. Yes, but then we have ten times too many crimes; and it is sorrowful to see it, and we can only account for it on this principle, that the wheat and tares must grow together until the harvest. The Gospel net gathers of every kind, good and bad, sheep and goats. Again, it is but just to those who oppose us, to say that they have their ministers, their Sunday schools, their churches, their hospitals, etc., and many, very many good and honorable men and women. But with all these agencies the record shows them to be, as a whole, ten times as corrupt as we are. Before they came, we were comparatively free from their gross immoralities. But what of today? The record shows that theirs are the gambling dens, the houses of assignation, theirs the brothels and drinking saloons, etc., and if, which God forbid, we have feticide and infanticide, it belongs to them—these are their institutions, they do not belong to us. Is it then, any wonder that they have ten times the amount of crime? This is a terrible showing, and yet these are our reformers, our accusers; from these proceed our courts, our juries, etc., they assume to be our regenerators, and are trying to make us as good as they.

President Cannon again read:

“Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, has declared in a paper read before a late meeting of the American Social Science Association, that “nowhere in the history of the world was the practice of abortion so common as in this country; and he gave expression to the opinion that, in New England alone, many thousands of abortions are procured annually.”

“Dr. Reamy, of the Ohio State Medical Society, says: “From a very large verbal and written corres– pondence in this and other States, together with personal investigation and facts accumulated * * that we have become a nation of murders.”

The Rev. Dr. Eddy writes to the Christian Advocate regarding one little village of 1,000 inhabitants: “Yet here, and elsewhere, where 15 percent of wives have the criminal hardihood to practice this black art, there is a still large and additional percent who endorse and defend it. * * Among married persons, so extensive has this practice become, that people of high repute not only commit this crime, but do not shun to speak boastingly among their intimates of the deed, and the means of accomplishing it.”

Dr. Allen further states: “Examining the number of deaths, we find that there are absolutely more deaths than births among the strictly American children, so that aside from immigration and births of children of foreign parentage, the population of Massachusetts is rapidly decreasing. * * The birth rate in the State of New York, shows the same fact, that American families do not increase at all, and inspection of the registration in other States shows the same remark applies to all.”

Bishop Coxe, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, of New York, in a pastoral letter to his people writes: “I have heretofore warned my flock against the blood-guiltiness of antenatal infanticide. If any doubts existed heretofore as to the propriety of my warnings on this subject, they must now disappear before the fact that the world itself is beginning to be horrified by the practical results of the sacrifices to Moloch, which defile our land. Again I warn you that they who do such things, cannot inherit eternal life. If there be a special damnation for those who shed innocent blood, what must be the portion of those who have no mercy upon their own flesh.”

Dr. Cowan, M. D., writing on what he styles “The Murder of the Unborn,” says: “That this crime is not only widespread on this great continent, but is rapidly on the increase, we have the testimony of physicians, whose investigations have been thorough, and whose social standing and integrity cannot be questioned.”

President Taylor continued:

In pondering over the above sickening details, and carefully examining the irrefutable records of prison statistics, I note deliberately the weight of testimony furnished by a host of their most honorable and reliable men in the East, to whom I give all honor, who calmly and deliberately pronounce them “a nation of murderers,” “the slayers of the innocent,” the consumers of their own flesh, in connection with this terrible record we have in our prominent cities, flaunted before our eyes, their dens of infamy and crime, impudently and unblushingly paraded before us, and stuck under our very noses. In looking at these things I ask myself can human depravity descend any lower, and the humiliating answer comes, yes! yes!! yes!!! The question arises wherein? The most damning nature of this record is that these crimes are sought to be palliated by unjust law, made ostensibly to punish crime, but really to pervert justice and protect falsehood, chicanery and intrigue. We have a local administration which provides test oaths to try to cover up the crimes of their friends, and to protect prostitutes, whoremongers and adulterers, and to make that a crime which is nowhere proclaimed a crime by the Almighty. And then we have these whited walls and painted sepulchres under the guise of the protectors of virtue and the defenders and advocates of purity and moral reform, bring all the weight of their influence and position to bear upon innocence, virtue and integrity. Surely, as it is said, justice is fallen in the street, righteousness standeth afar off, and judgment cannot enter. But what of our people? With all of their weaknesses, follies and imperfections, of which we as a people have very many in the sight of God, they are yet in the balances of unbiased equity before the law, as per record ten times the superiors of our accusers, but with the points of prostitution, harlotry, gambling and other vices, not to mention the terrible crimes of feticide and infanticide, we have nothing to do; these are their institutions only, and do not belong to us.

But it may be argued, are not the executive and judiciary expected to administer the law as they find it? Certainly; and if they would confine themselves to this, all honorable men would sustain them. But governors are nowhere authorized to introduce test oaths, in violation of law, to protect the spoliators of virtue, the brothel and the adulterer; nor is the judiciary required in the execution of its legal function to ignore the precedents of courts, nor to sanction the empanelment of packed juries.

I have had these things read for more reasons than one. First, to show the hypocrisy of those who come here to teach us morality, and who proscribe the acts of a pure and industrious people who dwell in these mountains. And for another purpose, to guard our brethren and sisters against the encroachments of such fiends in human form as those persons here referred to. We cannot have, and won’t have adulterers and adulteresses among us, much less will we have those who, by murder, stain their consciences and damn themselves forever. You sisters, guard yourselves against these infamies, or you will sink yourselves down, down, down to pits of infamy and ruin, that you never dreamed of. I do not wonder that the Prophets have expressed themselves as strongly as they have in relation to the events that shall overtake the world. I remember that some 30 years ago, there was one of our brethren in an eastern city, I heard a report about his wife being engaged in something of that sort. I asked him if it were true. He said it was. I don’t know when I felt such a loathing for a human being in my life as I felt toward her. I would sooner have touched a rattlesnake than touched her hand. And I feel so today. We cannot degrade ourselves with these fiendish practices. All are not guilty; for as I have frequently said there are thousands and millions of honorable men and women throughout the land. But these evils which exist in this and other nations are too terrible almost to be spoken of; yet it is requisite they should be presented before you Latter-day Saints, that you may remember the pit from whence you were dug, and the rock from whence you were hewn; that you may appreciate in some measure the blessings you enjoy, and your freedom from these infamies in this land of Zion. And I would say to you Bishops—if you find adulterers and adulteresses in the Church, cut them off, they cannot be associated with the Latter-day Saints.

Another thing: I was lately called upon as a witness—perhaps you may have seen some account of it in the papers—and I want to make some explanation in relation to the matters that I then presented, because they are not generally understood: I was required to divulge certain things. I did not know them to divulge. Perhaps some of you have had people come to you with their confidences. I have. But I don’t want to be confidant. Why? Because if they made a confidant of me and I was called before a tribunal, I could not, as an honorable man, reveal their confidences, yet it would be said I was a transgressor of law; but no honorable man can reveal confidences that are committed to him. Therefore I tell them to keep their own secrets, and remember what is called the Mormon creed, “Mind your own business,” I don’t want to know the secrets of people, those that I cannot tell. And I could not tell very much to that court; for I have studiously avoided knowing any more than I could possibly help about such matters. I was asked questions about our temple, which of course I could not divulge. I was asked questions about records which I could not tell them, because I did not know. I have studiously avoided entering into a knowledge of these matters. They did not build our temples. We have never had any revelations from God, through them! We may have had from the devil (laughter), but never have had revelations from God through them. And I think there are some things we have a right to guard sacredly in our own bosoms. We are told “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant.” Now, if the Lord shall commit a secret to me I don’t think I should tell it to anyone; I don’t think I would, not unless He told me. Then, I do not want to know your secrets. I was asked if certain ordinances could be performed in different places. I told them, yes, under certain circumstances. “Where,” I was asked—“Anywhere besides in temples?” Yes. Anywhere besides the Endowment House? Yes. “Where, in some other house?” In another house or out of doors, as the circumstances might be. Why did I say that? Is not a temple the proper place? Yes; but it is said in our revelations pertaining to these matters:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to any of the sons of men to do a work unto my name, and those sons of men go with all their might and with all they have to perform that work, and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold, it behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those sons of men, but to accept of their offerings.”

Thus under such circumstances we perceive that our operations elsewhere will be all correct; it makes no difference. It is the authority of the Priesthood, not the place, that validates and sanctifies the ordinance. I was asked if people could be sealed outside. Yes. I could have told them I was sealed outside, and lots of others.

I want to show you a principle here, you Latter-day Saints. When Jesus was asked if He thought it was proper for His disciples to pluck ears of corn on the Sabbath day, He told them “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.” What else? I will say that man was not made for temples, but temples were made for man, under the direction of the Priesthood, and without the Priesthood temples would amount to nothing.

I speak of these things for your information: but men are not authorized to act foolishly about these matters. The temples are places that are appropriated for a great many ordinances, and among these ordinances that of marriage; but, then, if we are interrupted by men who do not know about our principles, that is all right, it will not impede the work of God, or stop the performance of ordinances. Let them do their work, and we will try and do ours.

While I was in court a few days ago, and gazing upon the assembly of judges, lawyers, marshals, witnesses, spectators, etc., many reflections of a very peculiar character passed through my mind, some of which I will here rehearse.

I could not help thinking as I looked upon the scene, that there was no necessity for all this; these parties need not have placed themselves in this peculiar dilemma. Here was a young man blessed with more than ordinary intelligence, bearing amongst all who know him a most enviable reputation for virtue, honesty, sobriety, and all other desirable characteristics that we are in the habit of supposing go to make a man respected and beloved, the civilized world over. He had been trained from early childhood in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, had been an attendant at Sabbath schools and Young Men’s Improvement Societies, where his course was of the most pleasing kind; more than this, some years ago, when quite a youth, he had shown his devotion to the faith in which he had been reared, by going forth without purse and scrip, to preach in the midst of the unbelieving the doctrines of a most unpopular faith. And, as I reach this point in my reflections, my mind instinctively wanders to a monument I gazed at in the Salt Lake City cemetery but a few days ago. That monument records in fitting words of respect and admiration the devotion of two young missionaries in a far-off Southern State, one of whom had fallen a victim to mob violence, had sealed with his blood the testimony which he bore, the other had stood by him in this hour of sore need, and rescued his mangled body and brought it safely for thousands of miles to the home of his bereaved parents and sorrowing co-religionists. This heroic young man is the one now arraigned before the courts of his country, for an alleged offense against the morality of the age. Assuming that the reports pertaining to him should prove to be correct, and he really has a plural wife, what then would be the position? He, from his earliest recollection, had been taught to reverence the Bible as the word of God, to revere the lives and examples of the ancient worthies whom Jehovah honored by making them His confidants, and revealing unto them the secrets of His divine purposes; he had read of one who was called “the friend of God, and the father of the faithful,” of another who was said to be “a man after God’s own heart;” of a third who in all things is said to have done the will of Heaven, and so on till they could be numbered by the score; yet all these men, the friends, associates and confidants of the great Creator of heaven and earth, were men with more than one wife, some with many wives, yet they still possessed and rejoiced in the love and honor of the great Judge of all the world, whose judgments are all just, and whose words are all righteousness. This young man is charged with following these worthy examples; it is asserted that he has taken to wife a beautiful and virtuous young lady, belonging, like him, to one of our most respected families, and who also believes in the Bible, and the example set her by those holy women of old, such as Rachel, Ruth, Hannah, and others, who honored God’s law, and became the mothers of Prophets, Priests and Kings. And as my cogitations ran I thought what need had these two to follow such examples of a bygone age; why not walk in the way of the world today; unite with our modern Christian civilization, and if passion guided their actions, why call each other husband and wife, why hallow their associations by any sacred ceremony; was there any need of such? Why not do as tens of thousands of others do, live in the condition of illicit love? And then if any child should be feared from this unsanctified union, why not still follow our Christian exemplars, remove the fetal encumbrance, call in some of the copyists of Madame Restell, the abortionists, male and female, that pollute our land, that would have been sub-rosa, genteel, fashionable, respectable, Christianlike, as Christianity goes in this generation. And if this did not succeed, the young man might have turned his victim into the street to perish, or die of pollution as is done in tens of thousands of instances, in the most sanctified manner by the hypocrites of the day. Then, in either of these cases, the young gentleman could have been received into good society, be petted and applauded; could hold a position under our government, be even a deputy-marshal, registrar or what not, and still further, be able to answer all the necessary questions; and be admitted as a grand juror without being brought in as a guttersnipe on an open venire, but as a respectable citizen on the regular panel. Or again, these two, in the event of a child being born, might consign it to the care of some degraded hag, some baby farmer, where gradually and quietly its innocent life would ebb out, and by and by the grief-stricken parents would receive the anticipated notice that their dear little offspring, notwithstanding every care, was dead and buried. This is a respectable crime, a crime committed principally by those who go to high-toned churches and fashionable meetinghouses in velvets and feathers, in silks and satins, and who with upturned eyes and hypocritical voices, insult the majesty of Heaven by drawling out, “Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners.” Yet they are murderers—murderers of the worst kind, shedders of innocent blood, consumers of their own flesh, whom the vengeance of God awaits. Yet this young man and woman could have done all this and no marshals with ready feet would have dogged their steps, no packed grand juries with unanimous alacrity would do the bidding of overzealous prosecuting attorneys; no Federal judge would overturn precedent, ignore law, disregard justice on purpose to convict. No, they might then have been the friends, associates, companions of judge and prosecutor, governor and commissioner: but now, as they would neither associate unrighteously, nor take means to destroy the results of their union, but honestly and virtuously live, as is claimed, as husband and wife, he stands in the felon’s dock charged with an offense against the dignity of the United States, and to convict him, oppressive laws, more oppressively administered, are brought to bear with all the ingenuity that malice can devise and hatred adopt. And there, in this ignominious position, he stands, with every person who might possibly be his friend, excluded from the jury, without the possibility of a fair trial by his peers, not one of the panel being in the least sympathy with himself: and by such people this unfortunate young gentleman has to be tried, judged, prosecuted, proscribed, and condemned, because of his firm and unswerving faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of David, Solomon, and numerous other Godfearing and honorable men, who, like him, have despised the cant and hypocrisy of an ungodly world, and dared to obey the behests of Jehovah. Of these things he had learned from the Bible, in the Sunday school; no wonder then that our would-be reformers are so anxious to exclude the Bible from our district schools, as its teachings and examples so emphatically condemn the theories on which the acts and legislation of Congress are based, as well as the course pursued by those who seek to aid in the regeneration of Utah by adding to or taking from the law as is best suited to shield their own corrupt practices, or, on the other hand, by extra judicial proceedings, under cover of the law, they pervert, to prosecute and persecute the Mormons.

And where was this scene enacted? In the gorgeous palaces of Belshazzar, surrounded by his wives, concubines, and nobles, and where was seen written on the walls, “Mene, mene, tekel upharsin?” No. Was it at the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, when ten righteous persons could not be found to avert the wrath of an offended God, or in Pompeii or Herculaneum, who, in their turn, for their libidinous and unrighteous practices, as Sodom and Gomorrah, suffered the vengeance of eternal fire? No. Was it in the Saturnalia of the Bacchanals of ancient Greece and Rome? No. Those nations have been long overthrown, and are now only known to a few readers of ancient history. Was it during the reign of the first French republic, when they elevated a prostitute as the goddess of reason? No. Was it in the days of the inquisition, when the rack, the gibbet, the faggot and the flames were brought into requisition to force unwilling victims to testify of things which their consciences forbade, and who perished by thousands for daring to think and act, and believe in and worship God according to the dictates of their consciences? No. Was it under the influence of Bacchus, or in the midnight revellings as exhibited in Rome under Nero? No. This scene was enacted in midday, in the 19th century, in the year of our Lord, 1884, in the Federal Court House, in Salt Lake City, at a court presided over by Judge Zane, Chief Justice for the United States in the Territory of Utah, assisted by Prosecuting Attorney Dickson, and the other adjuncts of the law, and in the presence of several hundred American citizens. Towards these gentlemen personally I have no feelings, no complaints to make. I understand them to bear the reputation of being learned and honorable men in all other matters. But they stand in an unfortunate position; they represent a cause so low, that it is impossible to look upon it without loathing and commiseration; they represent a political exigency, a party necessity, capital has to be made by the perse– cution and prosecution of American citizens who have embraced an unpopular faith, and they are the tools with which the unclean, despicable and barbarous work has to be done. I envy not their calling. I have no desire to stand in their shoes. Let my work be to do the will of God, to build up truth, virtue, righteousness, honor and peace upon the earth, and they may, if they so prefer, continue in the unfortunate work that their party has assigned to them.

Before I close I will say that I have not spoken on this subject with any feeling of acrimony in my heart towards the parties engaged in these proceedings. Some of the gentlemen engaged therein, in other respects, bear an excellent reputation. I will further say that we as Latter-day Saints have often heard it reported and reiterated in our ears, that the world was growing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, and that it would grow worse and worse. So we need not be surprised to see the fulfillment of these things. Furthermore, I wish specifically to state that while these abominations exist and these acts of injustice, we leave it with the perpetrators of these acts to pursue their own vain course. But it is for us to guard well against the innovations of the corrupt and the designing; it is for us to guard well our liberties; and then it is for us to treat honorably, rightly, and properly all honorable men and women. Although thousands are engaged in committing these crimes which are too dreadful to reflect upon: yet at the same time there are thousands and millions of honorable men and women throughout the nations, and many of them among us. We don’t class them with the corrupt, the libidinous and the murderers; although for our part we must be very careful of our associations, and know the character of those whom we receive into our houses, or allow our children to associate with.

God bless you and lead you in the paths of life; and while others are trying to exalt crime and murder into a fine art, and extol these libidinous practices; and while we have test oaths framed on purpose to screen the adulterer and adulteress; and while honorable men are prevented or voluntarily abstain from voting, and harlots and whoremongers, and men who betray their wives and associate with other women are considered honorable men and protected by the authorities of this Territory, it is for us to guard ourselves against everything that is improper, and to be pure, especially you who bear the vessels of the Lord. God bless you, and lead you in the paths of life, in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Ogden, Sunday Morning, October 18th, 1884.

I will read a portion of the 7th chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews.

[The speaker read the whole of the 7th chapter.]

Proceeding he said: This chapter that I have read in your hearing is the 7th chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews. In this entire book of Hebrews, Paul reasons with the Jews, unto whom the epistle was addressed, to show them that Jesus, the Son of God, whom they had crucified, was a Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and that the Priesthood which had been taken away during the days of Moses in the wilderness, had been restored through Him. The Jews entertained the idea that Priesthood necessarily came through the tribe of Levi, and that the power and the authority thereof—that is, to minister in all things pertaining to the Priesthood were confined to that tribe, and that no one had the right outside of that tribe to officiate in the ordinances pertaining to God and to mediation between God and the people or the people and God. But Paul very clearly proved in his reasoning with them that there was a Priesthood higher than that which had been exercised by the descendants of Aaron.

It is well for us, who, as a people, believe in Priesthood, that we should understand the nature and character and power of the Priesthood which God confirms upon man when He calls him to act in His stead in the midst of the people. As a people we differ in our views upon these points from almost every other church. There are one or two sects in existence which attach a great importance to Priesthood, but the most of them which form the so-called Christian world reject the idea of Priesthood, and deny that it is necessary for it to he bestowed upon man. This feeling has doubtless arisen as a consequence of the abuses that have grown up through the maladministration of what is termed the Priesthood. In rebelling against the Catholic Church and its pretensions men have gone to the other extreme, and have discarded the idea of Priesthood entirely, and claimed that all men are alike before God; that all men are equally endowed with authority from God, and to exercise the power and the authority that were originally bestowed upon those who held the truth.

In these last days, in the organization of this Church, God, in His infinite wisdom, impressed upon his servant Joseph Smith the necessity of there being a rebestowal of the Priesthood, in order to give him the authority to officiate in the ordinances of the Kingdom of God. This must have been impressed upon the prophet’s mind at a very early day, from the fact that, notwithstanding he had been brought up among the protestant sects, and had doubtless shared in the views which they entertained respecting the right of all men who were impressed by the spirit, and who were prompted by an inward call to act as ministers of God, he refrained from attempting in the least degree to do anything in the name of God or of Jesus Christ until he had received the power and authority from on high through the bestowal of the Priesthood upon him. The revelations he had received from the Lord, with the ministration of holy angels, did not, he plainly perceived, authorize him to act as a minister of the Lord in the administration of ordinances. He never attempted to do anything in administering ordinances, or anything that a Priest might do, until he had been ordained of God through the administration of John the Baptist. Then, and not till then, did he officiate in the ordinance of baptism. Much as he and his companion desired that ordinance; much as they desired to become participants in the blessings that flow from the reception of an ordinance of that holy character, he never attempted, until he had been thus empowered from on high, to administer it.

Now, the prevalent idea in the world has been that if a man should be so favored as to receive the ministrations or visitations of angels, or to receive any manifestations of what might be termed a supernatural character, he would be completely invested with the power necessary to preach the Gospel unto his fellow men and to administer all the ordinances thereof. But the Prophet Joseph not only received the ministrations of angels, but actually had revelations from God, which are written in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and which are now the word of God to the Church. He received these revelations through the inspiration of the Almighty. He also by means of the Urim and Thummim translated the Book of Mormon; was, in fact, a seer as well as a revelator; had the spirit of prophecy to predict those things that should take place in the future, and many events that have since taken place were prophesied of by him before he was really ordained of God to administer the ordinances of life and salvation. I know that this is an exceptional instance. It may be possible that there is not another like it in the history of our race where a man was so highly favored of God, endowed with such authority, such power and had such manifestations of the mind and will of God as he received without having the Holy Priesthood. But it accords with the ideas so frequently expressed by the brethren respecting the Prophet Joseph and many others, that they were ordained before the foundations of the world were laid to come forth and accomplish the labor and the work that they did. There is no room for doubt in regard to the truth of this statement that is so frequently made. In the early boyhood of the Prophet Joseph, he was moved upon in a mysterious manner to seek unto God. By the exercise of a faith that was uncommon, and in fact it may be said unknown upon the earth, he was able to receive the ministrations of God the Father, and of His Son Jesus Christ; thus showing in the very beginning of his career, that he was a man or a spirit that was highly favored of God—a man to whom God desired to give particular manifestations of his kindness and goodness and power, and this was followed up from that time until his death by continued manifestations of the favor and the will and the power of God unto him. But it is a remarkable fact—and I wish to impress it, I think it is worthy of remembrance by all of us—that notwithstanding the Prophet Joseph had all these manifestations, and was, as I have said, a prophet and seer and revelator, he never attempted—notwithstanding the ideas that were so prevalent among mankind, and especially in the region where he lived and where he received his education—to officiate in any of the ordinances of the house of God, or of the Gospel of salvation, until he received the everlasting Priesthood. When that was bestowed upon him; when he received the Priesthood after the order of Aaron, and was ordained by the angel who alone held the keys, who was a literal descendant of Aaron, and by virtue of that descent entitled to the keys of that Priesthood, having exercised the authority thereof while in the flesh—then and not till then did he administer the ordinance of baptism for the remission of sins. And then he refrained from acting in ordinances belonging to the Melchizedek Priesthood, that higher Priesthood, by the authority of which the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost is administered unto the children of men. Having authority to baptize in water given unto him, he did not go any further, until the Lord in His kindness and mercy bestowed upon him, through the administration of those apostles who held the keys after the death of our Savior, the authority to administer in those higher ordinances and to exercise the power and authority of this higher Priesthood. This illustrates most perfectly how careful men ought to be in acting in the name of God, not to overstep the bounds of the authority conferred upon them, but to carefully keep within those limits that are assigned to them in which to exercise authority. It is a lesson unto us as a people. We should be particular ourselves and should impress every man with the great care that he should exercise to confine his acts to the authority which he has received from the Almighty.

Jesus himself, no doubt, was equally careful in regard to the authority which He held. He was called to be a Priest after the order of Melchizedek—that is, this higher Priesthood. He exercised the authority thereof among the children of men. He still is a Priest after that holy order. It was by virtue of that Priesthood that He officiated in the ordinances that He administered unto men. Though the Son of God, the Savior himself, did not attempt, because of His sonship, because of His high descent, to officiate among the children of men aside from and independent of the authority of the Holy Priesthood, that is, the Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. It was by virtue of that Priesthood and authority that he officiated, that he administered the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, which John the Baptist announced unto the people he would do when He came. Jesus in administering that baptism and conferring that blessing, did so by virtue of and in the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood. He would not, as I have said, have dared to do this independent of that authority; so in laying His hands upon His Apostles He conferred upon them this power and this authority. He commanded them to go forth and administer unto the children of men by virtue of that power and authority, and the Church that He built up, and this Church of His that is now established in these last days, and the officers of it, derive their authority from that source. It has come down legitimately from the days of Melchizedek; in fact it has come down from our great father Adam. He received the Priesthood of the Son of God; He was ordained to that Priesthood, and it has come down by lineal descent from him unto all his children who have that authority today and who exercise it upon the earth. It can be traced in the same manner as the descent of man can be traced. It can be traced to Father Adam. He received it through angelic administration. It was bestowed upon him and upon his son Abel and upon his son Seth, and from them it has come down through the line of the Priesthood—from Seth to Enos, from Enos to Cainan, from Cainan to Mahalaleel, and so on down until the days of Noah, who received it from his grandfather. These men were ordained in their various generations to this Priesthood, the Priesthood after the holiest order, the Priesthood after the order of the Son of God. By virtue of this Priesthood Noah and his sons ministered and labored, as we are told, among the children of men to persuade them to forsake their sins and to turn to righteousness, lest the Lord should overwhelm them with a flood. This flood had been predicted long before it came. Enoch had beheld it in vision, and he went forth, as we are told in the record that has come down to us from him, and labored to the best of his ability among the children of men to avert the dreadful consequences of this threatened flood, which he had been informed by the Lord would overwhelm the inhabitants because of their wickedness. He labored in this Priesthood for 365 years and upwards—that is, he walked with God for that length of time—and by the exercise of that Priesthood he obtained such great power from God that he and his people were translated. Zion was not. It was taken to the bosom of the Lord. The Priesthood, however, was still left. His son Methuselah received it, and he bestowed it upon Lamech, and Noah received it, from Methuselah, and the sons of Noah received and exercised the authority of it in the midst of the children of men in order to save them, but were unsuccessful. Melchizedek received it, and because of his greatness and the power that he attained unto with God, he became so distinguished that the Priesthood after the order of the Son of God has been called after his name from that time until the present, to avoid, as we are told in the revelations, the too frequent repetition of the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Then Abraham received it, and he bestowed it upon his children. Moses, however, received it through a different line, as we are told. He received it from his father-in-law, Jethro, and exercised it among the people. It was the same Priesthood that his ancestor Abraham held, and by it he performed the mighty works that he accomplished.

To return again to Melchizedek. We find here that Paul in speaking about him says that he was “King of peace.” And he goes on to say, as we have it translated, that he was “without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life,” and the whole Christian world have gone astray over this expression of Paul, not being able to understand it, thinking that that which I read in your hearing referred to Melchizedek himself, when in reality it was the Priesthood he bore. It was after the power of an endless life. It had no beginning; no end. It is eternal as our Father and God, and it extends into the eternities to come, and it is as endless as eternity is endless, and as our God is endless: for it is the power and authority by which our Father and God sits upon His throne and wields the power He does throughout the innumerable worlds over which He exercises dominion. It is the power and authority by which the Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, has attained unto that which has been promised unto Him, and by which He has become the Savior and the Redeemer of the world.

This Priesthood, as I have said, came down unto Moses, but the children of Israel would not have it in their midst. We are told very plainly in the revelation that Moses sought diligently to sanctify his people and to lead them into the presence of God by means of this Priesthood, but they would not have it. The ordinances of godliness that were administered by it were not acceptable to that generation; they rejected them, and besought Moses to stand between them and their Father and God, for they could not endure His presence. Hence the Priesthood was taken away, and there was no exercise of the power and the authority of it among the Jews, except occasionally, when Prophets received authority from the Lord, until the days of the Savior, when it was restored once more in its fullness and in the plenitude of its power to the earth, and men began to exercise the authority thereof.

My brethren and sisters, we are building temples at the present time in which we have ordinances administered unto us for those who have died. Why is this necessary? It is because the Priesthood of the Son of God was withdrawn for a long period of time from the earth. The children of men have been born, they have lived, they have died without any of the ordinances being administered unto them by those who held the Priesthood of the Son of God. It is true that many sought after God in a certain manner and according to the light they had, and many obtained some degree of knowledge concerning God. Some of them had a testimony of Him through their faith and died at peace with God. Many of our ancestors lived in this condition, and God bore witness to them by His Holy Spirit that He was pleased with them. But what of that? Is that all that is necessary to place them in a saved condition? By no means. Something more than that is necessary to obtain for them the full remission of their sins and to place them in a condition where they can be saved and exalted in God’s presence. As I said to you in the beginning, something more was necessary for Joseph than that he was a Revelator, a Seer, and a Prophet to constitute him a servant of God empowered to administer the ordinances of life and salvation. A Wesley, a Luther, a Calvin, a Wycliffe, and a host of others who have arisen in the world, imbued with the highest and purest motives, and the highest and most intense desires for the salvation of their fellow men, have labored zealously to turn men to God, and to bring them to a knowledge of the Savior; but they have not had the authority of the Holy Priesthood. They themselves could not usher people into the Church of God. They could not legitimately administer an ordinance pertaining to the salvation of the human family. Yet God, in many instances, accepted of them, where they sought unto Him according to the best light they possessed; He accepted of them and their labors, and He witnessed unto them, by the outpouring of His Spirit upon them, that He was pleased with them and He whispered peace to their souls. In every land, in every nation, and among the people of every creed, men and women of this kind have been found, and according to their faith and diligence their works have been acceptable to our Father. Men have thought that the Christian lands and the Christian people, so called, have been the most favored of God in this respect. No doubt they have, because they have had knowledge concerning the Savior that other lands and other peoples have not had; but in pagan lands, where the name of Jesus has never been heard, where men have sought after God and endeavored to live according to the light that He has given unto them and the Spirit that He has bestowed upon them, and which He bestows upon every man and woman born into the world, He has accepted of them, and in the day of the Lord Jesus, the heathen will have part in the first resurrection. Our ancestors have, in common with others, been destitute of the power and the authority of the Holy Priesthood. Hence we build temples; hence we go into these temples and attend to the ordinances of life and salvation for our kindred who have died in ignorance of this power, or were in a position where they could not have it exercised in their behalf. They could not be baptized for the remission of their sins; they could not have hands laid upon them for the reception of the Holy Ghost; they could not have any other ordinance administered unto them, because the authority to administer was not upon the earth, and whatever might be done in the name of God or in the name of Jesus, by those who thought they had the authority, or who assumed to possess it, was of no avail so far as salvation was concerned; so far as acceptance by the Lord our God is concerned it was as though nothing had been done. Hence it is that in these last days, God having in His great kindness and mercy, opened the heavens once more and sent from heaven that authority which has so long been withdrawn—God having done this, we are put in possession of the authority to administer to each other the ordinances of life and salvation, and not only to administer to each other, but to exercise that authority in behalf of those who have lived before us, lived in ages that are past, so that we can connect generation unto generation until we reach back to the time when our ancestors did hold the Holy Priesthood. In this manner the work of salvation will progress, until throughout the millennium, temples will be built, and the servants and handmaidens of God will go into these temples and officiate, until all who have been born upon the face of the earth, who have not become sons of perdition, will be redeemed, and the entire family be reunited, Adam standing at the head.

You can see, my brethren and sisters, the importance there is in our having the Priesthood of the Son of God in our midst. You see how necessary it is that it should be exercised and exercised properly. You can see how necessary it is that the ordinances of life and salvation should be administered by those who are legitimately ordained to this authority. When a man lays his hands upon the head of his fellow man and professes to bestow authority, the mere profession of that authority will avail nothing unless he has indeed the authority and has it legitimately. A man who may profess to have the authority; a man who may say I have ordained this person or the other person, unless he has the authority to do so is a mere pretender, and his acts cannot be recognized nor acknowledged of God. I believe the time will come when it will be necessary for every man to trace the line in which he has received the Priesthood that he exercises. It is therefore of great importance in our Church that records should be kept, and that every man should know whence he derives his authority—from what source, through what channel he has received the Holy Priesthood, and by what right he exercises that authority and administers the ordinances thereof. I believe this is of extreme importance, and that where there are doubts as to a man’s legitimately exercising that authority, that doubt should be removed. Every man should be careful on this point, to know where he gets his Priesthood; that it has come to him clean and undefiled, legitimately; and when men are cut off from that Priesthood by the voice of the servants of God, there is an authority on the earth which God recognizes in the heavens, and that man is cut off from the Priesthood. He said in ancient days in speaking to His Apostles:

“Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain; they are retained.”

“Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

In these last days God has, in like manner, restored this same authority of the Holy Priesthood. He has restored to man the power to bind on earth and it shall be bound in heaven. He has restored the authority to remit sins on earth, and He, the Great Eternal, our Father in heaven, says that when these sins are remitted they shall be remitted, but when they are not remitted they shall stand against those who commit the sins.

Therefore, there is this authority in the Church, and you can witness the exercise of it, and the power of it, in your own experience. When– ever the voice of the people of God, and the authorities that God has placed in His Church, whom He has ordained—whenever they lift up their hands against a man to cut him off from the Church, to withdraw from him the authority of the Priesthood that he has exercised, in every instance without a single exception, from the beginning of this Church until today, God has most signally and wonderfully manifested His approval of their acts and has withdrawn from that man (whosoever he may be, however great and mighty he may have been in the Church), His power and His blessing. It was so with Oliver Cowdery, the companion of Joseph, the man who received with him the Priesthood, upon whose head John the Baptist laid his hands, and upon whose head, also, the Apostles Peter, James and John laid their hands. These glorious blessings and favors that God gave to him did not prevent his falling into sin. When he did fall into sin and the Church and the Priesthood united in lifting their hands to cut him off from the Church, and take from him the Priesthood and the authority that he had so powerfully exercised and which God had favored him with so much, God recognized the action. Other men fell, also. Six of the original twelve fell into transgression. They were men of ability, men of talent. Some of them were greatly favored. Lyman Johnson had wonderful manifestations given unto him; but when he fell into transgression and the Church with the Priesthood united in lifting up their hands against him the power and authority that had distinguished him before was withdrawn and he became as other men. And so with all of them. So with Sidney Rigdon, that mighty man, that eloquent man, that spokesman for the Prophet Joseph, of whom the Book of Mormon had spoken for hundreds, yes, it may be said for thousands of years before his birth. He also, when the Priesthood and Church in Nauvoo lifted up their hands against him, fell like Lucifer, who once was a mighty angel in the presence of God, and exercised great authority; like Lucifer he fell, and the authority and power that had attended him were withdrawn, and he became like unto other men. This has been the case in every instance. Can you point out an exception? Look at them wherever you see them, the men that have held the Priesthood, who were bright and influential and powerful, whom God blessed, whose administrations God sealed when they were in the possession of that authority, exercising it in purity and in singleness of purpose—when this was the case He was with them; but when they went into transgression and fell and the Priesthood was taken from them, they became weak, and their strength was gone. They are marked among the people wherever you see them. Thus showing that God in these last days confirms the promise that He made unto His servants, that whatsoever they bound on earth should be bound in heaven, and that whatsoever they loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven.

It is by the exercise of this power in our midst that we are preserved. God has given it unto us. It is true He has placed this authority and power, it may be said, in earthen vessels. He has chosen weak men, fallible men, men who are subject to all the failings and weaknesses of human nature. But, nevertheless, it is the authority of God. It is the authority by which He has built up His Church in all ages. It is the authority, the only authority upon the earth that can act in His name. When a man has this authority and goes forth and confines himself to its legitimate exercise and keeps within the bounds of his authority, God is with him; God confirms that which he does; God places His seal and His blessing and approval upon his acts; and though all the earth should endeavor to undo them and to say they are of no effect, they will stand, nevertheless, and in the Courts of heaven will be recorded and confirmed. There is no power among men that can disannul these acts, that can revoke or invalidate them in any manner. It is this that raises this Church beyond the power and reach of man. Courts cannot affect in any manner the decisions or the acts or the ordinances that are administered by the servants of God. That which is done in the name of the Holy Priesthood will stand and will be fulfilled both in the world and out of the world, both in time and in eternity. Hence it is that when an Elder goes forth in the authority of the Holy Priesthood, and baptizes a candidate who has repented of his sins, God confirms that ordinance; God remits the sins of that individual; God by bestowing His Holy Spirit witnesses unto that soul that his sins or her sins are remitted. In like manner when an Elder lays his hands upon the head of a man or a woman who has been thus baptized and says unto that individual, “receive ye the Holy Ghost,” God in heaven, bound by the oath and the covenant that He has made, bound by all the conditions that pertain to the everlasting Priesthood, will cause the Holy Ghost to descend upon that soul, and he or she will be filled therewith. He receives the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, and it stands on the earth and it stands in heaven recorded in favor of that soul if he continues to observe the conditions under which that baptism and confirmation are administered. There is no human power that can deprive that individual of the fruits of that blessing which has been thus sealed upon him by authority of the Holy Priesthood.

So with other ordinances. When men go forward and attend to other ordinances, such as receiving their endowments, their washings, their anointings, receiving the promises connected therewith, these promises will be fulfilled to the very letter in time and in eternity—that is, if they themselves are true to the conditions upon which the blessings are promised. And so it is when persons go to the altar and are married for time and eternity. When the man who officiates says: “I seal upon you the power to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection, crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives,” just as sure as that promise is made, and the persons united (to whom the promise is made) conform with the conditions thereof, just so sure will it be fulfilled. There is no power anywhere in existence that can invalidate the force, the efficacy, or that can prevent the fulfillment of that promise when it is pronounced upon a man and woman by the authority of the Holy Priesthood—that is, there is no power but that which they themselves can exercise. It is a remarkable fact, that there is no blessing that God has promised unto us that any human being, that any angel, or any devil can take from us. There is no power of that kind that can take it from us. But a man himself, by sinning, can rob himself of his blessing; he can prevent its fulfillment; but no human being can do it beside himself. Remember this, Latter-day Saints; remember it, and treasure it up in your hearts, that you have salvation within your own keeping. If you are damned, you damn yourselves; you will be the instrument of your own damnation. It will not be because God will damn you; it will not be because Satan has such power that he can take away every blessing from you; it will not be because of anything of that kind. How will it come about? It will come to every soul by wrongdoing on the part of that soul. He or she alone can bring condemnation on himself or herself. There is no other power can do it. Hence if we are damned we shall have no one to blame but ourselves; we shall have no one to condemn but ourselves; it will be the result of our own agency, the exercise of that power which God gave to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when he said, “of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat.” He gave them their agency. He said to them: “You can eat of every tree but one, and you can eat that also; but I forbid you to eat of it, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; if you do eat of that tree you will have to endure the penalty.”

In the exercise of their agency they did eat of that tree, and the result was expulsion from the garden of Eden and death. And so it has been with all the rest of the human family from that time unto the present. Every one of us will bring upon ourselves either salvation or condemnation as the case may be, according to the manner in which we exercise our agency before God. It is by this Priesthood and the exercise of it, that the blessings of God will flow unto us. It is by this Priesthood that we are bound together. God has surrounded us by bonds that are indissoluble. They cannot be separated. Time cannot wear them out. They will endure throughout eternity. It is a most wonderful tie, the binding tie of the Holy Priesthood. Never were a people upon the face of the earth since the Priesthood was among men, so bound together as we are being bound; and this is the glorious feature of the tie that binds us together; it can only operate upon those who are righteous; it can only have effect when righteousness prevails and where people live in such a manner as to receive the promises of God. A man who practices wrong may have all these blessings pronounced upon him; he may have been baptized and have had hands laid upon him; he may go through the Temple and have wives sealed to him and have every blessing promised unto him that is promised to the most faithful of the children of God, and yet if he does not live so as to be worthy of these blessings he will not receive them; he will, sooner or later, be bereft of them and left destitute. This is the glorious feature of this great tie that God has restored to the earth. It only binds the righteous. It does not bind the wicked to the righteous. It does not bind the wicked to the wicked. Its power and saving force can only be exercised or enjoyed where righteousness prevails. Hence when the people of God come forth in the resurrection, they will come forth pure. There will then be a separation of the wicked from the righteous. The righteous will enjoy their own society. In this probation it seems to be designed in providence of our God that we should all be mixed up together—no thorough separation. When we came to these valleys we thought we had left the world behind us. We thought that because these mighty mountains, which reared themselves on every hand as an impassable barrier between us and the rest of the world, Babylon was left behind. We thought we could live comparatively pure lives, and that we would be comparatively free from the associations of the world. But such ideas have been dispelled—very rudely dispelled—by that which has occurred. Babylon followed us. We find that these mountains are not sufficient to divide us from the rest of the world; that we must share with the rest of mankind the evils and the blessings that pertain to this mortal condition of existence. We have these circumstances to contend with. We are mixed with the wicked. The tares and the wheat grow together, and will grow until the harvest. This seems to be designed in the providence of our Father. But the time will come when there will be a separation, a final separation, of the righteous from the wicked, and that separation will be brought about by the exercise of the Priesthood which God has bestowed. That Priesthood will draw up from the earth the pure, the holy, the worthy. It will draw them up to the society of God. Everything that is not pure will be left behind. Then we will feel and know the value of that tie. By it the man will draw his wives to him; by it the father and mother will draw their children to them; by it generation will be linked to generation, until all will be united clear back to our father Adam, the father of the human race on the earth. All this will be accomplished by the power and authority of the Priesthood.

Do you understand, then, why the Priesthood of the Son of God is hated; why the lives of the servants of God are sought after; why it is that they are sought to be imprisoned and ensnared in various forms? It is because the adversary of souls knows full well that if this Priesthood remains on the earth, then farewell to his authority, farewell to his kingdom, farewell to the dominion that he has exercised over the children of men. It cannot continue its existence. He knows that as well as we do. He understands it perfectly. Hence he has ever sought to destroy from the face of the earth the men who have held the Priesthood of the Son of God. He was not satisfied until the earth drank the precious blood of the Savior of the world, and the life of every man who has held the Priesthood, and has exercised it from the days of righteous Abel down to the present time, has been sought for to a greater or less extent by they adversary of souls. He has used men as his agents to accomplish this. He cannot himself come here and exercise his power in his own person, because it was forbidden him, and his angels who rebelled with him, in consequence of their great transgression, that they should have tabernacles of flesh. This was their punishment, that they should not have tabernacles of flesh. But from the day he entered into the serpent in the garden of Eden to the present he has sought, through the agency of man or beast, the lives of those who have held the Priesthood. In this way he has sought to exercise his power and authority among men. He did so with Cain. Read in the Pearl of Great Price what he did with him; how he tempted him, and how Cain succumbed to his temptation. He said to Cain, “believe it not,” and he has been using the same words to all the children of men from that time to the present. “Believe it not!” When the servants of God have proclaimed the truth Satan has ever been ready to say, “believe it not!” He has instilled into the minds of the children of men hatred for the truth—that is, every one that has been willing to listen to him. He has entered into them, taken possession of their souls, and has used them to accomplish his wicked purposes. He has done this through man. He could not do it without he had some tabernacle to operate through. He could not deceive Eve—or did not deceive her—except through the means of the serpent. He entered into the serpent. The serpent was willing, doubtless, to let him enter, and he spoke through the serpent. It was the mouth of the serpent, but it was the voice of Satan that beguiled the woman. He was determined that God’s work should not prosper in the earth. He has determined that the children of men shall do as he wishes. He has been angry from the beginning because his plan was not adopted; because the Father did not see proper to select him to save man without the exercise of man’s agency; because of this he has determined that he will destroy the work. He has drenched the earth with innocent blood to accomplish his purpose. He is still engaged in that work. He would destroy us if he could. See what is being done all over the Territory. See the agencies that are at work. See how many men are being used by the adversary of souls to accomplish his purposes in regard to this people—a people unexampled for sobriety, for temperance, for industry, for frugality, for kindness, for good order, for all the virtues that men revere. Where can you find a people like them? There is no place upon the face of the earth where these virtues are better exemplified in the lives of the people than they are in Utah Territory. What woman cries aloud in our streets because of being defiled? What woman cries in vain for protection in all our land, from east to west, from north to south? Has the cry of distress gone up? Has the cry of the poor and the oppressed ascended from these valleys unto God unheard by the people? Do orphans and widows mourn and weep because of the circumstances which surround them? No, not in any part of our land. Not a beggar to be seen throughout all our settlements. No cry of distress either from man or beast. Virtue is upheld. Women are shielded as safely as they were when they were infants in their mother’s bosoms—shielded from harm, shielded from the seducer, from those who would wreck their happiness. This is the case throughout all our society. Do drunkards flourish among us? Are they encouraged? We know they are not. Are persons encouraged in litigation and quarrelling? No; nowhere in the land is there anything of this kind. Peace prevails; good order prevails; quarrellings are seldom heard; virtue is protected and encouraged. Marriage is encouraged everywhere. Yet on this land we are threatened as a people because of these things. Our liberty is jeopardized. All kinds of machinery are put into operation to destroy us, or to entrap and ensnare us, and deprive us of liberty.

Thank God, my brethren and sisters, for the restoration of the Priesthood. Thank God for the blessings we receive every day. Thank God for the persecutions we are called upon to endure. As the Savior said, let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad because the wicked array themselves against us in this manner. It is a testimony to us that we are not in harmony with the wicked; that we are not taking the course that Belial would like us to take; that we are pursuing the path that God has marked out for us. We can do this with perfect safety, and with the perfect assurance that it will all come out right. As I have said, there is no power that can separate a virtuous man and woman who have been united by the power of the Holy Priesthood; no power can do it; they must do it themselves if done at all. These ties that bind us together will endure through time and eternity. Let us so live that we shall never forfeit our claim upon the promises of our God, and that we may ever be faithful from this time forward, until we receive the fulfillment of all those promises in the presence of God and the Lamb, I ask in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Monday and Tuesday (Semi-Annual Conference), October 6 and 7, 1884.

If the congregation will endeavor to preserve as much order as possible, and prevent the crying and disturbance of children, I will try and address you for a short time. Last evening I made quite a lengthy address in this hall; but we had very good order. There was no whispering, no talking, nor disturbance of any kind. It requires, in a large congregation like this, quite an exertion to speak so as to make the people hear. I am told that the people could not hear half of what was said by several of the brethren yesterday. It is wrong for us to have disorder in the house of God, a place where we meet for instruction.

Last evening I talked of some matters of considerable importance to the Priesthood, of which there was an immense number present; they nearly filled this hall. I wish to continue some of these remarks; for it is necessary that all of us should be instructed in the great principles which God has revealed for the guidance, salvation and exaltation of the Saints of God, and also for the benefit of the world wherein we live. There were very many promises made to eminent men in generations long since past; but these generally had reference more particularly to the benefit of the world of mankind than to individuals.

There were certain great principles involved in the organization of this earth, and one was that there might be a place provided whereon the children of our Heavenly Father could live and propagate their species, and have bodies formed for the spirits to inhabit who were the children of God; for we are told that He is the God and Father of the spirits of all flesh. It was requisite, therefore, that an earth should be organized; it was requisite that man should be placed upon it; it was requisite that bodies should be prepared for those spirits to inhabit, in order that the purposes of God pertaining to His progeny might be accomplished, and that those spirits might be enabled, through the medium of the everlasting Gospel, to return unto the presence of their Heavenly Father, as Gods among the Gods.

There have been different agencies at work throughout this world’s history. Lucifer has been and is one of these agencies. There was a garden planted, and Adam and Eve were placed in it, and there they had communion with God. There was another being whose name was Lucifer, who is called in some places, “the son of the morning.” Job speaks of a time at the creation of this earth when “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,” (Job xxxviii, 7). As it was necessary that there should be a God, a man, an earth and a heaven, it was also necessary that there should be a devil, that man might be tried, and by trial be instructed. Indeed, in the economy of God, it was not only necessary that man, but the Savior also should be perfected by suffering. It is written: “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” (Hebrews, ii, 10.) It was further necessary that there should be a Redeemer according to the plan which was devised from before the foundation of the world, and also that man might be a free agent to act and operate for himself, to receive the good and reject the evil, or reject the good and be governed by the evil. And there were certain rewards promised to those who would obey the laws of God, and keep his commandments, and certain punishments inflicted upon those who would not. Satan has made very great ravages among the human family in trying to accomplish his purposes; for he has been the enemy of God, and the enemy of man, and in ages past he wrought upon mankind until after a certain period he had contrived to get the great majority of them on his side. Nevertheless, they had the Priesthood among them in those early days as we have among us today. After Adam there were Seth, Enos, Mahalaleel, Methuselah, Lamech, and a great many others until we arrive at Enoch and Noah, who operated especially in behalf of the interest of the human family. They preached the Gospel as we preach it, and taught the same principles that we teach. They gathered the people to a Zion as we gather them, and when they had been gathered together, they had enemies as we have, who arrayed themselves against them. But Enoch was clothed upon with the power of God. He walked with God for 365 years, and we are told, “he was not; for God took him.” That is about all that is said about him in the Bible; but we have other information. Many others walked with God, and there was a city that the people were gathered to—a Zion. They walked with God and they were instructed of the Lord; but it took at any rate, 365 years to accomplish this object.

Furthermore, in the latter days there is to be a Zion built up: but in these days we are told that the Lord will cut His work short in righteousness. Enoch, in his day, had his messengers go forth among the people, and when they gathered, it induced the rage of man, and great armies assembled against the Saints, but Enoch prophesied by the power of God, and the earth shook and the mountains trembled, and the enemies of the Saints in fear fled afar off. By and by when the time came for the accomplishment of the purposes of God, and before the destruction of the wicked, Enoch was caught up to heaven and his Zion with him. And we are told in latter revelation in relation to these matters that a Zion will be built up in our day; that great trouble will overtake the inhabitants of the earth; and that when the time arrives, the Zion that was caught up will descend, and the Zion that will be organized here will ascend, both possessed of the same spirit, their peoples having been preserved by the power of God according to His purposes and as His children, to take part in the events of the latter days. We are told that when the people of these two Zions meet, they will fall on each others’ necks, and embrace and kiss each other.

As they in that day were placed under the guidance of the Almighty, so are we. As they had a work to perform associated with the welfare of the human family, so have we. As they had the Gospel to preach, so have we. As they had a Zion to build up, so have we. As they needed the support of the Great Jehovah, so do we. As they were dependent upon Him in all their movements, whether in relation to earth or heaven, so are we. The work in which we are engaged is one that has been introduced by the Great Eloheim, the God and Father of the human family, in the interests of His children. And wherever and whenever these principles have existed, this same being that was in the garden with our first parents still goes forth and has gone forth as a raging lion, seeking whom he may deceive, seeking whom he may devour, seeking whom he may lead down to death. And in these latter days God has introduced these same principles with the same object in view. He has revealed the same principles of heaven, and as heretofore, in the interest of humanity. Who was Enoch? Was he a man of God? Yes. Who were the Elders with him, were they men of God? Yes; and they received their instructions in that Zion that was then built up, and more or less directly from God; for Enoch walked with God. Whom was Enoch operating for? For God his heavenly Father. He was there, as Jesus was on the earth in his time, as he said, not to do His own will, but the will of his Father who sent him. And whom did those people operate for? They operated for the welfare of the human family who would receive the truth and be governed by it. And whom did Jesus and His Apostles in their day operate for? For the benefit of all the world. Jesus Himself appeared as the Redeemer of the world, and He commissioned His Apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature, saying: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.” What is this salvation and condemnation? That would take a long time to tell. Suffice it to say that there are bodies celestial, bodies terrestrial, and bodies telestial; one glory of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars; but strait was the gate and narrow was the way that led unto the lives, and few there were at that time and few there have always been who have gone in thereat. And what was it that they sought? It was the Celestial Kingdom of our God, that they might come forth in the first resurrection and be one with the Father and one with Jesus, and be– long to the Church of the Firstborn whose names are written in heaven, and become Gods among the Gods, and participate in all the glory of the Celestial Kingdom. But few there were who found the narrow path. It is so today. Were the Apostles of Jesus commanded to preach the Gospel? Yes. Are we commanded as they were? Yes. What was the position of the Apostles? They were simply messengers of life and salvation to a fallen world. What are the First Presidency, the Twelve, the High Priests, the Seventies, and the Elders today? What are they? Bearers of life and salvation to a fallen world, the messengers of God to men, the legates of the skies commissioned by the Great Jehovah to introduce the principles of eternal life, and gather in his elect from the four quarters of the earth, and to prepare them for an exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God. And what becomes of those who choose the other path? They are still God’s children, and He feels interested in them. What will He do with them? They will be judged according to the deeds done in the body, and according to the light and intelligence which God communicates to them. Then there is another glory, a telestial glory. Those who enter into that glory will also be judged according to their deeds and be rewarded according to their acts. We are told of others who will suffer the wrath of God, and in the revelations given to us we learn that eternal punishment is God’s punishment, that everlasting punishment is God’s punishment, for He is eternal, and He is everlasting. We are informed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah suffered the vengeance of eternal fire. We are told, too, that the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, who were destroyed because of their wickedness, were shut up in prison and they remained there for a long, long time. How long? We read that Jesus, who was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, went and preached to the spirits in prison which were sometime disobedient when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah. How long had these people been there? At a rough guess about 2,400 years. It was quite a painful ordeal to go through. It is one that none of us would like very much. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God—a fearful thing to violate His laws. We have gathered here that we may learn those laws, the laws of God, the laws of life, and prepare ourselves under His guidance for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God. But are all the Latter-day Saints going into that kingdom? No. How is that? It is just as Jesus declared. “It is not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, that will enter into the Kingdom of God; but he that doeth the will of the Father who is in heaven.” Did Jesus come to do the will of His Father in heaven? He did, and He expects all who aim at Celestial glory to do the same, and if they do not they will not get there. He says, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” And He will say unto them, “Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, I know you not, you have not lived as becometh Saints.” Oh, say some, that don’t mean the Saints. No, it don’t, but it means many who profess to be Saints. Do the world profess to cast out devils, to heal the sick and to do many mighty works? They do not. Do the world prophesy in His name? No. Do the world preach in the name of God? They preach in His name, many of them, without having the authority, as we have heard at this conference; but they do not propose to do many mighty works in His name, but many of our Elders do—Elders who magnify their calling and honor their God. On the other hand there are Elders who are careless, wayward and rebellious against God and His laws—who seek to trample under foot the principles that He has revealed—who seek to set themselves up to guide, direct, and manipulate the affairs of the Church and Kingdom of God, and yet these same persons know nothing but what they know naturally, as do the brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed; and we none of us know anything only as God instructs us. We are indebted to Him for the introduction of this work, and for all the information pertaining thereto. It has been from no man nor set of men, nor organizations of a professed spiritual or temporal nature, that we have received intelligence pertaining to the things of God, the Church of God, or the Kingdom of God. It has come directly from the Lord, through the Gospel of the Son of God, which brings life and immortality to light; and if men think—and we every once in a while meet with such characters—they know better than the Lord how to manipulate affairs they will find out their mistake. The Lord will say to them, “Depart from me, I never knew you: for it is not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, that shall enter into the Kingdom of God; but He that doeth the will of our Father in Heaven.”

Hence there is a great work for us to do. There is something comprehensive in it. It is indeed the dis– pensation of the fullness of times spoken of by all the holy prophets since the world was. It relates to the interests of men that now live: it relates to the interests of men who have lived, and it relates to things that are yet in the future. It is a thing in which the Gods in the eternal worlds are interested, and all the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets that have lived upon the earth are all interested in the work in which we are engaged. There is a Priesthood in the heavens, and we have the same Priesthood on the earth, but there should be a closer communion between the Priesthood on the earth and the Priesthood in the heavens; it is desirable that we should be brought into closer proximity, we want to be advancing as Enoch advanced. After the appearance of Jesus upon the earth, there was to be a certain power who would make war with the Saints and prevail against them; and it is said, “they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time:” (Daniel vii, 25) but in this day we are told that “the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever,” (verse 18). You and I may violate our covenants; you and I may trample upon the principles of the Gospel, and violate the order of the Priesthood and the commands of God; but among the hosts of Israel there will be thousands and tens of thousands who will be true to the principles of truth, and God in the heavens, the holy angels and the ancient Priesthood that now live where God lives are all united together, for the accomplishment of this purpose. The Lord will roll forth His purposes in His own way and is His own time. And having thus organized, as I before stated, it is not for us to act as we may think individually, but as God shall dictate. We have a regular order in the Church. You brethren, who hold the holy Priesthood, understand these things. Has God not given to every man a portion of His Spirit to profit withal? Yes. Has He not done more than this to the saints who are true and faithful? Has He not given to them the gift of the Holy Ghost? He has, and they know it and realize it. They are brought into communion with each other, and into communion with God and the heavenly hosts. But having this Spirit do we need others to guide us? Yes, all the time. Why? Because of the powers of darkness, the influence of Satan and the weakness of human nature. We need watchmen upon the towers of Zion, who are on the alert to look after the interests of Israel, and see that God’s people do not go astray. Hence it becomes the duty of the Teachers to look after the people, to see that there is no hard feeling, no covetousness, no fraud, no adultery, no iniquity of any kind; but that purity, holiness and righteousness prevail among those that they preside over. And how far does this extend? To every place where there is a ward or a portion of a ward—to the utmost extremity. It may be compared unto the body—from the head to the feet, from the toes to the fingers, and to every other part. All the officers necessary for the work of the ministry are to be found in the Church, and everything has been organized according to the order of God. Are any of these men who are called to presiding positions autocrats—men who exercise undue authority over the feelings and associations of their fellow man? No. Have any of them the right to disregard the feelings of their breth– ren, trample them under foot, and act as tyrants? No. Have the Apostles, or High Priests, or Seventies, or Elders, any such right? No. Brother Cannon will read an extract from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, on this question.

President George Q. Cannon then read as follows from Section 121, of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants—

“Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?

“Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—

“That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principle of righteousness.

“That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.

“Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God.

“We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.

“Hence many are called, but few are chosen.

“No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;

“By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—

“Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;

“That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.

“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

“The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.”

President Taylor continuing his remarks said: We have many specimens of the characters referred to in this revelation read by Brother Cannon. These things continue to exist more or less. Some people are very desirous sometimes to instruct me about how I ought to manipulate and manage affairs. Well, if they were set as my instructors I should be much pleased to get all the information I could from them, and I would be pleased to get information from the humblest person in existence—if it was information. Among other things I find that a good many begin to think that we are very much persecuted and proscribed in our marital relations, according to the revelations which God has given us, and there is sometimes a little trembling in the knees. I am pleased there is not much of it, but there is a little once in a while. Sometimes I get advice from outsiders, from the newspapers, etc., and sometimes from some of our brethren (but from very few of our brethren), in relation to these matters.

God has given us a revelation in regard to celestial marriage. I did not make it. He has told us certain things pertaining to this matter, and they would like us to tone that principle down and change it and make it applicable to the views of the day. This we cannot do; nor can we interfere with any of the commands of God to meet the persuasions or behests of men. I cannot do it, and will not do it.

I find some men try to twist round the principle in any way and every way they can. They want to sneak out of it in some way. Now God don’t want any kind of sycophancy like that. He expects that we will be true to Him, and to the principles He has developed, and to feel as Job did—“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Though other folks would slay us, yet we will trust in the living God and be true to our covenants and to our God. These are my feelings in relation to that matter. We have also been told that “it is not mete that men who will not abide my law shall preside over my Priesthood,” and yet some people would like very much to do it. Well, they cannot do it; because if we are here, as I said before, to do the will of our Father who sent us, and He has told us what to do, we will do it, in the name of Israel’s God—and all who sanction it say Amen—[the vast congregation responded with a loud “Amen.“]—and those that don’t may say what they please. [Laughter.] If God has introduced something for our glory and exaltation, we are not going to have that kicked over by any improper influence, either inside or outside of the Church of the living God. We will stand by the principles of eternal truth; living we will proclaim them, and dying we will be true to them, and after death will live again in their enjoyment in the eternal worlds. That is my feeling; so I don’t feel very trembly in the knees, and I do not think you do, generally. I see sometimes a disposition to try to ignore some of the laws which God has introduced, and this is one of them. People want to slip round a corner, or creep out in some way. There is something very creepy about it. There was a man in former times we are told, came to Jesus by night. His name was Nicodemus. He was one of those persons who did not like the daylight. I have known some people who would want to be baptized in the evening, or get into some corner that they might not be seen. Well, there is not much to such folks. Jesus was very unpopular, quite as unpopular as we are, in His day. Nicodemus was a prominent man among the Jews, and he thought it might injure his reputation if he was seen visiting that Nazarene, to get instruction from Him, so he crawled in at night. Jesus talked quite plainly to him, as you can read for yourselves; but we find some folks of a similar kind now creeping around. They have not the manhood to stand true to their colors and to their God. Some folks think that we polygamists are very much indebted to our brethren who are monogamists to help to steady the ark (God save the mark!)—(Laughter.)—to help to save us, and that we need such men in the Legislature, etc., and to fill our various offices. Well, I won’t tell you all I think about some of these things, but I do think we are all of us dependent upon God our Heavenly Father, and if He don’t take care of us we shall not be taken care of; if His arm is not extended in our behalf we shall have a poor showing; but if God is with us, we ask no odds of the world, for He governs the destinies of the human family. He puts down one man and exalts another. He dethrones one king or president as the case may be, and sets up another, and He rules as He pleases among the nations of the earth and all the children of men, although they don’t know it. We live in Him, we move in Him, we have our being from Him. We are not dependent very much upon the monogamists about any of these things. You need not plume yourselves very much in these matters; and I will tell you, if you want to get along smoothly, you had better find among your various neighbors, when you have some matter of difficulty to settle, some of these polygamists and ask a little counsel at their hands. They will be able to advise you about many things, especially if they are men of God, humble men, living their religion and keeping the commandments of God.

There are some few things I have been reflecting about, and have noted them down, and I think I shall read them now.

The distinction being made between Polygamy and Prostitution:

1st. Congress made a law which would affect both; and cohabitation with more than one woman was made a crime whether in polygamy or out of polygamy.

2nd. The Governor turned legislator, added to this law, and inserted in a test oath to officials, the following words regarding cohabitation, “in the marriage relation;” thus plainly and definitely sanctioning prostitution, without any law of the United States, or any authority.

3rd. The United States Commissioners, also, without legislation, adopted the action of the Governor, and still insisted on this interpolation, in the test oath in election matters, and placed all polygamists under this unconstitutional oath, and released prostitutes and their paramours from the obligations placed upon others.

4th. The Prosecuting Attorney has sanctioned these things, and pursued a similar course; and while he has asked all the “Mormon” jurors certain questions pertaining to their religious faith in the doctrines of the “Mormon” Church, and challenged them if they answered affirmatively as to their belief in polygamy, he has declined to ask other jurors whether they believed in prostitution, or whether they believed in cohabiting with more than one woman or not.

5th. Chief Justice Zane when appealed to on this question refused to interfere, or give any other ruling, and thus aided in packing the jury.

Thus a law was first passed by Congress, which has been perverted by the administration, by all its officers who have officiated in this Territory, and made to subserve the interests of a party who have placed in their political platform an Anti-Mormon plank; and have clearly proven that there is a combination in all the officers of State, officiating in this Territory, to back up this political intrigue in the interest of party, and at the sacrifice of law, equity, jurisprudence and all the safeguards that are provided by the Constitution for the protection of human rights.

These (continued President Taylor) are some points that are of considerable importance. Similar things have been exhibited in former times—an animus, a united operation against justice, equity and law, and, in our case, against the Constitution of the United States, and the rights and privileges and immunities of the Latter-day Saints. A law was framed professedly in the interest of purity and virtue. When it got here it was perverted and made to subserve the interest of prostitution and prostitutes; and the lowest class of men, who violate their marital relations, and trample under foot all principles of virtue and integrity, can go on our juries, can vote at the polls, through the intrigues of corrupt men; and they thus try to shackle a free people, bring them into bondage, and make slaves of them, unless they will bow to their infernal behests, and in the name of Israel’s God we will not do it. [The congregation responded with a loud “Amen.“] We are not going to elevate prostitutes and men who violate their marital relations above men and women who are virtuous, honorable and upright. These are my feelings, and I am not afraid to proclaim them to the world. So much for these things.

Do we want a class of men along with us that will submit to these kind of things, and are we to share in this hypocrisy, this infamy and degradation? What mean these dens in our city that are introduced by our Christian friends—dens of infamy, dens of prostitution, gam– bling holes, houses of assignation, dramshops, etc.? They are to cater to the virtuous (?) feelings of these honorable, high-minded, pure reformers that have come among us—(Laughter)—or what are they for? They are sanctioned, I am ashamed to say by the officers of government, and protected in their libidinous and degrading pursuits. How was it some time ago when the Edmunds law was first introduced? A son of Mayor Little was one of the election registrars. His father some years ago had had two wives—I am sorry to say he has not got them now, they are dead—and because some years before any law of this kind was in operation in the United States he had practiced plural marriage, his son was obliged to tell his father that he could not register. Shortly afterwards a notorious courtesan known as Kate Flint, with some of the inmates of her bagnio, drove up and requested to be registered. “Why, of course.” And this same gentleman that could not register his honorable father, who had never violated any law of the United States, had to endure the mortification of taking the names of these others and placing them on the list as respectable voters in our midst! About this time another non-Mormon came along to one of the other registration officers, and on partly reading the oath—this test oath that had been prescribed—said, “I am afraid I can’t take that!” “Why can’t you take it?” Well, he was an honest man among the Gentiles; he did not like to foreswear himself; so he said, “I have a wife, and then I keep a mistress.” “Oh, well,” says the man, “read on a little further.” He read on until he came to the words, “in the marriage relation.” “Oh, well, yes, I can take that,” he said, and registered. These are facts that are stuck before our noses here in the City of Salt Lake by the officials sent among us, and who are instructed particularly to look after our morals.

So much, then, for such affairs. Now, do we want affiliation or association with such practices and principles as these? God forbid. And we want no falterers in our ranks. What shall we do? Live our religion, be true to our covenants, and keep the commandments of God.

What shall the Presidents of Stakes do? Look after our Stakes, and if you find adulterers or adulteresses among you, don’t permit them to go into the temples of God; for we won’t have such people; they cannot be sanctioned by us, nor have our fellowship. We will not have them; the world may take the strumpets; they may wallow in their filth, but we will not have our holy places polluted by people calling themselves Latter-day Saints, who indulge in these abominable practices; we will not have them; and anybody who permits them to go into these holy places will have to be responsible for it. Many Bishops do it, they will be held responsible. Therefore, be careful, you Presidents of Stakes and you Bishops, how you act, and look well after your people, for be it understood that before our Lord Jesus Christ shall come, “Tighteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.” (Psalms lxxxv, 13.) We are preparing ourselves to build up a Zion of God, and these people, whoremasters and whores, liars and hypocrites, will never get into the city of the living God, they will be found outside the gates.

Now, have I any ill feelings towards these people that persecute and proscribe us? No. I would do them good for evil, give blessings for curses; I would treat them well, treat them honorably. Let us be men of truth, honor and integrity; men that will swear to our own hurt and change not; men whose word will be our everlasting bond. If you see men hungry, feed them, no matter who they are: white, black, or red, Jew, Gentile or Mormon, or anybody else—feed them. If you see men naked, clothe them. If you see men sick, administer to them, and learn to be kind to all men; but partake not of their evil practices. “O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united.” We are trying to raise up a people that shall be men of God, men of truth, men of integrity, men of virtue, men who will be fit to associate with the Gods in the eternal worlds.

We are accused of being corrupt, degraded, low and debauched. Who by? By people, as I will show who are ten times as degraded, ten times as debauched, ten times as low and guilty of ten-fold more crime than we are. These are our professed reformers. I speak of these things therefore in our defense, and were we not accused by men void of honor and principle, I never would broach such a subject; for, I do not delight to dwell on the infamies, the corruptions and abominations of the world. I would rather speak of their good qualities and honorable principles, and I am thankful to say that there are thousands and tens of thousands and millions in these United States and in other nations who look with contempt upon all the chicanery, deception and fraud, whether of a moral, social, political, legislative, or judicial character; thousands and millions of men; I see many of them, very many of them, who pass through here, men of note, of position in society from the United States, and from the different nations who call upon me from time to time, and express their sentiments pertaining to these matters. In order to sustain what I say, I will have Brother Cannon read over some statistics in regard to crime. We are, as I have said, represented as a very bad people, and I want to show a comparison between us and our reformers, or those that profess to be our reformers in relation to these matters.

President Cannon then read the following, being the criminal statistics for the year 1883.

“The population of Utah may be estimated at 160,000 in 1883.

“Of these say 130,000 were Mormons, and 30,000 Gentiles, a very liberal estimate of the latter.

“In this year there were 46 persons sent to the Penitentiary convicted of crime. Of these 33 were non-Mormons, and 13 reputed Mormons.

“At the above estimate of population the ratio or percentage would be one prisoner to every 10,000 Mormons, or one hundredth of one per cent, and of the Gentiles one convict in every 909, or about one ninth of one percent. So that the actual proportion of criminals is more than ten times greater among the Gentiles of Utah, with the above very liberal estimate, than among the Mormons.

“It is urged that these non-Mormon prisoners are not a fair representation of the average of crime throughout the country, but are the result of the flow of the desperate classes westward to the borders of civilization; with greater truth we reply that the Mormon prisoners are not representatives of Mormonism, nor the results of Mormonism, but of the consequences of a departure from Mormon principles; and of the 13 prisoners classed as “Mormons,” the greater portion were only so by family connection or association:

Arrests in Salt Lake City, 1883: Mormons, 150 Non-Mormons, 1,559 or more than ten times the number of Mormon arrests.

“Again, it is estimated that there are 6,000 non-Mormons, and 19,000 Mormons in Salt Lake City, which shows of Mormons one arrest in 126 2/3.

“Non-Mormons one arrest in a fraction less than every four, or rather more than twenty-five percent.”

As I have said before (continued President Taylor), if we were not on the defensive in this case, I would say nothing about these things; but it ill becomes men who have got ten criminals to our one to come here as our reformers, and try to disfranchise men who are ten times as good as they are. These are facts that are not of my getting up.

They come from the public records and can be verified by the prison and other statistics. And the question is, how much of that rule do we want here?

The questionable honor is reserved to these advocates of “advanced high moral ideas” to trample upon all judicial precedents. It was not enough that an insignificant minority should have more than an equal showing with the majority, being equal in numbers in the drawing to make up a venire. It was not enough that every Mormon was questioned as to his religious faith, and that no Gentile was. It was not enough that all “Mormons” were excluded from this so-called “impartial grand jury,” and that their avowed enemies were to be their judges. It is not enough that our people must be tried by men whose average record shows them to be ten times their inferiors as law abiding citizens; but not having enough men to pack this “impartial grand jury” according to the provisions of law, under the guise of virtue, and in the name of morality and justice, edicts are issued to the officers to go into the purlieus of the city and gather up ad libitum from among the guttersnipes creatures to form “a jury of the peers” of the accused with which to persecute and prosecute honorable men and women.

These are things we object to, and I wish our brethren and sisters to be informed in regard to these matters, that they may have a correct estimate of the position that we occupy pertaining thereto. We cannot respect and esteem such operations, and while we are desirous to place ourselves in conformity with all law, all order and all correct principle, yet we despise in our hearts this chicanery, hypocrisy, fraud and deception. But do we expect to see such things? Yes. Are we surprised at it? No. Why? Because we have been told over and over again, and the Elders have preached over and over again, and the Prophets have prophesied of it over and over again, that the world will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Who is it that embarks in these things? It is the corrupt, the ungodly, the debauchee, the adulterer, the liar, the men who violate every principle of honor, truth and integrity, and who are enemies to this nation, and the same class of people are enemies to any nation. They are laying the axe at the root of the tree of liberty, and trying to overturn the freedom of man, and to place free men in bondage, a thing no honorable man would con– descend to for a moment. And there are many in this city who despise these things as they do the gates of hell, who are not associated with us in a religious capacity, many honorable men who have feelings of this kind, and then there are tens of thousands in the United States who possess the same feelings and the same abhorrence of this corruption, degradation and infamy that is sought to be palmed upon us. But while we can estimate these things at their worth, we can also estimate the actions of honorable men who are not of us at their true worth. Because a man is not a believer in our doctrines, that is no reason why he should not be an honorable man, for there are thousands and millions of them: it would be a pity if they were in the same condition as the others. But we as a people have to defend ourselves against the aggressions of an unscrupulous enemy who is instigated by the power of the adversary to overturn and destroy the truth today as he has done in other ages, in other nations and among other peoples. Therefore it becomes us to look well after our affairs, and protect ourselves as best we may from the calumnies, the reproach, and the infamies that are sought to be foisted upon us by an ungodly, hypocritical and corrupt people.

Now, having got through with this, I want to refer to something else. It has been stated that the reason why we have so many of these criminals is because that the scum of society from the eastern States floats out here, and that therefore a rough, uncouth, lawless class finds its way into this community. Now, I want something read to you about some of these so called virtuous people in the east.

President Cannon again read as follows:

Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, has declared in a paper read before a late meeting of the American Social Science Association, that “nowhere in the history of the world was the practice of abortion so common as in this country; and he gave expression to the opinion that, in New England alone, many thousands of abortions are procured annually.”

Dr. Reamy, of the Ohio State Medical Society, says: “From a very large verbal and written correspondence in this and other States, together with personal investigation and facts accumulated * * that we have become a nation of murderers.”

The Rev. Dr. Eddy writes to the Christian Advocate regarding one little village of 1,000 inhabitants: “Yet here, and elsewhere, 15 per cent of wives have the criminal hardihood to practice this black art, there is a still large and additional percent who endorse and defend it. * * Among married persons, so extensive has this practice become, that people of high repute not only commit this crime, but do not shun to speak boastingly among their intimates of the deed and the means of accomplishing it.”

Dr. Allen further states: “Examining the number of deaths, we find that there are absolutely more deaths than births among the strictly American children, so that aside from immigration and births of children of foreign parentage, the population of Massachusetts is rapidly decreasing. * * The birth rate in the State of New York, shows the same fact, that American families do not increase at all, and inspection of the registration in other States shows the same remark applies to all.”

Bishop Coxe, of the Protestant Episcopal Church of New York, in a pastoral letter to his people, writes: “I have heretofore warned my flock against the blood guiltiness of antenatal infanticide. If any doubts existed heretofore as to the propriety of my warnings on this subject, they must now disappear before the fact that the world itself is beginning to be horrified by the practical results of the sacrifices to Moloch which defile our land. Again I warn you that they who do such things cannot inherit eternal life. If there be a special damnation for those who shed innocent blood, what must be the portion of those who have no mercy upon their own flesh.”

Dr. Cowan, M. D., writing on what he styles “the Murder of the Unborn,” says: “That this crime is not only widespread on this great continent, but is rapidly on the increase, we have the testimony of physicians, whose investigations have been thorough, and whose social standing and sincerity cannot be questioned.”

President Taylor continuing said: These are the people that are coming here to reform us, and are so disgusted with our corruptions. Yet I am pleased to find that there are, once in a while, men who have the courage to speak against these damning evils. Bishop Coxe, of the Episcopal Church, is one of these men, and I honor such men whenever I hear of them, and should be glad at all times to extend to them all courtesies possible. Dr. Allen and Dr. Reamy are inspired, it seems, by the same detestation of these hellish, these fiendish, these outrageous acts. Yet from these people come our reformers, who are so horrified at the evils they see in Utah. But fortunately, the bed is too short, they cannot stretch themselves on it; and the covering is too narrow and too contracted, it will not cover them, and their evils and abominations crop out on every side, and they become their own accusers.

It is their own statements that I have had read to you this morning. I am sorry to know that these things are as they are; but these are facts, and we do not feel very much honored with the association of such people. We do feel honored always to associate with honorable men and women; but with the seducer, with harlots, with thieves, with murderers of the innocents, no! never! no never! We want no association with them. As it is stated here by one of these reverend gentlemen in the East, speaking of these things, no murderer hath eternal life in him, nor no murderesses have eternal life in them.

I have had these things read to you for two reasons: First, to show the corruption that exists among these so-called virtuous people, honorable people, pure people, who are so shocked at the atrocities that take place in Utah. Another reason is that I want to warn our brethren and sisters against these infamies, and against permitting these filthy wretches to come into their houses. They are too low, too debased, too corrupt; and I speak of it because I know what I am talking about; there are some of these people crawling around us like so many vipers, and insinuating their hellish, murderous practices into the families of some who call themselves Latter-day Saints. Woe! to such Saints. You cannot have a place among us. No woman murderer, no man murderer can have a place among the Latter-day Saints, and I speak of it that the Presidents of Stakes and the Bishops may be apprised of these things. And some of these people would try to pass by the Bishops, and then by the Presidents of Stakes, and then by the President of the Church, and crawl with all their slime and damnable hypocrisy into the Temples of the living God. They may pass by these, but they will have to pass by the angels and the Gods, before they get through, and they will never inherit the Kingdom of God. Hear it you sisters! Hear it you brethren! Hear it you Bishops, and you Presidents of Stakes! Watch well and know well what you are doing, when you sign recommends for doubtful characters to go into these holy places. We do not want them there. It is not their place, and you will have to account for your acts if you permit these things knowingly. It is necessary that you should be particular about these matters, for you will have to answer for your doings as I have for mine. We cannot, because of relationship, because somebody is a cousin, or an uncle, or an aunt, or a brother, or a sister, or a son or a daughter, or a father or a mother—we cannot ad– mit and will not admit them to any of these holy places unless they are worthy. I call upon you if you know of adulterers or adulteresses, or people that practice these unnatural infamies, to sever them from the Church; they shall not have a place in the Church and Kingdom of God. Mr. Murray here, and others, may make laws and test oaths, with provisions in them to screen the adulterer, the whoremonger, and the seducer; but we will tear that away from our people, and all such shall have no place with Israel, and all who are in favor of it, signify it by saying “Aye.” [The congregation responded with a loud “Aye.“] These are our feelings, and it is some of these things which has led me to talk as plainly as I have done in regard to some of these other matters. I wanted to present the contrast so plainly before you that he that runneth might read. Enough of this, however, for the present: Handle it carefully. Deal with it gently, Speak of it tenderly, Poor Justice is blind.

Discourse by Apostle F. D. Richards, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, October 5th, 1884.

I will read a few verses contained in the 68th section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, a book of revelation and commandment, which the Lord has given unto us in this last dispensation, for our guidance:

“And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.

“For this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized.

“And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of hands.

“And they shall also teach their children to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord.

“And the inhabitants of Zion shall also observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

“And the inhabitants of Zion also shall remember their labors, inasmuch as they are appointed to labor, in all faithfulness; for the idler shall be had in remembrance before the Lord.

“Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness.”

I will also read from the 29th section of the same book:

“But behold, I say unto you, that little children are redeemed from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten;

“Wherefore, they cannot sin, for power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to be accountable before me;

“For it is given unto them even as I will, according to mine own pleasure, that great things may be required at the hand of their fathers.”

Referring to our little children, who are becoming, numerically, a mighty host among us, I wish to make a few remarks this morning, the subject seeming to impress itself on my mind somewhat. A consideration of the associations of our young men and young women, reminds us that before they become young men and young women, in the common acception of the term, they are younger men and younger women; and while infant children are in a dependent and somewhat helpless condition. As the tall oaks from little acorns grow, and as mighty rivers are made up from small streamlets and springs that come from hidden sources in the mountains, so is the increase of God’s people by reason of their little children that are growing—increasing in number and multiplying continually in the land. In early days our increase used to be made up, in a great measure, by emigrants from foreign nations. The past few years our emigration has attained to some three or four thousand, annually, from the various countries in which missions are established, while it has increased many times that number from the great and glorious presence of God our Father, who sends the spirits to this world to dwell. Hence it becomes the great source of our supply, of our increase, and I am sure you will join with me, many of you, this morning in realizing that we have not, in many instances, given a sufficient and proper consideration for our little children that have been committed unto us, when we realize the importance, the eternal consequences that are made to flow from the beginning of their tuition and education here in this mortal life.

Many of this people, who have lived faithful to their professions, know more today of God and His purposes, than they did fifty years ago. We learn by experience as well as by precept, from the Lord, and as in the light of our experience we have obtained observation and got knowledge, we should not only profit by it ourselves, but as Elders in Israel we should endeavor to benefit and improve each other by our experiences, so that we may increase in understanding before the Lord in all our relations to Him and to each other.

Now, concerning little children, there is too much of an inclination with many—particularly in the world, but this feeling is growing much less among the Saints—to treat their children with indifference, to put them off, and to think that a very little of anything will do them very well. Children are apt to be waited on even at the table after the feasted and friends are all served.

I will not stop to dilate upon this particular feature of my subject, but will turn to a more pleasing one. Our Savior while here in the flesh, perceiving the people thought that children were of less importance than grown persons, was much displeased and said: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” Who, I ask, among my hearers this morning has been attending the Sunday School and listened to their recitations that has not felt their hearts warmed within them at hearing the early germinations of intelligence made manifest and apparent while they have been reciting the Scriptures, the revelations and maxims from the cards that are now in use in the Sabbath Schools? Who has listened to their songs, so sweet and melodious, without feeling that the very blessing of the Lord was there, that it was delightful and lovely to be in their midst? Who has gone into the little associations of the Primaries, now held so regularly, among us, and heard them answer their questions, from perhaps the youngest that were able to speak distinctly and articulate so as to be heard—heard them answer the questions put by their teachers concerning the kind of knowledge they are expected to obtain and are obtaining—who among us have attended these associations and listened to those little ones, without feeling the fragrance of heaven shed abroad upon their souls and being sensible that there is to be found in them a beauty of innocence, of sweetness and purity that we cannot expect in the hearts of a concourse of grown people? Jesus said of them: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” He might also have said, “their angels, their spirits had always dwelt in the presence of God, or before the face of my Father which is in heaven.” Learn this, mothers, when you sorrowfully lay away your little ones—learn this: their spirits do always dwell before the face of their Father who is in heaven, and let your hearts be comforted, no sin has contaminated their souls, no spot of contamination has tarnished their young and tender consciences. There is purity, the purity of the pure here on earth. What has the Lord said, “That little children are redeemed from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten; Wherefore, they cannot sin, for power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to become accountable before me; For it is given unto them even as I will, according to mine own pleasure, that great things may be required at the hand of their fathers.”

When He was here upon this continent, our risen Redeemer taught the Nephites, and blessed their children in multitudes.

So powerfully was the Holy Ghost poured out upon them that they spake with tongues. Infants that had no learning at all, declared forth His praise in such glorious, exalted terms, that the brethren present could not write them. Such was the blessing and favor of heaven, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, shed abroad upon the innocent portion of humanity that was permitted to stand in His presence.

Then, seeing that the heavens are so pleased with them, ought not we to understand and entertain a higher estimate of their value, of their heavenly worth, and of their eternal importance, especially when we consider that from these small children that mothers are nursing upon their laps will by and by have grown up Prophets, Seers and Revelators, Judges in Israel, men of God standing forth upon the earth declaring His counsels, building up His Kingdom in all righteousness, and in the power of God. Remember then, that as the twig is bent the tree will be inclined.

Let me call your attention to a particular feature in the matter of children and their early condition. In the revelation which I have read to you, the Lord says: “Power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to become accountable before me.” Did you notice this when I read it? Let me ask how many of those present have taken this great truth into serious consideration, to consciously sense this great heavenly indemnity of a few years’ growth to each of our infant children in which Satan has no power to tempt their innocent souls; that whatsoever the examples placed before them, whatsoever their early inclinations by reason of erroneous teachings, yet until they are made accountable Satan has no power to tempt them, and they are still innocent before the Lord, until they come to the years of accountability when they should be instructed and prepared to be baptized into the Church, and become members of it.

People of other religious denominations tell us that if we will give them the education of our children for a certain number of years, they will wrest them from us, turn them loose upon the world, cause them to depart from the faith of their fathers and despise their parentage, seeing this is the design of our enemies, and they are conscious of being able and are endeavoring to do this with our children, ought we not to sense more deeply the value of that same consideration—yes, but in a thousandfold greater degree—we ought to see to it that the faith of our children is preserved sound, healthy, and kept growing in their bosoms. How important, then, that we teach and educate our children during the first eight years of their lives, so that when they attain to that age they may be admitted into the Church by baptism, and receive the laying on of the hands of the Elders for the reception of the Holy Ghost, then they will have the aid of that heavenly monitor that will assist the formation of their growing judgments.

Let us consider this matter more carefully than we have done. Let us see that while there is a suspension of the wrath—if we may so say—of Satan, that he has not power to tempt our children who have been born under the covenant—let us see that we attend to them, and let us give an assiduity to the business of teaching and preparing their young and tender minds, that we have never given before.

What is the great object and purpose of this life while we are here upon the earth? What one thing, if possible, is more important than another? It is this: that as our children come to us innocent—for the revelation tells us that all men are innocent when they are born into the world, and have these early years of indemnity from the power of the tempter to tempt them to sin—let us go to and make a better use than we have done of the opportunities we enjoy. Let us instill faith into the tender hearts of our children, faith towards God, obedience to their parents, obedience to the authorities of the Church, that when they come to years of accountability, they may take hold for themselves, with a hearty, strong and loving relish for the principles of the Gospel of divine truth. Let us endeavor to realize the importance of this matter. And what is that other thing we want to preserve to them? It is this: as they come to this life innocent, if men and women can be taken through this life innocent, and sin not before the Lord, and receive of His Spirit and walk in the light of it, so that while passing through this state of probation they shall have maintained a condition of innocence through the blessing of the everlasting Gospel, they will have accomplished a wonderful thing—the great object and purpose of their mortal lives. This is the great thing to be sought for—to preserve that innocence with which our children are born, and in which they are permitted to live a few years, at any rate, free from the power of Satan. It seems to me that if we contemplate this matter in the light of revelation, we ought to see its importance. The Lord has given to us the privilege of being united in the holy marriage covenant for time and eternity. We look forward to inheriting the blessings of the kingdom of God with our children, and that to their increase there shall be no end. This was the Gospel that was preached to Father Abraham—that he and his children and his generation should become as the stars in the heavens for multitude, and like the sands on the seashore that cannot be counted. We look for blessing, dominion, exaltation and glory in the eternal worlds, through similar means.

Now, then, my brethren and sisters, I wish to ask a question at this stage of my discourse. Realizing something of the value which the heavens set upon the children; remembering that the Prophet Joseph Smith himself taught and left on record in his history that little children who depart this life before they come to the years of accountability go back to the presence of God; that many children were of so excellent a spirit that God, in His grace and mercy, took them away from the adverse conditions of this life, that they might not be required to suffer as many others had to; this being their position before the heavens, what are we to think of parents, who, having these principles before them, turn their children over to our avowed enemies to be educated, knowing that their policy is to break down “Mormonism,” especially the authority of the Priesthood to counsel, direct and govern the people. I say, what are we to think of such parents? How can those people do such things and be justified in the sight of God? It seems to me they must be consummately ignorant or consummately wicked to do such a thing. I should think it right that such be refused certain privileges of the Gospel, until they had a better idea in regard to these things. I do not see how they can themselves feel that they have a right to open up to further intelligence, or to have further blessings bestowed upon them. If people are so insensible to and so ungrateful for blessings already conferred, how can they expect more? Oh, that such people would turn round and understand the foolishness and sinfulness of their course, for if they do not repent, their action will bring sorrow and affliction, until their gray hairs will come with sorrow to their graves.

It appears in contemplating this subject—more especially since the great work of the Sunday schools has been going on in our midst, since the vast labor of the mutual improvement associations has been inaugurated among our young men and young women—that there is a stupendous work before us, that our children, while they are on our laps, and while prattling in and about our homes, developing the first germinations of intelligence—that then is the time to instill the first ideas of faith towards God and His work, into their young and tender minds. The wicked world are endeavoring to wean away our children by their arts, their publications, and by the blandishments of falsely so-called “superior civilization.” They would like to draw away the young and rising generation of Israel. They have learned that we, their parents, have the principles of the Gospel established in us, and that we are not easily moved, unless we fall into transgression. They find that their purpose of building up their churches by conversions from amongst our people is futile and hopeless. They find that the Gospel of eternal truth is established in the hearts of this people; that we have received something which satisfies the human mind, a something which they have not got to offer. They find that they cannot furnish the human mind with the satisfying influence and effects which are afforded by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Great and abundant are the blessings that are promised unto those who seek unto the Lord in the days of their youth. They who seek Him early shall find Him, and from such He will not turn away. It was anciently a divine injunction with promise to the youth of Israel, that they were to reverence and obey their fathers and their mothers, that their days might be long in the land which the Lord their God gave to them; and this promise—renewed to our children with the same conditions now—should be esteemed and regarded with equal or greater deference to that anciently bestowed. * * * *

Praying always that the understanding of the Lord may be given unto us that we may know and do His Holy will, in the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.