Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, October 5th, (Semi-Annual Conference) 1884.

I will read a portion of the 29th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, commencing at the 7th verse:

“And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.

“It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.

“Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

“For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

“And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

“And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

“Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”

There is much more in this chapter which I will not read, but which all can read at their leisure. In sitting and looking at the congregation these words have come to my mind:

“Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”

Truly have these words been fulfilled in our eyes and in our hearing. God our Eternal Father predicted by the mouth of His Prophet Isaiah, concerning the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the manner in which it should be received; and we today are living witnesses of the fulfillment of these things. God our Eternal Father has done and is doing a marvelous work and a wonder in the midst of the inhabitants of the earth. He is causing the wisdom of the wise to perish—He has caused it—and He is bringing to naught the understanding of the prudent, especially those who fight against Mount Zion, or against the covenant people of God. The manner in which our Father and our God has spoken concerning the great work of the last days with which we are identified, is very remarkable. When we examine the prediction of the holy prophets, it is wonderful how plainly everything connected with this work, so far, has been fulfilled; and as we have been told this morning—and we are told whenever the Spirit of God rests down upon the Elders of this Church to speak concerning the future—we have the strongest assurance that can be given by God to any people that as that which has been predicted in the past has been completely fulfilled up to the present time, so all the predictions which have been made connected with this work, or concerning it, will also be fulfilled to the very letter; not one word will fail, not one iota of the word of God concerning Zion will fall to the ground unfulfilled.

This work commenced, as we know, in obscurity, in weakness, with no particular demonstration in the sight of the world. A few individuals only knew concerning it. There were no remarkable manifestations for the world to gaze upon, for the world to wonder at, connected with its birth. It was born according to the will of God. The Church started out a good deal like we have started out—helpless. What is there more helpless, weak, puny, insignificant, it may be said, in many respects, than a human being when it is born into the world. Yet that being if nurtured properly, if trained as it should be, has before it a career of never-ending glory. That little puling infant may become, in the eternity of our God, a God, to sway power and dominion in the eternal worlds, to be the father of unnumbered millions. Yet at its birth who would anticipate such a future for it. So it was with the Church of our God. Born in weakness, cradled in obscurity, it came forth according to the command of God; not attended, as I have said, by any great demonstration that the world could gaze and wonder at, but attended by the blessing, the power and the promises of our Eternal Father concerning its future. It required faith on the part of those who then received it to believe that such a glorious career as was predicted concerning it, awaited it. No human being unenlightened and uninspired by the Spirit of God, could have anticipated such a future for this great work; and yet in these early days, when it was in this condition which I have attempted to describe, the Prophet Joseph and those who received revelations with him, looked forward to its future, and saw that which we behold today in actual reality; they saw in vision that which we participate in today, and far more than anything that we have yet seen. I have often been struck with the remarkable character of the predictions which Joseph, inspired of God, gave utterance to concerning this work. As I have said, scarcely a step in its advancement was hidden from him; scarcely a step but what was foreshadowed by him through the Spirit of God, which rested down upon him. Men doubt the divinity of this work. Men question the spirit of prophecy, or the divine mission of Joseph Smith. His life is maligned and misrepresented; his character derided and held up to contempt and scorn; yet it is not much to say, it is not much to anticipate, that before many years pass away, he will be recognized by the children of men as one of the mightiest Prophets that ever trod the footstool of God our Eternal Father. It is because his life has not been understood; it is because the work which he was the means in the hands of God of founding, is not comprehended; it is because his life has not been understood; it is because the work which he was the means in the hands of God of founding is not comprehended; it is because everything connected with this Church is beclouded by misrepresentation and falsehood that men assume the attitude they do towards this the great work of our God. In the very beginning of this work Joseph told the Saints, left on record the statement, as to how it would be received by the children of men—the hatred with which it would be met, the violence that would be manifested towards it, the various troubles through which it would have to pass. All these things he told, by his prophetic voice, as though their history had been written, as though they had taken place. Most graphically he has described to the Saints the results that should attend the increase of the work. At the first he said it should excite the animosity and hatred of a township. It did this. God in his mercy did not permit persecution to become so strong in the inception of the work, in the days of its weakness, that it could be overwhelmed. He restrained the power of the wicked, so that the growth and strength of the work would be commensurate with the opposition it had to contend with. As its circle enlarged, as its influence extended, opposition grew proportionately. From townships it extended to cities. As the work grew and outspread these limits, it excited the opposition of counties. As its influence continued to grow, from one county it extended to adjacent counties all the time growing, all the time increasing, all the time meeting with as much opposition as it could well bear up under. Wonderfully has the providence of our God been exhibited in the care exercised over His growing Church and His increasing people! Had it not been for this care, my brethren and sisters, we should not have the happy privilege that we enjoy this day of meeting together in peace in this Tabernacle. Had Satan been permitted to wreak his vengeance upon the Church in the commencement, it could easily have been extinguished in blood. Had the same power that was exercised against the Church in the days of Nauvoo, when the blood of our Prophet and Patriarch, and our present President, drenched the soil of Illinois—had that same spirit been permitted to have wreaked its vengeance upon the Church in the early days, it could, with no more excitement than was then raised, have completely extirpated the Priesthood from the face of the earth. But God, as I have said, in His wonderful providence, restrained the wrath of the wicked in the early days of the Church. Brother Franklin D. Richards has told us this morning, that for eight years after the birth of a child it is free from the power of temptation and Satan. God restrains the power of Satan—forbids him to exercise it over the tender child. And so in like manner did He restrain the power of Satan in the early days of this Church, so that there was a limit to its exercise over the Church in its weak condition. But as power increased, as the gifts of God were manifested, as the keys of the Priesthood were revealed unto the children of men, so did the wrath of the wicked, so did the violence of mobs, so did the combinations that were formed with the object of destroying the work of God increase in their strength and in their numbers. As the work progressed, so did the spirit of opposition progress, one keeping pace, apparently, with the other, and there is a wise purpose in this when we contemplate the great destiny that awaits this people. We can see the wisdom and the purpose of our God in permitting persecution to keep pace with the growth and the advancement of the work. It is just as necessary that we should be developed in our strength; it is just as necessary that we should be developed in our faith, as anything else connected with the work of our God. If it were not for this, we could not become the people that God designs; we could not fulfill the destiny that He has in store for us if it were not for these terrible ordeals to which this Church and this people have been subjected in the past, and to which they are now exposed, and which, doubtless, will continue to increase as the Church increases, until the day comes when the Kingdom of God will triumph over every obstacle and be fully established upon the earth.

But as I have remarked, as the Kingdom has grown and spread, so have the words of our beloved Prophet been literally fulfilled. Men say, “Oh, if you will only get a revelation concerning polygamy, if you will only lay polygamy aside, you will no longer have any opposition to contend with; if you will only conform to modern ideas concerning your domestic institutions, we shall have nothing to say against you. The opposition that finds now such strong support will be deprived of its war-cry and of the sympathy of thousands which sustain it at the present time—they will be deprived of this and you will go along like the rest of the churches, without having to suffer from the opposition and the hatred that are now manifested against you.”

Vain thought!—a thought that is only expressed by those who know nothing of the character of this work, who are not familiar with the history of this dispensation, and who judge of the effects of such movements by their human knowledge and the experience that they have with other systems. This system which God has established, this great work of our God, cannot be measured by human thoughts; the effects of this work and that which it is accomplishing on the earth, that which it will accomplish on the earth, cannot be estimated by anything that is known among men. It is entirely unique, unlike anything else that has ever been upon the earth since our Savior laid the foundation of that dispensation—there has never been anything like it among men, and therefore every calculation concerning it, every prognostication and every suggestion is at fault in regard to this work of our God. For, be it understood, as we well understand it as a people, that before the public revelation of plural marriage the opposition to this work was stronger, according to the strength of the people, than it has been since. Therefore, those who understand this work, know very well that anything of this kind—unless indeed the people should apostatize—would have no such effect as our friends in many instances think it would have.

As I have remarked opposition has continued to grow and increase until today, as we have been told and led to expect, upwards of half a century ago. Not only has it been a township, not only has it been a county, not only has it been a state that has arrayed itself against the work of God, and instituted measures for its overthrow and entire destruction, but today this great fact stares us in the face, it presses itself upon our attention, we cannot shut our eyes to it—this great fact, that today the United States in its governmental capacity, has pitted itself against the work of our God, and has passed measures for its complete overthrow and destruction. Most wonderfully has God thus far fulfilled every word that has been spoken by the mouth of His inspired Prophet! And shall we who witness the remarkable fulfillment of this prophecy—shall we today shrink from the issue that is presented to us? Shall we in view of all that God has said to us concerning the past, and all which he has predicted concerning the future? Shall we falter? Shall we tremble or grow weak in our knees? Shall we become palsied in our efforts and let go of that great work of our God which is entrusted to us? God forbid that there should be any weakening, that there should be any faltering, that there should be any lowering of the flag, or any weakening of the flag, or any weakening of the knees, or any trembling of the heart, in view of all that presents itself before us, however appalling the vision may be to mortal sight. God forbid that there should be anything of this kind in the hearts or in the actions of any man or woman who calls himself or herself a Latter-day Saint. For be it known unto you, my brethren and sisters, be it known unto all the earth everywhere, that God, years and years ago, told us by the mouth of His inspired Prophet, that these things, the fulfillment of which we now behold, would actually take place, and that we should have these things to meet and to contend with and to overcome.

What shall be the future result? Is this to be the termination, is this to be the end? No. As the Church increases, so will the opposition to it increase, until it will extend itself beyond the confines of our own nation to other lands and to other nations, until, in fact, the whole earth that has not received, or will not receive the Gospel of the Son of God, the message of salvation, of which we are the unworthy bearers, until, I say, all the nations of the earth will array themselves against the work of our God, and exert their power to destroy it, as a township did, as a county did, as a state did, or as the United States are now doing, and then the work of our God will rise in its sublimity, in its strength, in its Godlike power and assume its place, its rightful position among the nations of the earth. The puny infant, born on the 6th day of April, 1830, will become a stalwart man, full of power, full of the gifts of God, full of the excellencies that belong to perfect manhood in the sight of God, and will assume its fit and proper place de– signed by God for it among the nations of the earth. This we may look forward to, this we may expect, and if we do not make calculations on these things we fail to comprehend the character of the work which He, our God, has established on the earth. Men wonder at our temerity—men wonder at the hardihood we have. They are surprised that we should dare think as we do. Only a few days ago we saw the statement of a friend in the Deseret News, appealing to us to get a revelation to do away with plural marriage; because if we did not, war and bloodshed would be the result. Have we not been threatened with this from the beginning? Yes, we have. We have had this ordeal to meet; we have had war threatened; we have suffered from bloodshed; but the burden of the Lord has been upon us, the hand of God has been over us. Though our pathway has been beset by all these difficulties, nevertheless the burden of the Lord has been upon us to carry forward this Gospel and to establish this work, let the consequences be what they may to us individually. We have the promise of God, that so far as the work is concerned it will stand, it will increase, until it fills the whole earth. We know not what the consequences may be to us individually. Each man must do his duty, and do his part faithfully, courageously, manfully, in the sight of God, being willing to endure all the consequences, with a full knowledge that God will save, redeem and exalt him if he will only be true to the holy Priesthood which he has revealed.

Then is not this a marvelous work and a wonder? Has not the wisdom of the wise in connection with it, perished? Has not the understand– ing of the prudent been brought to nought? Has it not baffled all the calculations of human wisdom? Has it not overcome all the obstacles that have been put in its pathway by human strength and by all the ingenuity which human beings have been able to devise or employ or command? Certainly it has; and today human wisdom and human prudence are as much at fault as they ever were, and it will continue to be the case until all that God has predicted concerning this work will be literally fulfilled.

My brethren and sisters, when we look at this work by the light of the Holy Spirit, when God enables us to comprehend some of His designs and purposes, we can see how wonderfully He has wrought in our behalf, how wonderfully he has preserved this people. We today are a great people, it may be said. In some respects we are. We are few in numbers, it is true; but God in His wonderful providence has prepared this land, this glorious land, this mountain region, it seems as though He had prepared it beforehand for the ingathering of His people, and as a dwelling place for them. A better habitat cannot be found on the face of the earth, for the Latter-day Saints than this mountain region. A better or more admirably adapted people for these mountains cannot be found. The training we have had in the past admirably fits us for the labor of establishing cities, towns, villages and hamlets, opening farms, and developing all the resources of these mountain valleys. No other people are so well qualified for this labor as we are. No other land is so well adapted for such a people as this land that we now inhabit. The people and the land have been found. The people and the land have come together. The land is here. The people have found the land which is so surprisingly fitted for their habitation. And there is no people that I know anything of, who can compete with us in these mountain valleys. They are ours by right of possession to begin with, by right of settlement, and they are ours by right of our capacity to inhabit and hold them, and they are ours by right of the blessing and the favor of God our Eternal Father, bestowed upon us and upon the land itself. And, as President Taylor suggests, they are ours by purchase as well as by those other rights.

Shall we be uprooted from this land? Shall we be extirpated? This is a question that presents itself very often, doubtless, to our mind. In the providence of our God, will we be permitted to maintain our foothold here, and to continue to increase and to spread? We have the answer to these questions in our own possession. It depends upon ourselves.

“Oh,” says one, “It don’t depend upon you, it depends upon another power. It depends upon this: whether you will abandon your peculiar practices; whether you will lay aside your peculiarities of doctrine and of religion, and conform to the views, to the institutions, and the practices that prevail in the nation of which you form a part.”

These are the comments of those who are not of us respecting this question or questions, which I have asked. They think it depends upon our abandonment of those peculiar features which make us a distinct people from the rest of the nation. On the other hand I state here in the presence of heaven, in the presence of the Great God, our Eternal Father, that it does not depend upon this. It depends—I affirm it, and I am willing to stake my reputation upon it as a servant of God—it depends entirely, without question, without qualification; upon the Latter-day Saints themselves, whether they will continue to live in this land and to occupy it, and to enjoy the valleys and the peace which God has vouchsafed unto all who dwell here. I know that looking at matters naturally, we are in danger of being overwhelmed, extinguished. A people feeble as we are, a people possessing no greater resources than we have; a people of no greater numbers, of no greater wealth, of no greater influence in the earth—why, it would seem a bold and rash thing to say that we can withstand all opposition that may be brought against us. If God were to permit the world to launch its thunderbolts against this work; if God were to permit the world to unite against this work, to combine and to put in operation its forces against this work, I am willing to admit that there would be great danger of our complete overthrow and destruction, in fact it might be said there would be scarcely a question concerning it. But remember, my brethren and sisters, that this is the work of God. This is not the work of man. It has not been the wisdom of man that has guided this work. It has not been the wisdom of man that has sustained it. It has not been the wisdom of man which has defeated the plans of our enemies. It has been the wisdom and power of the Great God, our Eternal Father. He has chosen his instruments. But, then, how weak they are! How feeble they are! How insufficient their efforts and their words would be if He did not supplement them by the bestowal of His power, and by that overruling providence which controls all the affairs of the children of men, controls all the results according to His own good pleasure. But God our Eternal Father, will not forget His people. He will not forget the promises which He has made, and it is upon these that we must rely. It is for these that we must live. We must live—live, brethren and sisters—let it sink deep into your hearts. We must live ourselves so that we shall have the fulfillment of the promises of God granted unto us. If we so live, there is no power on earth that will be permitted to combine itself, or to array itself, or to exert its force against this work to its injury, or to retard its onward progress. Hear it all ye Latter-day Saints! Hear it! If I could speak so that the whole world would hear the utterance I would like to sound it in the ears of all mortal men—that there is no power that will ever be permitted to array itself, or to combine itself against this work of our God, to retard its onward progress from this time forward until the full consummation will be achieved—that is, if the Latter-day Saints themselves are faithful to God, if they will keep the commandments of God, if they will sanctify themselves and cleanse themselves from sin, and live pure and holy lives. If they will do this, then the success and the triumph and the continued growth and advancement of this kingdom and the continued maintenance of these valleys and these mountains are assured unto us as a people. There is no doubt of it. I say in the name of Jesus Christ, that it will be so. I promise it in His name, and in the authority which I have received from Him—that if we will comply with these requirements and conditions, there is no power upon earth nor in hell that can disturb this people, that can uproot us, that can unsettle us in these valleys and in these mountains; for God has given unto us this land, and from this time forward, we will go on increasing and spreading and enlarging until all that God has said shall be literally fulfilled concerning this work that He has established upon the earth. He will do a marvelous work and a wonder. He will cause the wisdom of the wise to perish; He will bring the understanding of the prudent to naught in all their calculations against this work which He is establishing on the earth, and with which we are connected. Glory to God in the highest for the privilege He has granted unto us, poor, weak mortal creatures, to be identified with His great work and have such glorious immutable promises given unto us! Oh! how our hearts should swell with gratitude to our God! How profoundly grateful we should be and how thanksgiving and joy should well up in our hearts unto our God for having given unto us the privilege of being connected with this great work.

Now, will those connected with it not have their trials? Oh yes. Those who would reign with Christ must suffer with Him. Those who would reign with the Prophets; those who would gain the glory that God has in store for the righteous must suffer with the Prophets and Apostles.

I have spoken in my remarks concerning the great work of our God. I have not yet alluded to individual cases connected with it. What will be the fate of individual members of the Church of God? That depends upon ourselves. But whether we remain connected with the work or not, this I know: I know that this work will roll forth in the manner in which I have, in my humble and weak way, attempted to describe to you. I know that. But whether I will be faithful depends upon myself. I beseech Him in the name of Jesus, that I may be faithful; that whatever may come in my pathway I may never, no never flinch, never weaken in my fidelity, in my courage and in my zeal for this glorious work of our God. I would rather die this instant in your presence, than ever falter in regard to this work. I love it. It is God’s work. I dedicated myself in my childhood to the cause of God, and I have endeavored through my life to be faithful to Him. If we will be faithful to our God He will redeem us, no matter what the circumstances may be through which we may be called to pass. We may wade through sorrow. We may have to endure persecution. We may have to meet with death. We may have to endure imprisonment and many other things that our predecessors had to endure. God may test us in this manner. Every human being that is connected with this work will have to be tested before he can enter into the Celestial Kingdom of our God. He will try us to the uttermost. If we have any spot more tender than another, He will feel after it. He will test all in some way or other. But like the promises that have been made in regard to the work as a work, so are the promises made to us as individual members of the Church. We have had certain promises made to us. We have had blessings sealed upon us. God has acknowledged them in the heavens when they have been sealed upon our heads by the authority of the Priesthood which He has restored. And you may notice it that as the work of our God has increased we have also increased in the power of the Priesthood. When Joseph Smith committed the keys of the Priesthood unto his brethren, and rolled the burden upon their shoulders of carrying forward this work—in his urgent haste to build the Temple of Nauvoo, in his urgent haste to commit to his fellow servants all that God had committed to him—from that day the Kingdom of our God has grown in majesty and in strength, and at the same time has called forth opposition such as it never met with before. Every Temple that we build excites additional hatred, increases the volume of opposition, the volume of hostility, and the threatenings of the wicked. Every Temple that we have thus far completed—and every Temple of which we lay the foundation—has been another testimony in favor of God, and has brought strength to the people of God, in enlisting the hosts in the eternal world upon our side; but at the same time there has been stirred up, from the very depths of hell, all the damned, Satan and his legions, to unite with their agents upon the earth in an endeavor to destroy this work, and to do everything in their power to obliterate it from the face of the earth: for hell is engaged at the work we are doing: hell is stirred up at that which we are accomplishing. Satan sees that which he dreads. He sees a people guided by the holy Priesthood. He sees a people gathered together according to the promise of God, filled with the power of God, led by His everlasting Priesthood, and seeing this, he is determined to exert every power, every influence that he can muster for the purpose of preventing the spread and growth of this work. He is determined to do this, and we can see it. But his power and influence are restrained; because, were it not so, the strength of the people of the Church of God is not such as to withstand the power of the evil one without succumbing to it. God, therefore, permits the opposition power to grow in proportion to the strength of the Saints, and if the contest be a sharp one, a keen one, a violent one, the sooner it will be ended. Because there is a termination to all this. There is a time coming when this opposition must cease and when God will stretch forth His arm, as He has already done, to accomplish His great work on the earth. As the nations of the earth reject the Gospel, He will pour out the judgments that are set to follow the preaching of the Gospel. God will fight for Zion. God will remember Zion. Her name is written on the palms of His hands. He never can forget Zion. A woman may forget her nursing child—and that is a very difficult thing to do—but our God will never forget Zion, never forget the promises made to His people. He looks down from His holy habitation, and sees the humble efforts of His people. He sees their devotion to His cause. He sees their willingness to lay down their lives for the truth. Our God is not ignorant of this. His eye is upon this people, and His blessing will be with us. There is no power that can prevent the outpouring of His Spirit upon us; no power whatever.

We are rearing, as I have said, temples. And who shall enter into the temples of our God? Shall the drunkard, the whoremonger, the blasphemer, the Sabbath-breaker? Shall the man who does not train his family as he should do, who is not living a godly life? I tell you, my brethren and sisters, the time has come when a higher standard of purity must be observed by us as a people than has been in the past. We must live worthy of these blessings which God has bestowed upon us. If we do not God will withdraw His Spirit; God would condemn His servant who stands at the head of this Church, were he to permit wickedness to enter into these holy places. Therefore, the servants of God are strictly charged concerning these things. O, you adulterers! O, you whoremongers! O, you drunkards! O you Sabbath-breakers! O you dishonest men, and you hypocrites who have a place and a name among the Latter-day Saints! I say, woe! unto you unless you repent of your sins, unless you forsake everything that is evil and humble yourselves before God, and ask forgiveness from Him; for I tell you the Spirit of God will be withdrawn from you, and you will be left to yourselves and become as withered branches only fit for burning, unless you heartily, sincerely, profoundly, from the bottom of your hearts, repent of all your sins and put them far from you. God will not bear with you any longer. The sinner in Zion will tremble. That day will come. Fear will come upon the hypocrite. Therefore, repent of your sins before it is too late. And if you do you may enter into the holy places which God has provided. But O ye Presidents of Stakes and ye Bishops, you must be on the watchtower about these things, for God will hold you accountable. The sins of the people will be found upon your garments in the day of the Lord Jesus, if you do not cleanse impurity from the midst of your wards. If you recommend men who are unworthy, through tenderness of heart and through sympathy, when they are wicked, I say to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that the condemnation of God will rest upon you, and He will hold you to a strict accountability. For God has not chosen men to preside without laying upon them responsibility of a very grave and weighty character. He holds us accountable for these things. When a man has a relative and he condones the offense of that relative, through sympathy, he will not be free from responsibility. Now let it be known throughout all Israel, as the word of the Lord to us for the present, through His servant who stands at the head, that a man who commits adultery, a man who has had his endowments, cannot be baptized again into the Church. Let it be known throughout all Israel, as the word of God through His servant, who stands at the head, that a man who has had his endowments and commits whoredom, cannot now be received into the Church again. These must be cut off; because the law that was given in the early days of the Church concerning a man committing adultery once and being received back into the Church does not apply today. There has been a higher law since then, namely, the endowments, and men have taken upon themselves, and women also, sacred obligations in holy places. Therefore, hear it and understand it. Let it be given out in all the congregations of the Saints; let it be known everywhere throughout the land of Zion, so that if a man is tempted to do that deed, or a woman, that they will pause in view of the terrible consequences which await its commission—that they will pause and ask themselves the question—can I do this at the expense of my salvation and my exaltation in the presence of God? God has labored with us for fifty-four years and six months. He has revealed unto us His laws in plainness and power, so that all can understand, and if there be any now that do not understand, it is because they have not availed themselves of their privileges and opportunities. My brethren and sisters, this land must be a land of Zion to us. It will be a land of Zion to all who keep the commandments of God. It will not be a land of Zion to the adulterer, the seducer, the blasphemer, the Sabbath-breaker, the man who does not pay his tithing, to any who do not keep the commandments of God; but to those who do keep the commandments of God, and who keep themselves pure, it will be a land of peace, a land wherein they and their children after them can dwell in peace and righteousness. But let us be warned in this the day of our probation. Let us walk humbly before our God. Let us live so as to have his revelations constantly within us; let us live so that His Spirit shall burn in our hearts and in our bosoms and in our bones like a very fire, that in the end we may be saved and exalted in His Celestial Kingdom, which I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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

[Being the portion omitted in last volume.]

The whole tenor of God’s dealings and instructions to His people have been enriched and adorned with affectionate remembrance, instruction and illustration of the youth of His people. They are the redeemed of Christ from before the foundation of the world. Jesus said their angels or spirits do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. He has promised that they shall come forth in the first resurrection, that they “shall grow up until they become old,” and when he would demonstrate who should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven—He took a little child and placed him in their midst, saying, “Except ye repent and become as this little child, ye can in no wise enter therein; but whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven; and whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.”

In relation to all these matters, there is a great deal of importance attached to them, not only in the matter of our children—which seems to be of primary importance to us—but in the preaching of the Gospel. We that have ministered in the Gospel have learned of the truth of that Gospel, and are able to compre– hend by the Spirit in some degree the revelations and commandments which have been given for the guidance of the Church. It is by virtue of repentance and baptism for the remission of sins that men’s sins are remitted. It is by attending to certain ordinances that the blessings of eternity are sealed upon us, and by which in the plain language of the Scriptures, our calling and election are made sure. But we must obey those ordinances in faith or their efficacy will not avail. Our Elders go abroad and preach to the world, and their hearts are filled with charity and loving kindness towards their fellow creatures. They administer to the sick among the Saints, and they are often called upon to administer to those who do not belong to the Church, to whom they administer according to their faith, and thus the power of faith through the ordinance of God is made manifest among the children of men.

But there is one ordinance that the Elders may have perhaps neglected and I do not know but I have myself—and that is, that if we enter a house and the people thereof receive us, there our peace should abide. This was the instruction of the Savior in His day; and if we enter a house and the people receive us not, then we should go away and return not again to that house, and wash our feet with pure water, as a testimony against them in the day of judgment, and thus bear witness unto the Lord that we have offered them salvation, that we have sought to preach to them the principles of everlasting life, that we have offered to them the Gospel of peace and desired to administer unto them a blessing. The same is applicable to a town, village or city that rejects you. In this way you do your duty and leave them in the hands of the Lord. You are not called upon to contend with anybody in public congregations, or to do anything that would stir up wrath and indignation. The Savior simply told his disciples to wash their feet as a testimony against such people. But the generous, charitable feeling of our Elders prompts them not to do a thing against anybody; they would rather pour out a blessing upon the whole people. Consequently, it is a very rare thing that this ordinance is attended to by the Elders of this last dispensation—speaking from my own experience, and conversation had with the brethren. But when it comes to this, that we are persecuted and our lives taken, it would seem as if this was a duty depending upon those Elders who are thrust out, and warned away from their fields of labor. These things have happened of late, and it seems a duty devolving upon the Elders to do that which the law requires and leave the responsibility of its reception or rejection with the people and their God. We have no quarrel with anybody. We simply preach the Gospel to the inhabitants of the earth. If they receive it, well and good; if they will not, then it is a matter between them and their God; but the Lord requires this duty at the hands of his servants.

Again, we go abroad and gather in many people to this place, and they desire to find work. One of the brethren has referred to this matter and likened it unto a man going into a field and working diligently to plow the field, sow the grain, harrow it in, harvest it, and then leave it to waste. It is too much so in bringing home our brethren and our sisters to this country and not furnishing them labor. It is a very pleasing thought that occasionally companies of 400 or 500 people, or even 1,000, are delivered here from abroad. Why is it pleasing? Because it shows the work of God is progressing; it shows that God is gathering home His Saints, and soon after their arrival, the newcomers are taken home by their friends and relatives, and provided for, made comfortable until another spring, or until they look around and find or make a home. And it is a blessed thought that, notwithstanding hundreds and thousands of people are brought here yearly and cared for, so great a proportion of them live in their own homes, raise their own cows, pigs, chickens, etc.

Frequently when we go to the Seventies and ask some of them if they are willing to go on a mission to preach the Gospel, one replies: “I am no preacher at all; I could not preach a sermon if I were to try:” and wind up by saying: “If I can’t go out myself and preach, I am willing to help support the families of missionaries while they are gone.” Many have said this, and many more of them have thought it.

The Seventies are a numerous concourse of men who are called in connection with the Twelve to see that the Gospel is carried to the nations of the earth. Many of them are aged—some having been in the Church almost from the days of its first organization in Ohio, and many since the days of Nauvoo—too aged to be called to go upon missions—yet they could help their brethren coming in to find employment, and as do the Twelve after having labored in the vineyard to help gather the harvest, labor together in the threshing floor to help garner the wheat, clean it, and assist to make it fit for the Master’s use. The younger men, after having secured homes for their families, feel free to go on missions, knowing that their interests at home are not being neglected.

If the aged Seventies and all men of experience would interest themselves in the different parts of the Territory, and find or make work for the newcomers, they might do a vast deal of good. They might help their brethren who come in from the old country so obtain a living. When we first came here every man had to be a farmer, had to cultivate the land in order to obtain a living. Today many of the brethren who come from the old country have no idea of farming, and have never, perhaps raised a chicken, a pig or a cow. The brethren should take hold, therefore, and assist each other in these things. Let us help to build each other up more earnestly and more extensively than we have done. Let us not cultivate feelings of covetousness to the crowding out of those ennobling and generous sentiments which should fill the bosom of every Latter-day Saint.

My brethren, you are Elders in Israel, and the blessing and power of the Priesthood are upon you. Therefore we should do all the good we can, that those of our brethren who are constantly coming in here may obtain work, that they may not be led away, through idleness, into sin, and their hearts be turned away from the Gospel which they have embraced.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, September 28th, 1884.

We are living in a very peculiar age, and as a people we are doing a work which attracts the attention of mankind. Our name is known for good and evil in all lands. At no time in the history of mankind that we have any account of, has there been a people of our number who have attracted as much attention and created as great an interest in the minds of the public as these have who live in these mountains and are known as “Mormons” or Latter-day Saints.

The age in which we live is one in which intelligence travels with great rapidity. Knowledge is communicated with ease, and by means of the newspaper, the telegraph wire, and other facilities which the age affords, everything connected with us as a people is heralded from one end of the earth to the other in common with all the acts of the children of men. Unfortunately, however, with these facilities for the transmission of true knowledge, there are also equal facilities for the transmission of falsehood and misrepresentation. We have been the victims of falsehood and slander. Herculean efforts have been made to create false impressions concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church which our Father in heaven has established. It is well for us, however, that we have been prepared for this. In the commencement of this work of our God they who received it were warned of the character of the warfare that would be instituted against them. The Lord revealed in great plainness that it might cost them everything they held dear upon the earth, and that the warfare that would be waged against them would be one of unceasing hatred. These difficulties and trials, therefore, have not come upon the people without some degree of preparation for them. The Lord gave the spirit of prophecy and revelation unto His servants and unto His people to prepare them for these events, and there is nothing that has yet taken place connected with this work of our God that has not been made manifest through the revelations which He has given. This has been a great cause of strength to the people and has prepared them to bear with some degree of equanimity and fortitude, the trials and the afflictions to which they have been subjected. It is well for us that this has been the case. It is well for us, also, that accompanying the work of our God, there has been a spirit of peace bestowed upon those who have espoused that work. If this had not been the case how unfortunate our lot would have been! How unbearable! We could never have endured that which we have been called to pass through had there not been this spirit of peace that God promised in the beginning to bestow upon us. I doubt myself whether there can be found anywhere within the confines of the globe another people living in greater peace, in the enjoyment of more happiness, pure happiness, than can be found in these valleys from north to south. While all manner of evil has been spoken against the Latter-day Saints, while our names have been everywhere cast out as evil, God has given compensation to us by bestowing upon us these blessings to which I have referred.

It is well for us to look at the circumstances which surround us and to take a proper survey of all the events that lie before us, that are likely to take place in the future connected with us. God has given unto us the truth. This we have received accompanied by abundant testimonies. Those who have entered into covenants with God, who have gone down into the waters of baptism in obedience to His requirements, submitting to the ordinances that He has instituted for salvation, and have done this in sincerity and with purity of purpose, have received for themselves testimonies from God respecting the divinity of the work with which they have become identified. It is of the utmost importance that we should cherish this spirit and feeling, that it should be with us constantly in our movements, in every act of our lives, and that we should so live that the Holy Ghost will rest down in power and in testimony upon us. It is not only necessary that those who stand at the head should know for themselves concerning this work, its divinity and the purposes of God connected with it, but that every member, however humble and obscure, should in like manner receive of that spirit and enjoy its presence and its power, have its gifts resting down upon him or her. Each member should stand as a living witness of the truth that the Father has revealed, and which each of us who have complied with His requirements have received.

God has placed us here upon the earth to accomplish important purposes. These purposes have been in part revealed unto us. Probably it is not possible for men and women in this mortal state of existence to comprehend all the designs of God connected with man’s existence upon the earth: but much has been revealed upon this subject to us as a people. In this respect, if in no other, the Latter-day Saints should be the happiest, the most contented, the most joyous of all people that live; for not only has the knowledge of the past been communicated to us, but the present, that which is connected with our probation here, and also much knowledge concerning the future.

Now, if a man can only know whence he came, why he is here, and that which awaits him after this life, it seems to me that he has abundant causes of happiness within his grasp. Much of the unhappiness and uncertainty that prevail today in the minds of mankind arise from ignorance upon these points. Hence, we see the course that many of the children of men are taking. If a man knew exactly why God sent him here, the object that He had in giving unto him a mortal existence, do you think that men or women who had this knowledge would be guilty of suicide, would have any disposition to cut off their own existence and to destroy that gift which God in His mercy has given unto us? I do not believe that any human being who properly comprehends the object that God has had in placing man here upon the earth, and who has a desire to carry out that purpose, would ever attempt self-destruction. He would shrink from such an act with horror, and would never dare to destroy the earthly tabernacle given him by God. In these respects, as I have said, we possess rare advantages. It is a great favor from God to have this light. There is no unwillingness on His part to communicate it; but there is an unwillingness on the part of the children of men to receive it when it is communicated.

The Bible tells us we came from God. The Bible tells us He is the Father of our spirits. How is He the Father of our spirits? This is an important question, and one that each of us should endeavor to understand. I think it is of the utmost importance that the Latter-day Saints should understand and be able to comprehend this question thoroughly; because upon the proper understanding of this, must, to a great extent, depend their actions in this life.

It has been argued that because we have no recollection of any previous state of being, our existence must, therefore, have commenced at our birth—that that was the inception of existence so far as we are concerned. This is the general belief throughout Christendom. No body of worshippers who call themselves Christians, that we have any account of, have any belief in a pre-existent state for man. They consider his birth into mortality as the beginning of life for him. Yet the belief is universal among them that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Redeemer of the world, had a pre-existence. It is the cornerstone of their faith. If Jesus did not have life till He appeared in mortality, then their faith in Him is vain, for He would not be God. But they profess to believe that He is God, the Son; that He dwelt in the heavens and was the Creator of all things before He took upon Himself humanity. In believing this they are correct. But why they should be willing to believe this concerning our elder brother Jesus, and at the same time be unwilling to believe that the whole family of man also existed in the heavens with the Father before they came here, is not clear. Those who saw the Savior while in mortality saw nothing in Him to distinguish Him particularly from other mortals. Doubtless those who were enlightened by the Spirit of God could perceive evidences of His superiority over ordinary men, and of His divinity. But did Pilate? Did the Pharisees and Scribes? In the eyes of the latter classes He was a common man and a vulgar impostor who deserved an ignominious death. His divine glory was veiled from mortal eyes. Would anyone have suspected from the appearance of the Savior, from His teachings, from His treatment of His disciples, that He differed so widely from them as to be of an entirely distinct species? Certainly not. He taught to them and to others the great doctrine of equality. If they would obey certain laws, conform to certain requirements, they were to be His equals, that is, be one with Him, as He would be one with the Father. In this teaching He offended the Jews. Their dislike to these ideas of His, found expression in the words: “that thou being a man, makest thyself God.” His disciples had the right to think from all that He taught, that if He had been with the Father before coming into this mortal life, they also had been there. If they were to be so closely associated with Him in the great future what was there to suggest to them that they had not been intimately connected with Him in the past? If He had been chosen from before the foundation of the earth to do the work which He was then doing, what inconsistency would there be in their being chosen also, as His ministers and associates, at the same time? To look at them as they traveled and labored together throughout Jewry, there was nothing unreasonable in the idea of their common origin.

The Lord Jesus was undoubtedly selected for the great mission of redeeming the world, because of His great qualities and His peculiar fitness as one of the Godhead. It is written of Him: “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”

Who were his fellows? Were not all the distinguished of heav– en’s sons there—they who afterwards made their appearance on the earth as Prophets, Apostles and righteous men? If He was chosen above all His fellows, and anointed with the oil of gladness, is it not consistent and reasonable to suppose that His faithful Apostles were also chosen and anointed to perform their part in the great drama of human existence for the enactment of which the earth was to be prepared? If He had companions in the heavens, or to use the language of the Scriptures—“fellows,” is it reasonable to suppose that He left them there while He came down here and took upon Himself mortality? Does it violate in the least any idea that we derive from the sacred records, to think that His “fellows” also came here, and, as He did, also obtained mortal tabernacles?

If we grant that His “fellows” in the heavens came here, as He did, and obtained mortal bodies, what shall we say of the undistinguished millions who have crowded their way forward into mortal life from the beginning? Shall we divide humanity into classes, and say one class had a heavenly existence before coming here, while another class sprung into existence at mortal conception or birth? If we are not justified, by either Scripture or reason, in placing the Redeemer of the world in a class by Himself, so far as pre-existence is concerned and in separating Him in this respect from His “fellows,” how can we find warrant for dividing the rest of the family of God, into two classes—one as having a pre-existence, and another as not having any life till they arrive here?

If it were possible for the Lord Jesus to descend from the mansions of glory and take possession of a mortal tabernacle, and be born of a woman in the shape of an infant, is it not equally possible that we all did the same? Everything that we know concerning the mysteries of this life justifies us in thus believing. But we are not left to speculation upon this point. God has revealed this in great plainness. The Bible proves to us that Jesus existed with the Father, and that He descended from His high estate in the regions of glory to become a mortal man; for He speaks Himself in praying to the Father, of the glory he had with the Father before He came here, that glory having been revealed to Him. Now, is there anything difficult or incomprehensible in the thought, that we all in like manner, existed with the Father, and with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, before we came here? The Lord in speaking to Jeremiah, reveals to him in great plainness, that he had a pre-existence. In the first chapter of Jeremiah, He tells him that before he was formed in the womb He knew him, that He chose him to be a Prophet, that he had been designated for the work that he had to accomplish; and thousands of others among mankind have felt—though they knew nothing by recollection of their previous existence—that they were called and designated and destined to accomplish great works upon the earth.

The revelations that have been given unto us as a people have communicated this doctrine unto us. We are taught in the record of Abraham, which has been translated and given unto us, that prior to man’s coming upon the earth, he had an existence with the Father, and that we all, all the inhabitants of the earth, every man and woman and child that has ever been born upon the earth, or that ever will be born on the earth—have had an existence with the Father, before coming here.

With these views that I have endeavored to set before you we can have some understanding concerning the object of man being placed upon the earth. If we are the children of our God, then God our Eternal Father has had an object, a great object to accomplish in placing us here on the earth. Jesus had a mission to perform. He came and took upon Himself mortality. A mortal probation was assigned Him. It was a part of the plan of salvation, not only connected with His exaltation, but with the redemption of the human family. There has been a purpose in all this. This earth has been created for a purpose. Man is here for a purpose. Death is in the world for a purpose, just as much as life, and all these are a part of the Divine plan connected with man’s existence in the past, at the present and for the future.

A great many have stumbled and have questioned the justice of our God, and have also gone so far as to question the very existence of God, because of the earthly circumstances which surround the children of men. It has been said by those who have taken this view that if there were an all-powerful Being, such as God is described to be, He would interpose in behalf of the children of men, and deliver them from the trying scenes and circumstances which they frequently have to pass through. The fact that man is in such a condition and is surrounded by such circumstances is frequently urged as an evidence that there is no God, that there can be no God, possessing such attributes as are ascribed to Him by those who believe in Him. Many people have been deluded by this kind of reasoning; they have be– come infidels, and rejected all belief in God and in any providence connected with man and with man’s existence upon the earth. They have abandoned themselves to complete unbelief upon this point. But those who have sought after God, those who have humbled themselves before Him, and obtained knowledge from Him in the way that He has appointed—though to them all may not be perfectly plain—do perceive and acknowledge the providence of God in all the circumstances which surround them. They perceive His hand and acknowledge it in all the events connected with their mortal existence, and with the mortal existence of their fellows.

God has had a purpose in withdrawing himself from man; it has not been a part of His purpose to reveal Himself in His fullness, in His glory, in His power, unto His children upon the earth. Many, not understanding why this should be, and unable to comprehend any purpose in it, have stumbled and yielded to doubts and been ready, because of this, to deny His existence. Now, it has been a part of the plan of salvation, as revealed in all the records that have come down to us from the beginning—from the days of our Father Adam until now—it is a part of the plan of salvation, I say, connected with man’s existence upon the earth that God should thus withdraw himself, as it were, from man, and that a veil should be drawn between himself and man, and that if knowledge of Him be obtained, it should be obtained by the exercise of great faith and continued labor on the part of His children. But why, it may be asked, is this necessary? Why is it that God has not revealed himself with great fullness and power unto all the inhabitants of the earth, and left them in complete possession of all the knowledge necessary to prove to them that He is God? Questions of this kind are frequently propounded by men. They ask: Why does He not reveal Himself fully to His creatures? Why should He leave them a prey to doubt? Why should He leave them in darkness? Why should He give opportunities to the adversary of their souls to assail them as He does for want of that knowledge which He might communicate so easily. These are important questions, and they are questions which as Latter-day Saints we should understand.

We must remember, to begin with, that God our Eternal Father has given unto each of us our agency. There is no human being born on the earth from whom God has withheld his or her agency. We have as much right to exercise our agency in our sphere as God the Eternal Father has to exercise His agency in His sphere; just as much. It is not sacrilege, it is not any infringement upon the power of Our God to indulge in this thought or to have this belief. It does not detract in the least from His glory, from His power, nor from our dependence upon Him as an infinite and almighty Being to entertain this view of ourselves. Jesus said when He was upon the earth: “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” How could we be if man did not have the power within him, through the agency which God has given him, to be thus perfect. Everywhere throughout the divine record where God has communicated His mind and His will to men, this principle is plainly manifest: that man has had given unto him, in the greatest freedom and without limit, the power to exercise his own agency. It was so in the beginning—in the very commencement of the work of our God upon the earth when He placed Adam in the garden and gave Eve unto him for a wife. He set before them the principle of knowledge—that is, He told them what they should do; He told them what they should refrain from doing. He told them that if they did certain things, certain penalties should follow. Had such a thing been possible and consistent with the purposes of Heaven, He might, at the very beginning, have prevented Adam from exercising His agency. Instead of saying to him, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat except the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” and leaving him free to eat of the fruit of that tree, He might have put it out of his power to touch or taste it. But not so; He gave him the opportunity of exercising his agency; He told him he could eat of every tree freely, except the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but that he should not eat of it, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” There was no attempt on the part of our Father to interfere with the agency of Adam in this respect. He left him perfectly free and in the exercise of that freedom Adam did partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. His wife, Eve, was deceived in eating of the fruit; she partook of it, being beguiled, yet in the perfect exercise of her agency, and after she had partaken of it, and become subject to the penalty that God had pronounced—the penalty of death and expulsion from the garden—then she came and told Adam what she had done. Adam was fully conscious of all the consequences that had attended this act. He knew perfectly well that the penalty would be executed—that that Eve had become mortal, that death had entered into her tabernacle, and the penalty that God had pronounced would be fully executed; that she would be thrown out of the garden and that they would be separated forever—that is, so far as this life was concerned. He knew this, and, fully conscious of all the consequences which should follow his partaking of the fruit, he partook of it. In doing so he was not deceived. He partook of it because of his desire to fulfill the commandments of God. God had given unto him this woman for a wife; they were bound together by immortal ties; but because of this act of hers there must necessarily have been a separation that would have endured as long as her mortal life endured. Adam understanding this, partook of the fruit, and as is said by the Prophet Lehi, “Adam fell that man might be, and men are that they may have joy.” If he had not fallen; if he had not partaken of that fruit, there would have been no human race on the earth. He understood this, therefore he partook of it and accompanied his wife. It was a part of the plan that was understood in the heavens before Adam was placed in the garden. God by His foreknowledge understood perfectly that Adam, in the exercise of his agency, would fall. Therefore He prepared a Redeemer in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, who we are told was “a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.” God having seen that Adam would fall, that death would come upon him, and that a Redeemer would be necessary in order to redeem man from the effects of the fall—for unless there had been a Redeemer provided, Adam and all his posterity would have slept an eternal sleep, they would have been consigned to the tomb, and there would have been no redemption therefrom because of the penalty that had been pronounced by the Father upon him if he committed this act—God knowing all this provided a Redeemer. That Redeemer was the Son of God, Jesus our Savior, in whose name we all approach the Father, in whose name salvation is given unto the children of men. It was arranged beforehand that He should come and perform His mission in the meridian of time—lay down His life, as it was known that He would do through the wickedness of bad men.

Now, it may be said, why did not God prevent man and woman from taking this course? Because, as I have before said, it was right that they should exercise their agency. God—shall I say could not? Do I detract from His majesty and His glory by placing a limit on His power? I will say that God would not, because it would be in violation of His own laws; it would be in violation of those eternal laws which our God Himself recognizes, for Him to have interfered and deprived man and woman of their agency. But, knowing the consequences of their actions, He prepared a way for their salvation and their redemption, and thus it is that we are born on the earth. It was part of the design that we should be subjected to all these afflictions and trials and ordeals that belong to this mortal state of existence. This was part of the plan.

I have been told by objectors that God ought to reveal Himself in fullness. Why does He not do it? Because if He were to do so, we should be deprived of the opportunities of proving our integrity which we now have. He has marked out the path for us to walk in. He has designed that we shall struggle; that we shall exercise faith; that we shall contend with the temptations of the adversary; that we shall overcome evil; and by a continued exercise of faith progress in the course that He has assigned to us. It is absolutely necessary that we should be tempted and tried in order that we should receive the glory that He has in store for us. What would our salvation amount to; what would heaven amount to if we had never been tried, if we were to be placed in heaven without trial, without effort, without exertion upon our part to overcome evil and to contend with those influences that abound in this mortal state of existence. It would not be such a heaven as God inhabits, and such a heaven as He designs that all His children shall inhabit. For let me say to you, my brethren and sisters, God designs that we shall be like Him. He designs that His children shall attain unto the Godhead—that is if they will obey the laws necessary to bring them up to that exaltation, and before they can attain unto that, before they can enjoy that, before they can be in a condition to appreciate that, they must pass through just such scenes of trial and tribulation and affliction as we are subjected to in this mortal condition of existence.

There is an interesting passage in the new translation of the Bible, in the Pearl of Great Price, that I have often been struck with. It shows clearly the feelings of our first parents after they had been thrust out of the Garden of Eden. I will read a paragraph or two:

“And Adam called upon the name of the Lord, and Eve also, his wife, and they heard the voice of the Lord, from the way towards the garden of Eden, speaking unto them, and they saw him not, for they were shut out from his presence.”

That was one of the consequences of the fall. They were shut out, and man has been from that time to this shut out from the presence of the Father.

“And he gave unto them commandments, that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flock, for an offering unto the Lord. And Adam was obedient unto the commandments of the Lord.* * * *

“And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.

“And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and daughters.”

Now this couple blessed God because of their transgression. Their eyes were opened; they had become as Gods; for the devil in tempting Eve, had told a truth when he said unto her that when she should eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil they should become as Gods. He told the truth in telling that, but he accompanied it with a lie as he always does. He never tells the complete truth. He said that they should not die. The Father had said that they should die. The devil had to tell a lie in order to accomplish his purposes; but there was some truth in his statement. Their eyes were opened. They had a knowledge of good and evil just as the Gods have. They became as Gods; for that is one of the features, one of the peculiar attributes of those who attain unto that glory—they understand the difference between good and evil. In our pre-existent state, in our spiritual existence, I do not know how extensive our knowledge of good and evil was. That is not fully revealed. But this I do know, that when we come to earth and become clothed with mortality we do arrive at a knowledge of good and evil, and that knowledge prepares us for that future existence which we will have in the eternal worlds; it will enable us to enter upon a career that is never ending, that will continue onward and upward throughout all the ages of eternity. It is for this purpose that we are here. God has given unto us this probation for the express purpose of obtaining a knowledge of good and evil—of understanding evil and being able to overcome the evil—and by overcoming it receive the exaltation and glory that He has in store for us. Here we are subjected to the power of the adversary. He can tempt us, try us. Satan has power in the earth, and in the exercise of his agency he tempts the children of men. He has rebelled against God in the exercise of his agency; for he was a great and a mighty angel in the presence of our Father and our God. But in the exercise of his agency he rebelled against the Father and drew away with him one-third of the hosts of heavens, who likewise exercised their agency and followed him in preference to following the Lord God, their Father; and in the continued exercise of his agency he tempts us. He has power over us to that extent in this fallen condition. At the same time we have the sweet influence of the Spirit of God pleading with us to do that which is right, pleading with every human being that does not drive it from him; for every human being has a portion of the Spirit of God given unto him. We sometimes call it conscience; we call it by one name and we call it by another; but it is the Spirit of God that every man and woman possesses that is born on the earth. God has given unto all his children this Spirit. Of course it is not the gift of the Holy Ghost in its fullness; for that is only received by obedience to the commandments of God—to the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But it is a Spirit that pleads with men to do right. The heathen have it. There is no degraded Indian in these mountains or valleys who does not have a portion of that Spirit pleading with him to do that which is right. It pleads with all the heathen, the Pagan as well as the Christian; the Methodist and Baptist as well as the Latter-day Saints. Everywhere throughout the earth where man dwells this Spirit rests upon him. It comes from God. It pleads with man to do right. It pleads with man to resist the blandishments of Satan. No man ever did a wrong but that Spirit warned him of it to a greater or less extent. No man ever put his hand forth to do a wrong to his neighbor without that Spirit telling him it was wrong. He never put forth his hand or influence to wrong the gentler sex—to commit sin in that direction—without that warning voice which is in every human being telling him of the sin. On the other hand, there is the influence of evil, the influence of the Adversary enticing men to do wrong, leading into paths of sin, leading them away from righteousness and from God; infusing doubt, infusing unbelief, infusing hardness of heart, infusing rebellion against everything that is holy and pure. We are all conscious of the existence of these two influences within us. There is no child that has reached the age of accountability and in the possession of his or her faculties but what has had these two influences pleading with him or her—one entreating to do right, the other enticing to do wrong, to commit sin and to violate the commandments of God. If we cultivate the good influence it will lead us into the truth (if we are not already in possession of the truth) when we hear it. It was through this Spirit that you Latter-day Saints accepted the Gospel in the various lands where you heard it preached. That Spirit that came from God taught you by its sweet and heavenly influence that it was the truth you heard, and when you espoused it you had a feeling in your hearts that you cannot describe. It was the testimony of the Spirit of God that this was indeed the truth of heaven, and it led you to obey the commandments of God; and to receive in greater fullness and power the gift of the Holy Ghost, which you have received through obedience to the commandments that God has given.

Time will not permit me to say a great many things that I have on my mind. I see the time is nearly expired. But I wish to say that we had an existence before we came here. “But,” says one, “I do not remember anything about it.” No, you do not. You do not remember the day you were born on the earth, yet you will not deny that you had an existence at that time. When you were a year old you do not remember beginning to walk, yet you will not deny that you had an existence then. God, in His wisdom, has withdrawn the recollection of these things from us. If we could understand the glory we once had with our Father in heaven we would be discontented in dwelling in this condition of existence. We would pine for the home we left behind us. Its glory and its beauty, its heavenly graces and delights were of such a character that we would pine for it with that homesickness that men have some partial knowledge of here on the earth. It is said that at one time in the French army, the bands were forbidden to play certain airs because of the effect they had upon the Swiss soldiers whom they employed. These Swiss airs would arouse such sensations of homesickness as to cause the Swiss to throw down their arms and desert and go back to their native valleys and mountains. Now, if such a feeling of homesickness can be brought about in that way, how much more would it be the case if we could recollect our association with our Father and God in the eternal world! Wisely, in the providence of God, this knowledge is withdrawn from us. We can have a glimpse occasionally, through the revelations of the Spirit to us, of the glory there is awaiting us, and sometimes when men and women are approaching death—when they are ready to step out of this existence into the other—the veil becomes so thin that they behold the glories of the eternal world, and when they come back again—as some have, we all probably have met those who have been snatched from death—they come back to this mortal existence with a feeling of regret. They have had a foretaste of the glory that awaited them; they have had a glimpse of that glory that is behind the veil; and the love of life is so completely lost—the love of earthly home and friends is so completely taken from them, that they desire with all their hearts to take their exit from this life into that glorious life which they knew was on the other side of the veil. Has not this been the case in many instances? Certainly it has. Therefore our God in His wisdom has withdrawn this knowledge from us, and left us to seek for and obtain that aid and strength necessary to enable us to successfully battle with and overcome the powers of evil that assail us on every hand.

My brethren and sisters: it is for us to contend with the evils that surround us, patiently bearing all the afflictions and trials that belong to this mortal life. We should remember our destiny, and at the same time look forward to that glorious future that God has prepared for us. We should be filled with the most noble aspirations. We should never condescend to commit any low, mean, unworthy act when we consider who we are, and what we are, and the glory that God has promised unto us if we are faithful to Him. Let us keep those things in mind. Let us bear patiently the afflictions that come upon us. Let us contend earnestly for the faith that God desires we should have, seeking unto Him for that knowledge which He has to bestow, and though we may not behold His face now, yet we will behold it, and will dwell eternally with Him and His Son Jesus in the heavens, if we keep the commandments He has given unto us.

May God grant that we may do so, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, August 31, 1884.

The work of God in all ages has been a peculiar work, coming in contact with popular ideas and with men’s preconceived notions, and meeting with opposition frequently of the most deadly character. In every age when truth has been revealed, it has had hostility to contend with. No great principle has ever been established among the children of men without costly sacrifices. The religion of our Lord and Savior was established at the cost of precious and it may be said inestimable blood and lives, and it has been the characteristic of truth in every age to be hated and to be opposed. If, therefore, we as Latter-day Saints are exposed to opposition and hostility—having our names cast out as evil, and men thinking that they are doing God’s service in killing us—it is no more than men have endured in past generations for the truth, for that which is now recognized as the purest and most heavenly truth. It is with our generation as it was with the generation in which the Savior lived, and as it has been with all generations. Truth that has been established has been revered, or men have thought that they revered it, and in looking back to the acts of their ancestors, or of other people, they have said to themselves: “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we should not have killed the prophets and those that were sent unto us.” They said this at the time of the Son of God, and He reproached them for these expressions, and charged them with being the sons of murderers, and they themselves willing to do the very acts that they reprehended and condemned in their fathers.

It would be an incredible thing if we had not seen it and known it, that men and women are persecuted in our day and in our time and in our nation for religion’s sake. To make such a statement a few years ago—half a century ago or a little over—would have been to have raised incredulity; men could not have conceived of the possibility of a church, however ignorant, however misinformed, however untrue its doctrines might be, being persecuted and its votaries slain because it taught false doctrines. It has not been the case in the history of our race that true religion has sought to destroy false religions, and the advocate of false doctrines, by the shedding of blood. That has never been the practice of true religion, or of those who believed in true religion. How preposterous it would be for us to imagine the Savior and the Apostles killing those who differed with them in their views about religion! The mere thought is abhorrent to all our ideas of the religion of Jesus. It would be inconceivable for the Son of God, or for His Apostles, or for any of His disciples, to go forth with the sword, or with any other weapon of destruction, destroying those who did not believe as they believed. In fact, such has never been the case. It is not the method that true men take.

Ah! but it is said of us—we are such a wicked people, we are so law-defying, we are so bigoted and fanatical, that it is justifiable to kill us. It is a terrible confession to make—that in a land of law, a land of constitutional principles, a land where men can be dealt with who violate the law, that there should be no resource for the checking of false religion except violence and the shedding of blood. It is a terrible confession to make in our time—that this is the only way in which to meet false doctrines, or to quiet or put an end to or overcome those who propagate them.

Now, my brethren and sisters, in espousing the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Latter-day Saints were taught—and those of us who were too young to understand it at the time we entered the Church were taught when we were old enough to comprehend the principle—that its espousal might cost us our lives, that it might cost us everything we held dear upon the earth, and thus far in the progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have not been disappointed. The espousal and propagation of the truth has cost precious blood, and it is not being established in the earth now any more than at any previous time, without great sacrifices on the part of those who are its devotees. God will test us as a people. He will prove us, He will give us the most ample opportunity of showing our faith in Him, and our confidence in the truth that He has revealed. It should be worth everything that we have. We cannot make too great sacrifices for it. If we look at the example which has been given unto us by our Savior, we will see the path that He walked in and that which He endured. When we think of His origin, His glorious origin, the Creator of heaven and earth, a Being that had reigned in glory and power, coming down here and being clothed with mortality, and suffering as He suffered, enduring that which He endured, and dying the ignominious death which he did—when we think of Him and His life, we should be reconciled to pass through and submit patiently to every trial that the Lord our God may see fit to call us to meet. We should be willing to do this if it costs us our homes, as it has done, if it costs us our friends and our good name, and even life itself. It is not more than it has cost others; and if we would enter into the glory which God has attained unto, if we would sit down with Him and His Apostles, and with the faithful of all ages, we should be willing to endure that which they have endured. God calls us to pass through these things, and to endure them for the sake of the truth. There is this consolation, however connected with the work with which we are identified—that God has made promises unto us that it shall never be given into the hands of another people. The Apostles looked forward to the time when there would be a great falling away, and the man of sin be revealed, and they warned the church in their day of that falling away. But God has given unto us the assurance that this Church, this work that He has established, shall never be given into the hands of another people, but that it shall stand forever, and it shall go forward accomplishing His designs, until it shall fill the whole earth. This is a glorious promise given unto us, and to our children, and we can rely upon it. Men may be slain, as they have been; people may be driven, as they have been; efforts of the most herculean character may be made to extirpate this work from the earth, but we have the promise of our God that it shall stand and that it shall not be overthrown. And this is very consolatory in the midst of the afflictions and trials which we will be called upon from time to time to submit to. Looking at affairs naturally, however, it would seem as though it was presumptuous in a people like us to entertain such hopes. How often have we been told that in a very little while the opposition to this work would be of such a character that it would completely overwhelm it, and that it was useless for us to attempt to stem the tide of opposition or outlive the storm of persecution that has been raised against us.

But there is a wonderful power in truth, wonderful power in the principles of life and salvation, and when God is on the side of a people, no matter how feeble they may be, they are bound in the course of time, to be victorious. Already great results have been accomplished by the preaching of the truth. It is not the Latter-day Saints alone who feel the effects of truth; other people feel its effects who may not espouse it openly. The proclamation of the principles of life and salvation by the Latter-day Saints has caused thousands of persons to recognize error, many errors that they formerly believed in, and to take different and higher views, and this will continue to be the case.

But the duty which devolves upon us as a people is to patiently labor in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the nations of the earth. It is our duty to carry these principles to every nation, to every kindred, to every tongue, to every people upon the face of the whole earth; not to the United States alone, not to Europe alone, but to Asia, Africa, and the islands of the sea, throughout our own continent, through these Southern nations, and everywhere, in fact, where the children of men reside; and to lift up a warning voice and declare to the inhabitants of the earth that the time is near when the judgments and calamities of which the Prophets and the Apostles have spoken are about to be poured out upon the ungodly. This is our duty; and this Gospel of the Kingdom, as we have been told, must be preached as a witness unto all nations before the end comes. It is a labor devolving upon us as a people: and though it may cost many precious lives to do this, the obligation rests upon us nevertheless, and we cannot be freed from it only by the discharge of the duty.

My mind, while Brother Teasdale has been speaking, has rested upon a revelation which God gave through Joseph Smith, in the early days of this Church, in which He described to the Church the spirit which they should have concerning offenses that should be extended to them, or wrongs that should be perpetrated upon them as a people. We are called to occupy a very different position from that of any other people. We must be lovers of peace. We must be men who shall seek to establish the pure principles of righteousness in the earth, and to continually cultivate and carry out practically the spirit that Jesus endeavored to inculcate. You know how He felt when He was upon the cross. He said; “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” We also must have that same spirit. We have been accused, I know, and very freely accused, of indulging in a different feeling, and having sentiments of revenge and a disposition, if we had the power, to wreak vengeance upon those who are opposed to us. But if we did so we should falsify ourselves and the doctrines that we teach. We should deprive ourselves of the Spirit and blessings of God. We should occupy a position antagonistic to that which He has commanded us to occupy. The Lord says in this revelation:

“And whoso layeth down his life in my cause, for my name’s sake, shall find it again, even life eternal.

“Therefore, be not afraid of your enemies, for I have decreed in my heart, saith the Lord, that I will prove you in all things, whether you will abide in my covenant, even unto death, that you may be found worthy.”

It would seem strange that such language should be used in the United States in the year 1833 concerning this Church. The Lord knew, however, the spirit with which this people and the proclamation of this truth would be met, and He forewarned His people that they should be found worthy, or rather that they should be true even unto death. Says the revelation:

“For if ye will not abide in my covenant ye are not worthy of me.

“Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of their children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children;

“And again, the hearts of the Jews unto the prophets, and the prophets unto the Jews; lest I come and smite the whole earth with a curse, and all flesh be consumed before me.”

“Now, I speak unto you concerning your families—if men will smite you, or your families, once, and ye bear it patiently and revile not against them, neither seek revenge, ye shall be rewarded;

“But if ye bear it not patiently, it shall be accounted unto you as being meted out a just measure unto you.

“And again, if your enemy shall smite you the second time, and you revile not against your enemy, and bear it patiently, your reward shall be an hundredfold.

“And again, if he shall smite you the third time, and ye bear it patiently, your reward shall be doubled unto you four-fold;

“And these three testimonies shall stand against your enemy if he repent not, and shall not be blotted out.

“And now, verily I say unto you, if that enemy shall escape my vengeance, that he be not brought into judgment before me, then ye shall see to it that ye warn him in my name, that he come no more upon you, neither upon your family, even your children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.

“And then, if he shall come upon you or your children, or your children’s children until the third and fourth generation, I have delivered thine enemy into thine hands;

“And then if thou wilt spare him, thou shalt be rewarded for thy righteousness; and also thy children and thy children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.

“Nevertheless, thine enemy is in thine hands; and if thou rewardest him according to his works thou art justified; if he has sought thy life, and thy life is endangered by him, thine enemy is in thine hands and thou art justified.

“Behold, this is the law I gave unto my servant Nephi, and thy fathers, Joseph, and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, and all mine ancient prophets and apostles.

“And again, this is the law that I gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people, save I, the Lord, commanded them.

“And if any nation, tongue or people should proclaim war against them, they should first lift a standard of peace unto that people, nation, or tongue;

“And if that people did not accept the offering of peace, neither the second nor the third time, they should bring these testimonies before the Lord;

“Then I, the Lord, would give unto them a commandment, and justify them in going out to battle against that nation, tongue, or people.

“And I, the Lord, would fight their battles, and their children’s battles, and their children’s children’s, until they had avenged themselves on all their enemies, to the third and fourth generation.

“Behold, this is an ensample unto all people, saith the Lord your God, for justification before me.”

This revelation continues in this strain, and it is well worthy of our attention, especially at the present time. It shows unto us most clearly, my brethren and sisters, that there is no room for revenge in the heart of a true Latter-day Saint. God designs that we shall be a peaceful people, a people who shall love and cultivate peace, a people who shall seek by every means in their power to avert war and to avert bloodshed, to proclaim peace, and to entreat people for peace; and God has said to us most emphatically that He would fight our battles, that He would defend us against our enemies. He does not intend that the Latter-day Saints shall be a people shedding blood. God did not permit David, a man after His own heart, to build the temple at Jerusalem, because he was a man of war, but He gave unto his peaceful son Solomon, who was a peaceful ruler and had no occasion to fight—He gave unto him the privilege of building His holy temple. We are a temple-building people. God has given unto us a mission of this kind, to build temples in which we shall perform the ordinances of life and salvation, and it seems to be meet in His providence that we should refrain from everything that would unfit us for the discharge of this high and holy calling. Therefore, I repeat, that of all people now living upon the face of the earth we are most urgently required by our God to be lovers and cultivators of peace, and to seek not for that revenge which gratifies human passion, which is not of God, and which is opposed to the Gospel of Jesus, and to the sentiments that Jesus invariably inculcated and endeavored to enforce upon His disciples. We have shown this repeatedly. How many times would we have been stirred up to indignation, if we had allowed human feelings to pre– vail, at the abominable falsehoods which have been circulated in our midst, fabricated by men whose only object has been to bring down vengeance upon this people, to excite the ruling powers against us; to stir up congressional action against us, to create a public opinion against us, to make it justifiable to slay us, to deprive us of every right? How often has this been the case? How easy it would have been for us if we had followed the influences that seem natural to human beings under such circumstances, to have avenged ourselves upon them. But had we done so we should have forfeited the protecting care of our Father and our God. When we attempt to do this, we put ourselves outside of the pale of His protection. We could not ask of Him (as we could do if we were to observe His commandments) that protection and that deliverance which is necessary at times to extricate us from the imminent perils with which we are threatened. And it is by this principle, following this policy, adopting this peaceful, godlike course, that this people have been preserved and blessed up to the present time. It is a spirit which we should cultivate, cultivate it in all our associations, in our intercourse with one another, in our intercourse with the world, and even with those who are most embittered against us. It is not for us to revile against the reviler; it is not for us to bandy vulgar epithets with those who indulge in this mode of warfare; but it is for us to put our trust in God, to leave our cause with Him. For we cannot defend ourselves by earthly weapons. We are too feeble. We are not strong in numbers. We are not strong in wealth. We are not strong in worldly things. We have not these advantages to aid and sustain us. If we are sustained we must be sustained by the overruling providence and power of God our Eternal Father, and not by any earthly power. Therefore our path of safety is the path which God has pointed out for us; not to be a revengeful people, not to be a recriminating people, not to be an abusive people, but to be a meek people, a forbearing people, bearing patiently, but of course not sitting down idly and supinely, and permitting contumely to be heaped upon us without exerting the powers God has given us to dissipate falsehoods. But this can be done in the spirit of meekness, not in the spirit of revenge, not in the spirit of reviling, not in the spirit of hostility and hatred. This spirit is antagonistic to the spirit that Jesus possesses, and which we all ought to possess to be like Him—to be filled as He was with those desirable attributes which were so acceptable to the Father.

I wished to say this much to you; for I feel that the present time is a fit occasion for us to bear these things in mind. There are many occurrences which are of a character to goad us to do and say things that would be unworthy of us. The whole earth seems to be full of falsehood; and as I have said many people think they are doing God service in killing us. Already a great many public papers—editors speaking through the columns of their papers—have justified assassination and said that those who had committed it were not particularly guilty. This spirit is abroad, and it would, if it had the power, destroy this whole people: it would depopulate these valleys, it would spill our blood just as freely as blood ever was shed under the most cruel and inhuman circumstances. Yes, it would flow in streams throughout these valleys, if some men had their way. Men, woman and children would be visited by indiscriminate slaughter, because in their opinion we believe in a false religion. God in his mercy, however, is exercising power in our behalf. If He does not, what then shall be our fate? Could man befriend us? Could man deliver us? Can we ourselves by any exertion, however great or superhuman—can we deliver ourselves? No, we cannot. Let me repeat: Our only hope is our God; our only strength is in Him and in His providence, and He will deliver us. Let me say to you, that he has never yet failed to deliver us; and His promises are as firm and immovable as His eternal throne. We can rely upon Him with the utmost assurance that we shall not be deceived; but that in the direst extremity, in the darkest hour, in the midst of the deepest trials and afflictions, His arm will be extended in our behalf, and His providence be exerted to save and to deliver us. We can rest assured of this. Therefore, however dark the prospects may be, however gloomy, let us remember that He who sits on high knows our condition, and that He can deliver us. He will interpose at the very moment when it is needed and rescue us from every evil, and He will defeat and bring to naught every plan and device which is concocted against the peace and prosperity of those who put their trust in Him and in the great work which He has established in the earth. This I can bear testimony to. I know whereof I speak. I know just as well as I know that I stand here, and that I am speaking to you, that the Latter-day Saints, this Church, or what we call the Zion of our God, will be delivered, and it will roll forth in mighty power, and it will accomplish all that has been predicted concerning it. For the day will come, and it is not far distant, when in our own nation, there will be civil strife, there will be domestic broils, there will be a withdrawal of peace, and men will yet have to come to the Latter-day Saints for that peace and that freedom from civil strife that cannot be found elsewhere. God revealed this and predicted it, upwards of fifty years ago, and it will, just as sure as He predicted it, be fulfilled to the letter. All we have to do is to take the course that He has pointed out to us, to keep His commandments, leaving the results with Him, and He will control all things for the glory of His name. We have been taught to believe that the time will come when constitutional government will be overthrown upon this land, and that it will be the province of the Latter-day Saints to uphold those principles which God inspired the founders of this government to embody in the Constitution; and it seems to be fast approaching. When assassination can be justified, assassination of men peaceably worshipping their God, offending no one, committing no violation of law or of good order; when they can be shot down cruelly and inhumanly, and their murderers be justified for the deed, it seems as though the time when constitutional principles would fail, is near at hand. But this is not all. When we who have built up this country, and made it that which it is by the sacrifices we have made—living here in peace, men and women industriously pursuing their various avocations, molesting no one, observing every law that promotes good order—when such a people as we, I say, are legislated against and considered unworthy of the rights of citizenship, almost every right being taken from us, that free men value, and for which the fathers of many of this people have suffered and died—when we see these acts justified and the men who do them think they are committing acts which will be applauded by their constituents, what are we to conclude? Shall we not say, Surely the predictions are coming to pass, and the time is drawing near when constitutional government will have to be maintained by some other hands than those who now profess to be its upholders?

I pray God the Eternal Father, my brethren and sisters, to fill you with that peace which cometh from above, to fill you with that courage which every true servant and handmaiden of God should possess. I pray that He will preserve you and keep you so that in the midst of every trial and affliction you may be unswerving in the cause of our God, which I ask in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Remarks by President George Q. Cannon, Apostle M. Thatcher, Elder George F. Gibbs, and President John Taylor, delivered at the Funeral Services over the remains of Elder John H. Gibbs, held in the Bowery attached to the Meetinghouse, Paradise, Sunday Afternoon, August 24, 1884.

President Geo. Q. Cannon was the first speaker. He said:

I will read from the 6th chapter of the Revelation of St. John, commencing at the 9th verse:

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the testimony which they held:

“And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

“And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”

In the next chapter we find the following:

“And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

“Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen.

“And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

“And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

“For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

If I were to consult my feelings on the present occasion, I would much rather sit still and listen, than to attempt to speak or to give utterance to the feelings which I have had since coming into this shade. But we have assembled together today, to pay our last tribute of respect and honor to the martyred dead, and it is meet and proper that we should control our feelings and endeavor to say something that shall be consolatory to the living, and that shall have the effect to make this lesson an impressive one to all of us, and especially to the young men and young women, the rising generation of this people.

It is not a new thing in the history of the work of the last days for the blood of innocence to be shed; but the frequency of these occurrences does not take away from the anguish and the sorrow, and those poignant feelings that are created by such atrocious acts. We cannot become reconciled to these things sufficiently, fortify ourselves as we may, to escape feeling upon occasions of this character that we are all liable at any time to be called to lay down our lives for the truth’s sake. Whenever our brethren are thus called as sacrifices for the truth, it requires the comforting influence and strength which God alone can give to reconcile us, so that we can bear these blows with equanimity and with the resignation which should characterize people of our profession.

When the Gospel was revealed from heaven in these latter times, it was told to those who received it—not only to Joseph the Seer, but to others who received it from him—that the espousal and advocacy of these principles might cost them their lives, and there is a plain intimation in one of the early revelations to Joseph, that his life might be required. During his lifetime he lived under perpetual attacks from his enemies; not that he lived in dread, but there was constant reason to fear, however, all the days of his life, through the revelation of the truth to him, and the bestowal of the holy Priesthood upon him, that at any moment he might fall a victim to the rage of those who hated the truth. He never at any time led those who received the Gospel to anticipate that their fate would be any better than his, for every man and woman was taught that if the principles were what we believed them to be, that which he testified they were, it was worthy of their lives, and of every other sacrifice they might be called to make. Men, therefore, in espousing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in these last days, espouse it, as a general rule, with a full knowledge of the consequences involved therein. They have not been told that their pathway would be strewn with flowers, that they would be surrounded with ease and comfort, and that they would have friends on every hand and be popular; but where faithful Elders have gone out preaching the Gospel, they have gone declaring unto the inhabitants of the earth that the same sacrifice which had been called for in ancient days, when Jesus communicated His Gospel unto men—that the same sacrifices might still, in all probability, be demanded of them, and they have been told not to hold their lives dear unto them, but for the sake of the great riches which God had bestowed, and the great and glorious reward that He had promised, they should be willing, if it were necessary, and God should require such sacrifice at their hands, to lay down their lives for the truth. And it was well that these teachings were given to the people; for the early history of our Church, and every step of its progress, has been marked with suffering, and in many instances with blood; the sacrifice of earthly ties, the sacrifice of homes, of friends, of old associations, of kindred, of native land—these sacrifices have been made by all who have connected themselves and remained connected with the Zion of our God. And besides these, not infrequently has it been the case that bodily torture has been inflicted through the attacks and the malicious spirit of those who have hated the truth, and not infrequently life itself has been given for the cause of God, or as a testimony to the truth of that cause which He has established. Since our arrival, however, in these valleys, it has been hoped that we would escape the fierce intolerance of the wicked. Years elapsed after our reaching here during which we dwelt in peace and free from annoyance and from the attacks of the wicked. Our Elders have traveled through various nations of Europe, and though persecuted and treated with contumely at times, still blood has not been shed. No men have been destroyed among the nations of Europe who have gone forth bearing the message of life and salvation.

The Lord in His mercy of late years has moved upon His servants to send the messengers of life and salvation to our own nation, and they have gone according to God’s command, to warn the people of the impending judgments and calamities that are about to be poured out upon this nation in common with other nations. The Elders have labored with great zeal, and in many instances with great success, and have been the means of carrying the glad tidings of salvation to very many souls, and this success has seemed to arouse the powers of darkness. Embittered by the falsehoods that have been circulated concerning us, men have sought to stop the onward progress of the work by seeking to destroy those who were its messengers and ministers. We have heard frequently of mobs, especially in the Southern States, where the Elders have labored for some years past. Occasionally they have resorted to violence, and in several instances have made attempts at taking life, and before this recent massacre, succeeded, at least, in killing one Elder—Joseph Standing, in the State of Georgia. It seems as though the adversary has been determined that if he could not stop the progress of this work in any other way he would drown it in blood. It is due to the providence of God, and to His wonderful and preserving care that we who live in these valleys have been preserved in peace. The credit of our preservation from blood—that is, from war and consequent bloodshed—is due to our Great Creator; for if the adversary, who is the great antagonist of our God and of His work, could have had his way, our peaceful valleys would have been drenched in the blood of innocence. He who opposes this work does not hesitate at any means to stop its progress. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he has sought by every means in his power, by the circulation of wicked, abominable falsehoods against the Latter-day Saints, to stir up men to bloodshed and to cause them to look upon us as a people whose death would be well merited and against whom acts of violence of the most terrible character could be committed and be entirely justifiable. It is not due to Satan, it is not due to his mercy nor his forbearance, that we have thus escaped, but it is due to the mercy and the overruling providence and the fatherly care of our Great Creator, that we who are here today with the rest of our brethren and sisters who are assembled in the various places of worship at this present time—that we have been and still are preserved. A feeling has gone abroad, in consequence of the lies that the father of lies has propagated, which causes thousands of people to think that if the Latter-Saints, or Mormons, could be blotted out, it would be a most praiseworthy and justifiable act, and it is that spirit, engendered by that being, emanating from that source, which has caused the death of these our beloved brethren for whom we mourn today. That spirit of murderous hate, unmerciful, cruel, brutal, when it takes possession of the heart of man, leaves no room for a gleam of compassion to enter. It was that spirit which caused the crucifixion of the most glorious Being, the holiest, the purest, and the best that ever trod the earth, that gentle Being, the Son of God—it was that spirit which crucified Him in the most ignominious manner; that spirit brought Him to that cruel death, as it had done the prophets that had preceded Him. Pitiless as the grave is that spirit, the spirit of the evil one, when it takes possession of man, transforming those who naturally might be compassionate, who naturally might have hearts open to the appeals of mercy—transforming them into demons of hate, filled with an unquenchable desire for the blood of their fellow men. It is that spirit which has caused murders in every age from the day that the blood of Abel stained the soil of the virgin earth until this brutal massacre through which the soil of the State of Tennessee has been drenched and stained with innocent blood. We need not wonder at these occurrences when we read the history of the past and that which was done to the Son of God Himself; and to the Prophets and Apostles, and in our own day, to the martyred Joseph, the Prophet of God, and his brother Hyrum. We do not depend upon tradition for our ideas respecting Joseph and Hyrum. They were known to us. Their actions are familiar, their efforts and all their labors we know and understand, and we know how innocent they were. We know that every pulsation of their hearts beat with love for humanity, and for the salvation of their race, as did the heart of this our beloved brother, John H. Gibbs, when it was living. Every pulsation was filled with love for God, and a desire for the salvation of God’s children upon the earth. But towards such as these, the spirit of the evil one has no mercy. Nothing less than blood will satisfy, and it has been so from the very beginning.

Whom shall we pity today? This murdered victim and the other murdered victim whose body has gone to his home? For whom shall we shed tears and our hearts swell with pity? Shall it be for these our murdered brethren, these beloved ones, these sainted martyrs, who died in the discharge of duty, serving their God, and seeking earnestly for the salvation of their fellow men? Shall our hearts swell with pity for them and their fate? No. There is no room for pity in my heart for them. I feel thankful to God, not that they were slain, but that they were courageous enough to die for the truth which the Savior died for, for which the blood of Joseph and for which the blood of all the martyrs from the days of righteous Abel until today has been shed. For whom, then, does my pity go out? For the murderers of these holy men. For them my pity is deep, is pro– found, is inexpressible. Is not this strange that I should have feelings of this kind for the murderers?

When I think of their future; of the penalty they have brought upon themselves; when I think how blindly they have been led by the adversary of their souls, who was a murderer from the beginning, who rebelled against our Father in Heaven, and is the great enemy of the human race, and who seeks to destroy the children of our God—when I think of them I am filled with pity for their fate. As for these victims—this our beloved brother Gibbs, and our beloved Brother Berry—we know what is in store for them. They have received, or rather will receive crowns of glory, immortal glory. They will be the companions of the Gods. They will sit down with Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant. By their deaths they will secure an entrance into the society of the Prophets and the Apostles, and the martyrs, the noblest, the holiest, the best, the most exalted of our race. There is no glory that God can give to man, there is no exaltation which God can bestow upon man that these our martyred brethren will not receive. Untrammeled now, having passed the gates of death, their tabernacles having been destroyed, their spirits have gone to the paradise of God. There awaits them continual progress. They have entered upon a career of never ending glory, a career which will never terminate throughout the endless ages of eternity; for they have done all that mortal men could do, they have been willing to lay down their lives for the truth, and greater love no man can exhibit than this. Therefore, so far as they are concerned, aside from the atrocity of the deed which brought them to so untimely a death, aside from the poignant sorrow that must fill the hearts of the widows, the orphan children, the parents and brothers and sisters and friends—aside from these there is no cause for grief today, not for these brethren at least; but as I have said, Woe to the men! woe to the men! who have committed this ghastly crime. I cannot contemplate their future without my blood being chilled, and being appalled at the damnation that awaiteth all such individuals.

My brethren and sisters, I pray God to make this an example for all of us. I say to the young men of Israel—Here before you is an example worthy of your imitation. What is death? Shall it be feared? Death comes to all, the coward as well as the brave man. The coward has to meet his fate, and why should we shrink from it? A few days or a few weeks or months or years, at the most will only elapse until death will overtake all. Let us seek as a people to be prepared to meet death, to flinch not from the path of duty, from the path of honor, from the path that God has marked out for us to walk in; let us tread it unfalteringly, and trust to God to preserve and deliver us, or if it be His wisdom to permit our blood to be mingled with the blood of other martyrs in testimony of the truth, may we be prepared therefor.

God bless you all, my brethren and sisters, and fill you with the Holy Spirit. God bless and comfort the hearts of these mourners, and fill them with the consolation of the everlasting Gospel, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Apostle Moses Thatcher was the next speaker. He said: I hope, my brethren and sisters, to have your faith and prayers to assist me in the few remarks I may make. There are occasions, and this seems to be one of them, when silence would seem even more impressive than words; there are times when it is difficult to express the thoughts we have in our hearts. Yet I know by the words which have been expressed by President Cannon, that when the Spirit of God dictates, much can be said to comfort the living. As for the dead all is well with them—that is, with the brethren who have sealed their testimony with their blood. You have heard what will be their glory, and to that testimony I will add mine. When we clearly understand, by the light of the Spirit of God, what martyrs for the truth will receive, death fails to create fear in our minds. It is at other times, when surrounded with the trials and temptations of life, when yielding to weaknesses and sin, that we become disqualified for that high glory about which President Cannon has been speaking. To my mind there is nothing here to be sorry about, save to mourn with the relatives and friends of the martyred ones. Their calling and election has been made sure, and it will be said unto them—“enter thou into my rest: having been faithful in a few things thou shalt be made ruler over many.” Our brethren were faithful unto the end, faithful unto death, to such, therefore, will be given a crown of life. Having been slain for the testimony of Jesus, they will be able to pass by the angels and the Gods to their inheritance of heights and depths, powers and principalities and endless lives. They have been valiant and true unto the end of their days. Stricken down by the hand of the assassin, yet courageously meeting their fate. What can be a more glorious death? When we come to look at the works of God, and witness the manifestation of His power, we see that every– thing that is excellent, everything that is desirable, comes forth from the midst of much tribulation. Even the jewels of the earth, and the riches thereof—the minerals, the gold and silver for which men thirst, and for which they have been willing to sacrifice life—are brought forth out of what seems to us the agonies of nature. And so in regard to violent deaths such as our brethren have suffered. In passing through such a trial bravely, faithfully, and truly, they have become jewels in the hands of God, and will continue to progress throughout the endless ages of eternity. It was not that they had violated the laws of the land; it was not that they had broken any law of the State in which they were when their lives were taken by the enemies of righteousness, by ungodly, wicked and murderous men: but as President Cannon has truly observed, it was because they were pure, it was because they were righteous, it was because they were the servants of God, that they were despised and killed. There is no hatred so intense as that which springs from and is begotten of envy and malice. The human heart readily forgives and extenuates the crimes of the wicked. Men have compassion for the ungodly; but there was no pity in the hearts of those who took away the life of Jesus, of Joseph the Prophet, and of Hyrum his brother, who planted their feet on the rock of eternal truth, and stood firm while the waves of prejudice, hatred and malice, inspired by the adversary, who was a murderer from the beginning, continued to advance until their blood saturated the soil. The same spirit is in the midst of the earth today. It has caused the taking away of the lives of these brethren. I remember distinctly the impressions that were made upon the minds of some of our people when they first learned of the organization of certain secret societies in the east, organized with the intention, no doubt, of taking life; and it is my strong belief and my firm opinion that the body which lies before us today, lifeless, is the result of the operations of the secret societies which, we have been forewarned, would be organized in the latter times. It may be that others will be called to wear the crowns of martyrs. Certainly that passage of Scripture which was read in our hearing today, would lead us so to think. But what matters it to us? We have received the testimony of Jesus. We have received the light of the everlasting Gospel. We have received that which will give us influence and power and dominion and glory and endless happiness. Why, then, should we care for the lengthening or shortening of our days here in this mortal condition. If we are faithful and true to God, and can die with the harness on as Brother John H. Gibbs did, it will be well with us. If we can meet death as he met it, while in the line of his duty, and in the full love of God, our salvation will be sure. Had he not been successful as a preacher of righteousness, there would have been no disposition to take his life; but the fact that he had brought forty-one souls to baptism, through which they were made citizens of the Kingdom of God, created the malice that could only be satisfied or checked by the shedding of precious blood. It is not for us to mourn over things ordained as a witness that God is with us. The cords of Zion are being lengthened, her stakes are being strengthened, and the Kingdom of God is gaining day by day, and year by year in the midst of the world. Satan will contest the ground inch by inch. We may expect to meet him in every form, at home as well as abroad. We should, therefore, be diligent and faithful, prudent, humble and wise. We should in all things be faithful to God, our heavenly Father. We should consecrate ourselves, our time, and all we have unto Him, holding ourselves ready to fulfill missions in every part of the habitable globe. If the world imagine that the killing of our brethren will have a tendency to stop the progress of the everlasting Gospel, they are much mistaken. They have tried that before. When Cain lifted up his hand and slew his brother, he thought, no doubt, that it would stop the progress of righteousness. And so with those who slew Joseph the Prophet; so with those who crucified the Savior. It has always been the tactics of the adversary of righteousness, he has always sought to destroy life; but instead of this having a tendency to retard the progress of righteousness and truth, as the wicked expect, according to the testimony of those who labor at home and abroad, it has a contrary effect. And I am well satisfied that the blood of these brethren will have in its effect the same result as that produced by the blood of Brother Standing, who was slain in the State of Georgia. Many people will be led to inquire about a religion the advocacy of which costs life, and thus through their death many may be brought to a knowledge of the truth, and obey the Gospel, that otherwise might not. And I feel without lengthening my remarks to say, God bless the wife and children, relatives and friends of the departed. It is well with him. We have here but the casket. The jewel, the spirit, is in the paradise of God, associating with those who, like him, have died martyrs to the cause of truth. May the peace of God rest down upon all the people throughout Zion. I pray that we may be more faithful, more devoted to the cause of truth in the future than we have been in the past. I can say that I am satisfied that in no sense will the taking away of these brethren retard the progress of the work in the world. Our young Elders will not be less willing to go and preach the Gospel in the future than they have been in the past. They will be willing to go to the State of Tennessee if they are called to go there, or to any state in the Union; for they fear not those who can kill the body, but him only who can destroy both body and soul in hell. This is the feeling of every true Latter-day Saint. We have no disposition to rail against those who did this bloody deed, for they are in the hands of God. Where He dwells they never can come, worlds without end. They will be numbered among the murderers, liars, etc., outside the gates of the holy city. Let peace rest upon the people. May the blessing of the Almighty abide with the wives and children of the departed. Let our hearts mourn with them as far as it is consistent with the lives of Latter-day Saints. Let us in the future bestow upon them, in memory of the departed, that attention which is due to them by reason of the departure of their husbands and fathers, and thus show by our works that we are the friends of the widow and orphan.

Elder George F. Gibbs next addressed the congregation. He said: I have desired, my brethren and sisters, to offer a very few remarks to endeavor to express some feelings that have crowded themselves upon my mind since the arrival of the body of my brother. I will here re– mark that from the first news we received that he was among those who were slain, nothing but a peaceful feeling has animated the breasts of his family and immediate friends. So in this respect I am thankful to say, I am in perfect accord with the remarks which President Cannon has offered. There is one thing, however, which has touched me very keenly, and that is the honor which has been shown to my brother in connection with those who fell with him. And here I would say that we are not unmindful of the fact that it is not because it was the body of John H. Gibbs, or “Johnny” Gibbs as he was familiarly called, but because he was among others who represented the cause of God in the earth. All along the line until our arrival here great honor and respect have been done him. Flowers have been put upon the casket by hands unknown to us. Today, a decoration in the shape of a crown, was placed on the casket. I was impressed with a peculiar feeling when that particular decoration was presented, a feeling that led to the inquiry, Is my brother really worthy to receive this token of honor conferred on the Holy Priesthood? To do justice to the feeling that prompts this inquiry, I would say that from intimate conversations I have had with him I am gratified to say that I do firmly believe that in his simple and humble way he does merit the honor thus conferred upon him. And I would also say I am satisfied with my brother’s life, and am honored in his death. We are not unmindful of the fact that it has cost money to bring the remains of my brother here. We are not unmindful of the fact either that it required courage on the part of our brethren, Brother Roberts and others who assisted him, and we gratefully acknowledge the services done us in this respect. We thank President Taylor, as the representative of the Church, for using his influence, and the means of the Church, to have this done. In conclusion, I thank God my Heavenly Father, that my brother is only one among hundreds and thousands of others, who are ready to go forth and represent the truths of heaven amidst danger and at the sacrifice of life. It was soon after the Anti-Mormon league in Cleveland was formed, that my brother wrote and told me that the influence of that league had reached the Southern States. He stated that he had met that influence in conversation with and in the presence of mobocratic men, and I have no doubt whatever as to the correctness of Brother Thatcher’s remarks in this respect. I pray God to bless the faithful; I pray God our Heavenly Father to bless and sustain His Holy Priesthood and direct them, and that we, my brethren and sisters, may know enough to follow and do as we are bid. This is my humble prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen.

President John Taylor was the next speaker. He said: It makes me feel sorrowful to see a gathering similar to that which we now witness, and to know that good men’s lives are not safe from the attacks of religious bigots and men who are governed by wrong influence. I and a number of my brethren have been traveling quite extensively through some of our Northern Stakes. We arrived last night in Logan a good deal fatigued with our labors, for we have visited, I think, if not every settlement, nearly every settlement in the northern Stakes since we left home, and we had planned to have the various settlements in this end of the Stake of Cache visited today. I had proposed myself to take a little rest; but on hearing of this event I felt a strong desire to unite my sympathies with those of the bereaved, for there were several emotions that agitated my mind; first, to express my feelings of grief for the perpetration of such terrible acts, then to condole with the family in their poignant grief; mingled with this was a feeling of joy and satisfaction pertaining to the destiny and to the present position of the deceased. All things are not as they appear to us. God has certain inscrutable designs and purposes to bring to pass in the earth. He has set His hand to accomplish these things, and many of you that are here and now hear my voice, have become the honored instruments in the hands of the Lord, of proclaiming those principles which God has revealed in the interests of our common humanity in the world in which we live. Those principles though fraught with the truths of eternal intelligence, eternal life, and all the blessings associated therewith, are not comprehended by the human family. But that makes no difference to us. We have our labors to perform, and we propose to accomplish that which God has designed in relation thereto, in the interests of our fellow men, who are the children, all of them, of our Heavenly Father, for He is the God and the Father of the spirits of all flesh. Furthermore, He has given to every man of every color, of every nation, and of every creed, and to people of no creed—He has given to them all a portion of His Spirit to profit withal. But many of them give way to other influences and yield obedience to the powers of darkness, as you have heard stated, and when men give themselves up to these influences, and quench that better feeling which God has planted in the bosom of all men, they by and by become prepared for any and every spirit that may present itself to their minds; especially do they follow a spirit of antagonism to God our Heavenly Father, and to those who espouse His cause, and who are really the best and most philanthropic people that dwell upon the face of the earth—a people who go forward with less selfishness, and with a more single eye to the glory of God, and to the benefit of mankind, than any other people who tread the footstool of our Heavenly Father today. It is, as Brother Gibbs has remarked, an honor to be engaged in a work of this kind; and despite the powers of darkness, despite the enmity of man, despite the schemes of oppression that are set on foot by men who ought to know better, despite the various evils that exist in the world, we still possess the same sentiment that was enunciated by Jesus, and would like to proclaim it to all nations, “Peace on earth and good will to men.” But men can only obtain permanent peace by following after righteousness, by being governed by the principles of truth, by associating themselves with God our Heavenly Father, by acknowledging His hand, and by submitting to His law, to His rule, to His dominion, and to His authority. Hence Jesus taught His disciples to pray—“Thy kingdom come.” Why? “That Thy will may be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” And these are the principles which we as a people are trying to promulgate among the nations of the earth under the command of the Great Eloheim, who has told us, as He told His disciples in former years, to proclaim this Gospel unto every creature, and it was in obedience to that command that this our beloved brother met his fate. That is all right—all right so far as he is concerned. As has been said, it is of very little account to many of us whether our lives be long or short on this earth, but it is a very grave consideration whether these lives are spent in the service of God or not. Those who have done like Brother Gibbs and Brother Berry, his fellow martyr, brought many to a knowledge of the truth, shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Therefore, being the friends of God, God is their friend. Paul, in reflecting upon these principles said: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” And who else? “Not to me only, but unto all them also that love” the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Brothers Gibbs and Berry have gone to those souls that Brother Cannon read about in your hearing—souls that are beneath the altar. They cried out, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” That was uttered years and years ago, when John the Revelator was banished as a slave to the Isle of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God, the same testimony that has been delivered by these our brethren, and for which they have suffered. It was said of John, that he was dipped into a caldron of boiling oil, but they did not take his life, for God was with him, and God sustained him, as He did the three Hebrew children when they were cast into the fiery furnace, and the lambent flames that played around them ceased to have power to burn. So John was preserved. But he, under the inspiration of the Almighty, and filled with the light and intelligence of heaven, could gaze upon the position of things in the eternal worlds, and saw the souls of those who had been slain for the testimony of Jesus, and the word of God, etc. They were told that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. God is manipulating things in His own way. His purposes are rolling forth. He is moving in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. His servants who have been called to lay down their lives, will come forth with crowns upon their heads and reign upon the earth. Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” When the wickedness and corruptions of men shall have provoked the anger of the Almighty in these latter days as they did in the days before the flood, the Lord will come out of His hiding place to vex the nations of the earth, and then there will be a time of trouble, a time of sorrow such as has not been from the beginning of the world, and we are told, never shall be again. Men may think they can trample upon human rights and upon correct principles, and do things which are contrary to the law and order of God, and to the principles of truth, integrity, equity, justice, and righteousness; but they cannot do this with impunity, for the Lord has said that He will smite the wicked, and with the breath of His nostrils He will slay them. The earth shall be emptied of the wicked, and a place prepared, in the due time of the Lord, for those who fear Him, as He has designed from before the foundation of the world.

And in regard to these matters, I feel sorry for this sister, the wife of the deceased. I feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for her little family and for the family of his fellow sufferer. What shall we do? We will help take care of them, will we not? I think we will. And we will talk more about some of these matters at another time. We sometimes pray for the Lord to bless the widow and the fatherless. Now there is an idea which I have always entertained, and that is, I never would ask God to do a thing that I would not do myself; and we shall have to contrive in some way for the accomplishment of this object. About Brother Gibbs who lies there—that is all right: I might have lain in the same position a good many years ago, if it had been the will of God, but it seems it was not. I was shot at, and hit oftener than Brother Gibbs; but my life was preserved; God protected me. I was with Joseph and Hyrum when they were murdered in Carthage jail, and I never was sorry that I was there. I would not have been absent from a scene of that kind. I would not want to forsake my Brother or Brethren in difficulty; never. Well, what of it? Suppose I had been killed as Joseph and Hyrum were, why, I was in very good company. Joseph and Hyrum were servants of the living God, and I was trying to serve Him in my humble way. And if we had all been killed it would not have made much difference: would it? I suppose it was necessary for me to stay a little while longer; all right; and I am willing to stay as long as the Lord wants me, and to go whenever He wants me. But I, in common with Joseph and Hyrum and Brother Gibbs and others, have within me the principles of eternal life. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand in the latter days on the earth, and these eyes shall behold Him. I know that God rules and reigns in this nation and among the nations of the earth, and that He will direct all things, according to the counsels of His will. I know that the work which God has commenced in these last days will continue to go forth despite the powers of darkness and all the fiends of hell. Though they are arrayed against it, God and the hosts of Heaven are on the side of Israel, and Israel will prevail. This work will continue to spread and increase until the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our God and His Christ, and He will reign forever. It is for us as Latter-day Saints, to live our religion, to observe the laws of God, to be humble, faithful and diligent; to be men of honor, truth and integrity; to seek to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are His, and to perform any labor that He may require at our hands, that when we shall get through with the scenes of time and sense, we may inherit a crown which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in the heavens for us. So we will not mourn like those who have no hope, but we will put our trust in the living God. And I say unto the widow of the deceased, God bless you, and God bless your children, and God bless all the honest in heart who are trying to fear God and work righteousness; and instead of feeling enmity in our hearts towards our persecutors and those who seek our lives, we will try to entertain the feeling that burned in the bosom of Jesus, who, when expiring upon the cross, cried out, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” But God will not forgive all these men who permit and perpetrate these wicked and atrocious acts. They will have to pay the debt which they have contracted. It is for us to go on, and perform the various labors and duties that devolve upon us. God has blessed us with many blessings. He has blessed us with the rich blessings of eternal life. He has brought us into covenant with Himself. He has taught us how to save ourselves, our wives, our children, our posterity and our progenitors, and He will teach us many more great and precious principles associated with the Gospel of the Son of God.

After what has been so well said by others, time will not permit me to protract my remarks.

I am happy that it has fallen to my lot to join with you in these funeral services, and I am much pleased to see so large a gathering to pay respect to the memory of the honored dead. I am also very much pleased at the action which has been taken by Brother Joseph F. Smith and his brethren who have recommended that memorial services be held today in all the different Stakes of Zion; so that while we are meeting here, the tens of thousands of Israel are meeting all through the land, and thus we are showing, as Brother Gibbs has remarked, respect for the memory of the dead.

I also most heartily sympathize with the Condor family who have suffered such a heavy bereavement in Tennessee. And I should have been pleased to have made some further remarks upon this subject, had time permitted; suffice it now to say that they have mingled their blood with those honorable men who have died for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God.

Brother Gibbs has referred to the means furnished to bring the bodies home. That is all right. I was out of reach at the time—that is out of the road of the telegraphic lines—but I was very much pleased when I learned of the arrangement that had been made; with which I heartily coincide. That is a matter of duty always to look after the living and after the dead, to look after the widow and fatherless, and to fulfill all the duties and responsibilities devolving upon us. God bless you and lead you in the paths of life; and I pray God the Eternal Father that when we shall all of us have passed away from this earth, and when the resurrection trump shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed, that we may so have lived, that like our Brother, we will come forth, in the first resurrection, and participate in the reward of the just in the Celestial Kingdom of our God, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

President George Q. Cannon again arose and said: Before closing our memorial services, I think it but proper, and indeed I intended, if my mind had not been led off in another direction—that is if I spoke at all—to have alluded to the young men Martin Condor and J. Reilly Hudson, who were killed at the same time that our brethren were killed, and also to Sister Condor, who was wounded. These young men, so far as I can learn, have behaved heroically, throughout all the persecutions to which the Elders have been exposed in that region. I am told they have accompanied the Elders upon a number of occasions ready to defend them to the best of their ability, and have been willing, apparently, to risk their lives in defense of the Elders, who have brought them the truth. They have also fallen victims of the hellish hate of the adversaries of truth, both of them being shot and killed, and I feel that their names should be had in honorable remembrance in Zion, as well as the name of their mother and of their family, for their kindness and their bravery, in the cause of truth, and their names should not perish nor be forgotten; and in days to come, when opportunity offers, services should be rendered for them, that they cannot render for themselves; those ordinances which God has provided for the salvation of His children, they should be attended to in their behalf. I trust their memories will live, and their names be handed down in honorable remembrance with the names of our brethren who left here as missionaries. Though they were new converts, comparatively speaking, yet they have shown all the zeal, all the devotion, and all the courage for the truth that could be expected of those who had lived for years in the Church. One of them, I think, is said to have been only 19 years of age—Martin Condor—and I pray God to bless that family, bless those who survive, and have them in remembrance today; that as we remember our brethren who went forth from our midst, as bearers of life and salvation, so may we remember the others in common with them. Also Mr. Garrett, who lived on the same creek, and in the same neighborhood, where Brother Jones, I believe, was stopping at the time of this dreadful occurrence. He also should have our blessings and be had in kindly remembrance in our midst.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in Smithfield, Cache County, Saturday morning, August 23, 1884.

We are in a very peculiar position as a people. Our position is unlike that of any other people upon the face of the earth that we have any knowledge of. God has communicated His mind and will unto the children of men, and it has been made known unto us. Others have heard it as well as we; but we are distinguished from them by our reception of this word, our willingness to obey it, and hence we are gathered together as we are in this place and in other settlements which the Saints have formed, not for the purpose, in the first place, of making money and bettering our condition, but for the purpose of keeping the commandments of God and walking in accordance with the revelations that He has given unto us. We have been gathered together by extraordinary displays of power. The world has not seen and cannot see these manifestations, for the reason that their eyes are closed by unbelief, and their hearts hardened from the same cause. God’s providences are not perceived by them. They do not distinguish the hand and the power of God in the events that are taking place. Nevertheless, we have been gathered together. Everyone who is here that has been brought from the nations has been brought by the manifestations, it may be said, of miraculous power. He has accomplished in our case or cases, that which has been foreseen by the holy prophets from the beginning. It is a most wonderful work, the gathering of this people together, as they are here this day in these mountains. The manner in which the spirit of God has been poured out upon the people who have received the Gospel, and the manner in which they have been moved upon to forsake their old homes and their old associations, and part with their friends and relatives, and move among a people with whom they were not acquainted, and to a land of which they had but a little knowledge—this is the wonder that is being wrought in the midst of the nations of the earth. Many people ask for miracles, and they plead with the Elders when they go out to show them a sign to prove to them that they are indeed the authorized servants of God. That which we behold in these mountains today is one of the greatest signs, is one of the greatest miracles which has ever been seen or exhibited among the children of men. You may read all the records that we have, either sacred or profane, and there is nothing that approaches this work in which we are engaged, and that which has been accomplished by the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the people among the various nations. Where in the history of our race has there been such a thing taken place as that which we witness? Where from the beginning has a people been gathered out from all the nations of the earth—moved upon by one common impulse, a simultaneous impulse, an impulse of the same character, impelling them in every land where they have received the everlasting Gospel, to gather to a strange land as the Latter-day Saints are being gathered to this land? No magnet ever drew or attracted to itself that to which it has affinity, with greater power than has the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ drawn to it from the midst of the various nations those who have an affinity for the truth. It has been irresistible in its effects. No sooner has the sound saluted the ears of the elect of God throughout all these United States, throughout Canada, throughout the various islands of the sea, upon the continent of Europe, and in far-off Asia, Africa and Australia—no sooner have the glad tidings of salvation been proclaimed by the servants of God, under the auspices of the Almighty, than there has sprung up in the hearts of those who have thus heard the truth an irrepressible and irresistible desire to leave their native lands, and to identify themselves with the people of God in these remote regions, in these Rocky Mountains. To me, when I look at it, this seems the most wonderful work that has been accomplished among the children of men from the beginning. There is nothing that we can read of in God’s dealings with the children of men that compares in magnitude and in its wondrous effects with this work with which we are identified. And yet men ask for an evidence respecting the truth of this work! They ask for signs and miracles, as though there is any miracle which could be wrought in our sight that would compare in the very least degree with this great and miraculous work that is being wrought under our very eyes, and which we ourselves are helping to bring to pass. It is not as though the people of one nation were gath– ered out, or the people of one locality were moved upon; but in every land, in every language among every race and in every nationality throughout the entire earth, from pole to pole, from east to west, from north to south, wherever the Elders of the Church have carried this Gospel in the last days, and the sound thereof has saluted the ears of the children of men, they have been moved upon in this most extraordinary manner, and have traversed sea and land, without hesitation, without faltering, without doubt, and have come and associated themselves together in the place that God has designated as the place of gathering. Most wonderfully has God fulfilled the promises which He made in ancient days to His servants concerning this latter-day dispensation, and most wonderfully has He poured out His spirit and His power upon the inhabitants of the earth to cause them to contribute by their actions to the fulfillment of these remarkable predictions that were uttered thousands of years ago. There is not a Latter-day Saint within the sound of my voice this morning who has been thus moved upon but is a witness for God in this matter, and is a living evidence of what God has done and is doing, because each one knows the character of the influence that has operated upon his or her mind to bring to pass this action which has resulted in the gathering of themselves and the rest of the people together.

Now, my brethren and sisters, there has been a purpose in this. God has not come Himself from heaven and revealed Himself with His Son Jesus Christ for naught. God has not sent angels from heaven for naught. God has not poured out this Spirit to which I have referred upon all the inhabitants of the earth who have been willing to receive the truth for naught. There is a purpose that is as old as man himself, and as the earth itself, in thus bringing us together in this capacity in these valleys, and that purpose has not been that we should break the laws of God, or that we should become identified again with the world from whence we have been gathered. That certainly has not been the object that God has had in view in accomplishing these great works; but it has been that we should become a distinct people, a peculiar people, a people whom He could use according to His mind and will, and through whom He could accomplish His mighty, His marvelous, and His wondrous purposes. That is the object He has had in view in bringing us together—to separate us from Babylon. It is for that purpose that the spirit has rested upon the people, under the influence of which they have gathered out to these valleys, so admirably adapted as a home for the Latter-day Saints, so secluded from the rest of the world that they have been reserved until this late day for us as a people to inhabit. If God had designed otherwise He would have let us remain scattered among the nations of the earth; He would never have gathered us out; we would never have had that spirit resting so powerfully, and, as I have said, so irresistibly upon us; we would have remained in the lands where the Gospel found us and our fathers; we would still be connected with the people from which we have been gathered. But this was not the design. Plainly written, as plainly written as the sunlight which we behold, has been the design of our God in connection with the gathering of this people, a people separate from every other people on the face of the earth—a God-chosen people, bearing His name, having within us the Holy Ghost that He has poured out to make us His people—distinct from every other people and nation—composed of people of every nationality, yet blended together by the power of the Holy Ghost, and made one people with a oneness that is not known among peoples or nations of one common origin.

Ought we not, in view of these facts which are so well known to us, with which we are so familiar—ought we not to place ourselves in the position and continue to operate in the position in which God designs? Shall we resist these wonders that are wrought in our behalf? Shall we, having been thus elevated and gathered together, be intractable and resist the purposes of God which are so definitely and so wonderfully made manifest in our own experience? If we do, then condemnation of the most dreadful character will rest down upon us; because we cannot say that we have been ignorant of what God has done. As I have said, each Latter-day Saint who has been thus gathered, has a testimony within himself and herself, that this work is from God; that man did not create this desire within us to gather together and to become identified with the people of God. It is not a spirit that came from man; it is not a spirit that diffuses itself throughout the earth at the command of man; but it has come from God Himself; it has descended from Him and rested through His power upon all who have received it, and each one who has been thus gathered is a witness of this. We should, then, place ourselves continually in the position that God designs we shall act in, and be submissive to His will.

We have a foe opposed to us that is the most wily, that is the most cunning, that is the most determined, that is the most unscrupulous, that can be imagined, and that foe is one who was once a great angel holding authority in the presence of God. He was our brother, sitting side by side with our Redeemer, having equal opportunities with Him. But he rebelled. He turned against the Father, because he could not have his own way. He determined that he would overthrow the throne of his Father, and engaged in a rebellion to destroy his plans, and because he was not successful he has sought from that day until this day to destroy the work of the Father, and not only to destroy the work of the Father, but to destroy every-one who would listen to the counsel of the Father. Over this earth he has wielded for generations great sway: his dominion has been almost unquestioned, and he has imagined that he would gain supremacy in the earth, and be successful in preventing the Father from fulfilling his designs concerning the earth. Therefore, he has sought by every means within his power to destroy the work of the Father. He has shed the most precious blood which has coursed in the veins of mortal man to accomplish his purposes. He has filled the earth with lies. He has circulated every abominable thing. He has stirred up the children of God one against the other, and has inspired them with the most deadly and hostile sentiments against everything that is holy and pure and godlike. It is only a few days since, inspired by his wicked spirit, innocent brethren of ours were cruelly slain, and if he had the power he would sweep this entire people from the face of the earth. If he could, he would destroy us all, as those Elders were destroyed two weeks ago in Tennessee. It is because he has not the power that he does not do it; it is because our Father and God checkmates him, and restrains him, and overrules his acts that he does not do this. The disposition is there, the willingness is there, the murderous spirit is there, everything is there that is necessary to accomplish this except the power to do it, which God in His providence withholds or controls, so as to prevent its exercise. We know this. The experience of 54 years has taught this to us. We have this kind of a foe to contend against. In view of this, what should be our course? Perfect, implicit, unquestioned obedience to our Father and God. What should be the course of every Latter-day Saint? We should not by thought, by word, by action, by any example, by any influence, lend any assistance to this being that is opposed to our God, and who is our deadly enemy, and the deadly enemy of every son and daughter of God. It is for this purpose that we are gathered together. It is that we may be withdrawn from the influence of Satan. It is that our influence may be on the side of our God in establishing righteousness that we are gathered together. We could not operate in this direction with any degree of success if we were scattered among the nations of the earth. Our influence would be unfelt, it would be lost, it would have no effect. It is only by concentration, it is only by gathering together, that we can accomplish the designs of our Father and God. Look at us today. We do not number 250,000 people in these mountains, and yet where is the people whose influence compares with ours? Where is the people whose acts and whose movements attract the attention that do ours? But scatter us among the nations and what would our influence amount to? It would be unfelt and lost. But God has gathered us together, and He aims to make us a great people. He will preserve His Priesthood in the earth, and we shall be victorious over our enemies, and our children after us will inherit the land and the earth. We are laying the foundation of that kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and the Lord will at last reign undisturbed and unquestioned for 1,000 years. That is the promise of our God to us, and we are engaged in that work today.

[The above was delivered in Smithfield, Cache County, Saturday morning, August 23rd, 1884.]

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in Hyde Park, Saturday afternoon, August 23, 1884.

Every means that it has been possible to use to prevent the Latter-day Saints having peace, and to prevent them enjoying in peace and gladness their religion and the blessings thereof, have been used by our enemies with the utmost care and the utmost determination from the beginning it may be said, but especially during the last 25 years. If our enemies could have their way, those who bear the Priesthood would have no voice in the instruction or direction of the people. Already, as you know, a determined effort has been made to strip us who bear the Priesthood, and who have been forward in keeping the commandments of God, of influence, the influence which has been justly earned during long and faithful service for the benefit of the people, and that attends the exercise of civil and political power. Our enemies thought that this would be a most excellent way of putting us under ban, and judging by the effect that it would have by the operations of such plans among themselves, they fondly hoped that success would attend their efforts, and that the influence of the men, whose fault in their eyes is that they bear the Priesthood, would immediately begin to wane and eventually be broken. This is the disposition of our enemies, who have placed all who have been most forward, as I have said, in keeping the commandments of God in a position where they could not vote, and where they could not hold office, and in this manner making them a proscribed class. They supposed that the young men of the community would rise up and take possession of the offices, throw aside the influence of the older and more experienced people, and inaugurate a new policy in the midst of the Saints. In this manner they hoped that they would redeem, to use their own phraseology—Utah, and that a new order of things would be instituted in the land. This was a very cunningly devised plan, and among other people might have been successful, but among the Saints of God, so far, it has proved utterly futile, and in fact has disappointed and it may be said disgusted the authors of the plan themselves. They have felt disgusted with their own efforts. There have not been wanting, however, some few persons who would have liked to join hands with our enemies in this plan. Such persons would not have been averse to having the men who founded this commonwealth, and who principally helped to make it that which it is today—the admiration of all unprejudiced people—relegated to the background, and a younger class, who would affiliate with our declared enemies, take possession of the reins of government in this Territory, and manage affairs, so that they would be more in accord with the general sentiments, as it is said, of the nation. This feeling has been confined to very few, and has not exhibited itself to any extent.

Notwithstanding every effort which has been made, I am happy to say that we today are still the free people we were. The leading men of the community have not lost their influence among the Latter-day Saints. The Saints as a body have stood firm in their determination to be guided by the counsel which God has had to give, and it is very delightful to see the feeling which there is among the Latter-day Saints in all the settlements that we visit, to see the union and the love that prevail, and the disposition to hearken unto the will of God as it is manifested by His Holy Spirit from time to time, through those whom He has chosen to lead and guide His people. There will be wanting no end of effort, however, to accomplish the ends which our enemies seek for. There is a great hatred among the children of men—and they do not themselves know why they have this hatred, but there is a great and undying hatred among the children of men against the Priesthood of the Son of God, a jealousy of the power that Priesthood wields, and in our Territory they are constantly seeking by every means within their reach to weaken the influence of the Priesthood, especially among the rising generation. It has been expressed—and frequently expressed—that they would rather see our young men drink, chew and smoke tobacco, gamble and commit whoredoms, and do everything of this kind, in preference to seeing them obedient to the counsels of God, through those whom He has chosen to lead the people. They would rather see this, because, as I have said, they do not know the spirit which animates them. They are not conscious that they are more or less the instruments of a secret and invisible power which operates upon them; that there are influences at work in their minds and around about them which they cannot see, but of which they are the mere tools, so to speak. This power—the power of darkness—is invisible to them. They do not understand this, but, they blindly fight against the power of God, and seek in every way to undermine the influence of the Priesthood of the Son of God. If they could get you to rebel against the Priesthood they would be suited. It would please them immensely if the Latter-day Saints would rise in rebellion against the God of Israel and against the authority that He has placed in His Church.

The struggle that is now going on, so far as this class is concerned, is to destroy the influence of the Priesthood. Our effort is to have the Latter-day Saints throughout all these valleys listen to the counsels of the Priesthood, to be obedient to the Priesthood. The issue is a plain one between us and them. They say they wish you to throw off what they call the yoke of the Priesthood. We say on the contrary it is not a yoke, it is not burdensome, it is a beneficent rule, it is a rule that is pregnant with blessings to the people, and that will bring great rewards to them if they will be obedient to it. This is our statement, and we appeal to the Latter-day Saints as witnesses in our behalf to sustain it. We know, and you know, every Latter-day Saint knows, that God in restoring the everlasting Gospel and the everlasting Priesthood to the earth has brought with them every blessing which man can in reason desire. We have been pleased from the beginning to listen to the Priesthood. Who that is old enough, that can recollect his baptism or her baptism, or their first association with the Church, and their first enjoyment of the truth, whose hearts do not burn today at the recollection of the feeling they had of the sweet and heavenly influence that came to them when they first became acquainted with the everlasting Gospel as preached by the Elders. There was, as it were, a new life opened before them, even the gates of heaven seemed to be opened to them, and they saw the Kingdom of God as they never had seen it, and never had understood it. Truths that they had read carelessly and indifferently, without comprehending them, came to their minds with an assurance, and with a strength and force and power that they never had comprehended previously. And has it not been a source of blessing from that day to the present to the faithful Latter-day Saint? Has not the Gospel come laden with benefits, laden with blessings, fraught with everything that would make men and women happy? Has it not brought peace to us, and joy to our souls? Has it not opened up the future in a light that we never beheld until the Gospel revealed it?

Mankind, at the reestablishment of the Church of Christ, knew nothing about the future. All was dark and gloomy. Death was indeed a leap in the dark to the great majority of mankind. But when the Gospel came it revealed the future. It revealed to us why we were here, and the design God had in view concerning us. Men and women look forward to it, or contemplate it, when brought face to face with it, with resignation and with a degree of joy, because they know they are going to a reward that is assured to them. And so with everything connected with the future. The prospects of the future are made bright and glorious through the revelations of the Gospel, and it has brought, as I have said, peace to our hearts, peace to our habitations, it has made life enjoyable to us. It is most delightful to contemplate existence in the light of the Gospel, and the associations that we have here now through the Gospel, and through the exercise of the power and authority of the Priesthood.

So it is with everything connected with our lives. Let us glance at our temporal prosperity. Our enemies talk about what others would do for us, if they had the opportunity. But what have they done? Look at our cities, towns and villages; examine the manner in which the local government of this Territory has been conducted, the light taxation and every– thing in fact connected with our material progress, and to whom is the credit due for the blessings we enjoy? Is this credit due to those who are seeking to destroy the influence and power of the Priesthood? Certainly not. This settlement of Hyde Park, the settlement of Smithfield, every settlement in fact in this valley has been founded under the auspices or direction of men of experience, whom our enemies denounce, because they hold the Holy Priesthood of the Son of God. If we are lightly taxed, if we are out of debt, if our country is prosperous, it is due directly to the counsels of these men, whose chief offense in the eyes of our enemies is that they are God’s servants, whom He has chosen, and to whom He has given wisdom, to direct and manage affairs.

The prosperity which has attended our people is remarkable, more especially when we consider the yearly influx of poor people. I remember when I was in Europe, the four years I was there, upwards of 13,000 Saints were emigrated, the most of them coming directly to Utah. At present we have an emigration of 2,000 to 2,500 per annum, coming into this Territory from abroad—poor people. Why, there is not another population in the country of our numbers that could absorb so many people as our community does, without there being pauperism all over the land. But there is no pauperism. God has blessed the people in their fields, in their flocks, and in all their labors. They have been greatly prospered, and they will continue to prosper if they continue to listen to the voice of inspiration and hearken to the counsels of the Priesthood of the Son of God.

[The above was delivered in Hyde Park, Saturday afternoon, August 23, 1884.]

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered in the Bowery at Rexburg, Bannock Stake, Idaho, Sunday Afternoon, Aug. 17th, 1884.

I am pleased to have the opportunity of meeting with you in this place, of visiting your homes in these new settlements, and of striking hands and conversing with many of our old friends with whom we have been associated quite a distance from here, and some a very long distance indeed.

As Latter-day Saints we have gathered to these valleys of the mountains. We are assembled together for certain purposes associated with our own individual interests; in other respects for purposes connected with the welfare of our families, of our wives, our children, our husbands, etc. And then, further, we have gathered together as we have done in these mountains to comply with certain requisitions made by the Almighty upon His people in these latter days. We have come here in accordance with a message that he has communicated from the heavens to the inhabitants of the earth. These ideas and feelings are at the foundation of all our movements, of all our acts. We occupy a very peculiar position in the midst of these United States, and also in the world. We differ from others in a great many respects, in our ideas of God, in our religious sentiments, in our social views, and in our relationship with each other, and in many respects in all the leading characteristics of human life and existence pertaining either to this world or to the world that is to come. We assemble here as Latter-day Saints—for it is to these that I am speaking—and I understand the term Latter-day Saint is used in contradistinction to former-day Saints. The Church of Christ existed some 1,800 years ago, when Christ himself was its teacher. He came down from the heavens to teach and instruct the people in the ways of life. Those who believed in Him were baptized in His name for the remission of sins, and they had hands laid upon them for the reception of the Holy Ghost. They were born of the water and of the Spirit, and were made new creatures in Christ Jesus. They were instructed in the principles of the Gospel, and they had placed among them Prophets, Apostles, Pastors, Teachers, Evangelists. We are told that these men were authorized by Jesus to preach the Gospel to all the nations of the earth. We are told that they were to tarry at Jerusalem, until they had received power from on high, notwithstanding all the teachings they had had from the Savior. What was that power? It was the gift of the Holy Ghost. Had they not received it? Not in the sense here implied. What, not those that had been with Jesus? No, I repeat, not in the sense here implied. Jesus emphatically told them that it was necessary He should go away; for if He went not away the Comforter would not come. He instructed His Apostles to teach certain principles that should exist and that ought to prevail among all the human family. But the people have departed from these things. The Gospel put them in possession of the Holy Ghost, which brought things past to their remembrance, led them into all truth, and showed them of things to come. The Savior explained the office of the Holy Ghost. It would enable those who received it to comprehend the past, the present and the future. It would draw aside the curtain of the invisible world, and they would be enabled to gaze through the dark vista of future ages and comprehend the purposes of God, as they rolled forth in all their majesty, glory and power. And then in the church, as I have said, there were placed Prophets, Apostles, Pastors, Teachers, etc., for the perfecting of the Saints, and for the work of the ministry; that men properly qualified and endowed of God, by His Holy Spirit, and ordained and set apart by Him, might go forth as messengers of life and salvation to the nations of the earth. Hence they had their Twelve, their Seventies, their Bishops, and the various officers of the Church. This organization to which I now refer, existed 1,800 years ago, on the continent of Asia, and according to accounts given in the Book of Mormon, a similar organization existed on this continent. Here they had their Twelve, and these Twelve were commissioned to preach the Gospel as the others were on the continent of Asia. Jesus visited them here as He visited the others in Asia, and they were placed under His guidance and direction.

Now, what condition was the world in before the Gospel we now preach was introduced? Many of you older men here—there are not so many old men here as we find in some places—lived when the Gospel was not upon the earth. I did and many others did. Where could we find anything resembling that which was taught by Jesus? Nowhere on the face of the wide earth. Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, etc., were nowhere to be found. Do I know this? I do know it, for I lived in the world at that time. I knew what was going on. I was mixed up with their teachers, and was well acquainted with the different societies and organizations. Did they have the Gospel as laid down in the Scriptures? No. I remember reading with very great interest the remarks of one of the Wesleys—I do not remember now whether it was Charles or John—in some poetry of his: “From chosen Abraham’s seed the new Apostles choose O’er isles and continents to spread the soul reviving news.”

He knew very well that they did not have Apostles, nor those officers that used to exist in the Church, and he felt it keenly, as did many others. I, myself, mixed up with a society of gentlemen before I heard the fullness of the Gospel, who were searching the Scriptures to find out the true way; for we did not find any men who professed to be inspired. We were told that all inspiration had ceased, and yet there were men professing to be called of God to preach the Gospel. Now, that is a very singular thing. How can a man be called of God, if God has ceased to speak? If a man is called of God, he must be called either by the voice or Spirit of God, or by somebody who is authorized of God, and knows something about His ways. If he does not receive his calling in this way, how is he going to get it? There is one other way—that is, if God has had a regular Priesthood upon the earth, unbroken, uncorrupted and uncontaminated, then it might come down from one to another through the different ages. The Church of Rome professes to trace its authority down from the days of the Apostles until the present. But unfortunately there is a Scripture that rather interferes with them and with others, namely: “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.” I will tell you what Joseph Smith told me personally. Said he: “You are going out to preach the Gospel, and if you can find a people anywhere as you wander through the world”—which I have done a great deal, traveled thousands, and I do not know but hundreds of thousands of miles, and mingled with all classes and creeds and con– ditions of men, religious and irreligious, professors and non-professors, Christians and Jews, Gentiles and all classes of people—“if you can find,” said he, “a people anywhere having the doctrines of Christ, you need not baptize them.” But I never found anywhere, wherever I went, any persons holding the doctrines of Christ as taught by Him, with Apostles and Prophets and inspired men under the influence of the Holy Ghost, and with an organization similar to that which was introduced by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore I had to call upon all men everywhere to repent, for I could not find the kind of people Joseph said I need not baptize. Wesley and Whitfield, and going back still further, Luther, Melancthon, Knox, Zwingli, and many other reformers, started what are termed reformations. But what did they do in those reformations? Did they bring back the pure Gospel of Christ? No, they did not, and they did not profess to do it. It is left for some of their admirers to do that for them which they in their day never professed to do. What did they do? They tried to reform abuses that were in the church. Well, what was done by these people? What influence were they under? They were under the influence, more or less, of the Spirit of the living God. But they didn’t have the Gospel, you say? No; but they were not deprived of a portion of the Spirit of the living God on that account. It is a very great error for us to suppose that men throughout the whole world have not been under an influence of that kind more or less. We are told in the Scriptures that God has given unto all men a portion of His Spirit to profit withal, and many men who have followed that Spirit according to the light they have had, have done a great deal of good among men, among whom were Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Wesley, Fletcher, and others in the various churches. Fletcher, I think, was a Church of England minister; so was John Wesley, and many others; then there were others among the Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, etc. They were good men. They sought to do good, and did do good; for he that doeth righteousness is righteous. They followed the leadings of that portion of the Spirit of God which is given to all men to profit withal. They operated in the interests of humanity; introduced many charitable institutions; made provision for the poor and outcast, the lame, and the blind; acted in a very liberal, kind and generous manner. I have known, in my travels, many ladies and gentlemen possessing large fortunes, who spent their time and their means in trying to promote the welfare of humanity. But was that the fullness of the Gospel of the Son of God? No, it was not. Was it right for them to do these things? Yes; for it is always right for all men to do good to their fellow men; to be moral, virtuous, honorable and upright; and notwithstanding the wickedness and crime that exist in these United States, yet there are thousands and millions of good honorable men who desire to do right; but they do not know the truth, and are led astray by men who know not what they say nor what they affirm. If these men had the Gospel with which is associated the gift of the Holy Ghost, it would lead them into all truth as it did in former days. And what is said of circumstances and events that shall transpire in the last days? We are told that it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall bring again Zion, that her watchmen shall see eye to eye. This will be the case when all the people of Zion live their religion, and comply with the requirements of the Lord.

Speaking of good men, I had several gentlemen call upon me just before I left the city. They were Jews. They came from London, or somewhere in that neighborhood. One of them professed to be a lineal descendant of the tribe of Levi, and of the house of Aaron, and I was told by part of the company that he held the legitimate right to the Aaronic Priesthood, and his name agreed with the records we have pertaining to these things. Well, these men were engaged in a very charitable enterprise. They had heard that we had some sympathies with the Jews, and desired to see me and have a talk with me on the subject. They told me about the terrible scenes that had transpired in Russia lately, and the heavy persecutions that their people had endured in that country. They and their friends had subscribed some 80,000 pounds (about $400,000) to assist their persecuted brethren in Russia, and had formed a number of colonies in the United States, and thus delivered a great many from their oppressors. They have purchased large tracts of land, and established their brethren upon them. I told them they had rather missed the place—that they should have taken up Palestine. That, they said, would be all right in its time; they could easily go from this country to Palestine when the time came. I talked with them about a good many principles. I talked about our temples, and said that they would have to build one at Jerusalem, and I told them that I had spoken to Baron Rothschild on this same subject some few years ago, and that he would assist in gathering the people. They said that he had given them some help in connection with the enterprise they now had in hand, and they supposed he would assist in the future.

I speak of these things to show the good feelings that exist among men in many instances. That was certainly a very charitable act for these men to be engaged in. They were Jews and not Christians, neither were they Latter-day Saints. Why, it would be a good work for an infidel to be engaged in—to do good to his fellow men and relieve the oppressed. That is what we believe in—to do good to all men, especially to the household of faith.

It is well for us to remember that we are not the only people God has on the earth. We are told that He is the God and Father of the spirits of all flesh. He is therefore interested in the whole of the human family. The Savior commanded His Apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature. Why? Because the whole of the human family are the sons and daughters of God, and it was proper that they should have the principles of life and salvation presented to them. He has told us to do the same thing—to carry the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue and people—and our Elders go forth, as they did in former times, without purse or scrip, trusting in God. And some of them get killed. We have heard of two being slain quite recently in these United States, where we boast so much of freedom, human rights, liberty of conscience, etc. Right in the State of Tennessee, this atrocious deed has taken place, and it is not long since one of our brethren was murdered in Georgia. We feel sorry for these things; but, then, we cannot help it. We cannot relinquish our labors in relation to these matters. It is enjoined upon us to preach the Gos– pel to every creature, and we propose to carry out these things as the Apostles did in former times. Lives may be sacrificed for the truth’s sake; but it makes no difference where we are if we are only engaged in the work of God. Jesus said: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” I fear God, and know no other fear, and do not want to; and when men talk sometimes about what they will do and what they are going to do with the Mormons—“Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea”—it does not make our knees shake nor our heart palsy. We feel that we are here to do the will of God, and in the name of Israel’s God we will do it; we will, God being our helper. These are my feelings, these are the feelings of my brethren around me, and these are the feelings of all good Latter-day Saints who comprehend themselves and intelligently know the principles by which they are governed.

We have embraced the Gospel of the Son of God, and God has taught us how to organize His Church. Had He not taught us we should not have known anything about its organization. Joseph Smith knew nothing about it; Brigham Young knew nothing about it; I could not have known anything about it, nor any of the Twelve, nor any man living on the earth, until God introduced it and taught us in all these things. In addition to establishing His Church, He has told us to build up a Zion to His name, and we are gathering the materials together for that purpose. We have got our Stakes organized, and we have come here to help organize your Stake. Yesterday the High Council was organized. This is a body of men that exists in the Church and Kingdom of God. All Stakes must have such a Council that they may have a perfect organization among themselves. Then you have Bishops, Teachers, etc., whose duties you are familiar with, the same being laid down in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. Brother Ricks here is your President, and with one or two exceptions, Bishops have been appointed in all the Wards, that everybody in the various settlements may be placed under proper government, and under the guidance and direction of the Almighty, according to the laws that He has introduced in His Church. For this purpose you have been taught to gather together in your towns and villages, and certain instructions have been given in regard to these matters. Before these instructions were given, Brother Preston and Brother Ricks were directed to come out and examine this land, and they found it was suitable for the settlements of the Saints. They were then requested by me to furnish a plan of the country, and also select places for cities and have them surveyed, to provide lots for meetinghouses, schoolhouses, Relief Societies and Mutual Improvement Associations. All of which they promptly attended to.

The Stake of Bannock was afterwards organized, as also a Presidency for the Stake. Town sites were selected and surveyed, and then the instructions which you have heard read were given by the First Presidency. We find you have a very good country, and are pleased to see you as comfortably situated as you are. It is hard struggling always to start new settlements. I am pleased, however, to find so many of our young men embarking in this enterprise; and by and by you will have a number of most beautiful cities in this portion of country. The land is quite productive, as was evidenced by the samples of oats, wheat, corn, turnips, etc., exhibited here yesterday. These things show you have got into a tolerably good country; and you have almost more water than you know what to do with; but when the time comes when all the land is taken up between these mountains, these streams will not be quite so big as they are now; you will be able to manage them a little better, for the earth will drink up a good deal of water. It seems to me your lines have fallen in pleasant places. Don’t be discouraged about anything. Everything is moving along all right. The great thing is to conform yourselves to the circumstances in which you are placed. There is one thing I have been very much pleased to learn. I requested Brother Preston, in talking about these things, to see that in the neighborhood of every town there should be a piece of ground set apart for the benefit of missionaries’ families; because we shall be calling upon the Elders here to go forth and preach the Gospel, the same as we are doing in other parts of the land of Zion. I asked Brother Preston to set a pattern here in this respect to the balance of the land of Zion, and then report to me, and I would call upon all other peoples in the land of Zion to do the same, that the families of the missionaries may have bread and other supplies, and thus be sustained and looked after, and not feel in any kind of bondage. Most of the missionaries, perhaps, would not be in needy circumstances, but if they should there will be something for their families and they will have no excuse to back out under these circumstances. And then we call upon the older men among the Seventies and High Priests and upon lots of the young men to attend to these matters, and thus promote the welfare of all.

And now we want to see you as Latter-day Saints, as quickly as circumstances will permit, get on to your city lots, and don’t be scattered abroad like so many stray calves. We want you to locate on your city lots, and in the mean time be preparing to build on them; for we must have beautiful cities and splendid habitations in the land of Zion. Many people begin to admire Salt Lake City; but we have done nothing there to what we intend doing. I have talked with Brother Ricks on the subject of building nice homes, and have suggested that you get some architect to furnish the plans of some pleasant cottages, and some more pretentious, according to the means and circumstances of the people. You may be able to purchase architectural books that will answer the purpose; but let us build beautiful homes. It is nearly as cheap to put up a good looking house, and one properly constructed, as it is one of those ill-favored affairs. Build your temporary homes well back in the lot, so that when you build again these will answer for kitchens, or it may be some of your boys or girls, till they can do better. But we want to see beautiful cities, beautiful houses and pleasant homes, and everything around you calculated to promote your happiness and well being.

And then we want to see you operate as one in all things. You fathers of families and you mothers, see to it that you dedicate yourselves and your habitation and everything you have to God, and that you live pure, virtuous, and holy and upright lives. See to it that you are men and women of God—children of the Most High God, and your offspring with you. And I tell you that the time is rolling on when Zion will become the praise and the glory of the whole earth. The time is coming and hastening on when, as one of the prophets predicts, people will say such and such a man was born in Zion—that is, the people of Zion will be so honorable, so upright, so virtuous, and so blessed of God, under the auspices of the Almighty, and the government which He will introduce, that they will think it an honor to have been born in Zion. We will fear God, and work righteousness on earth, and when we get through here be transplanted to the heavens until this earth shall be redeemed; for we shall again possess the earth when it shall be celestialized. God bless you all, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Remarks on Various Subjects by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in Paris, Bear Lake County, Idaho, Sunday Afternoon, August 10, 1884.

I will read a portion of the 84th Section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, commencing at the 14th paragraph:

“Which Abraham received the priesthood from Melchizedek, who received it through the lineage of his fathers, even till Noah; “And from Noah till Enoch, through the lineage of their fathers;

“And from Enoch to Abel, who was slain by the conspiracy of his brother, who received the priesthood by the commandments of God, by the hand of his father Adam, who was the first man—

“Which priesthood continueth in the church of God in all generations, and is without beginning of days or end of years.

“And the Lord confirmed a priesthood also upon Aaron and his seed, throughout all their generations, which priesthood also continueth and abideth forever with the priesthood which is after the holiest order of God.

“And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God.

“Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.

“And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh;

“For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live.

“Now this Moses plainly taught to the children of Israel in the wilderness, and sought diligently to sanctify his people that they might behold the face of God;

“But they hardened their hearts and could not endure his presence; therefore, the Lord in his wrath, for his anger was kindled against them, swore that they should not enter into his rest while in the wilderness, which rest is the fulness of his glory.

“Therefore, he took Moses out of their midst, and the Holy Priesthood also;

“And the lesser priesthood continued, which priesthood holdeth the key of the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel;

“Which gospel is the gospel of repentance and of baptism, and the remission of sins, and the law of carnal commandments, which the Lord in his wrath caused to continue with the house of Aaron among the children of Israel until John, whom God raised up, being filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb.

“For he was baptized while he was yet in his childhood, and was ordained by the angel of God at the time he was eight days old unto this power, to overthrow the kingdom of the Jews, and to make straight the way of the Lord before the face of his people, to prepare them for the coming of the Lord, in whose hand is given all power.

“And again, the offices of elder and bishop are necessary appendages belonging unto the high priesthood.

“And again, the offices of teacher and deacon are necessary appendages belonging to the lesser priesthood, which priesthood was confirmed upon Aaron and his sons.

“Therefore, as I said concerning the sons of Moses—for the sons of Moses and also the sons of Aaron shall offer an acceptable offering and sacrifice in the house of the Lord, which house shall be built unto the Lord in this generation, upon the consecrated spot as I have appointed—

“And the sons of Moses and of Aaron shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, upon Mount Zion in the Lord’s house, whose sons are ye; and also many whom I have called and sent forth to build up my church.

“For whoso is faithful unto the obtaining these two priesthoods of which I have spoken, and the magni– fying their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies.

“They become the sons of Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom, and the elect of God.

“And also all they who receive this priesthood receive me, saith the Lord;

“For he that receiveth my servants receiveth me;

“And he that receiveth me receiveth my Father;

“And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.

“And this is according to the oath and covenant which belongeth to the priesthood.

“Therefore, all those who receive the priesthood, receive this oath and covenant of my Father, which he cannot break, neither can it be moved.

“But whoso breaketh this covenant after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come.”

These words that I have read in your hearing are found, as I have said, in the 84th section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. They contain truths which are of great importance to us as a people, and truths which should be impressed upon our minds, and should not be forgotten by us. For in these words which the Lord has given unto us He has plainly foreshadowed the design that He has in view respecting this Church which He has raised up in the last days and this people unto whom He has given the everlasting Priesthood. In these words we are told the future of those who receive these two Priesthoods and magnify the same, and the glory which God designs to bestow upon them. He also gives unto us in plainness, the penalty which will rest down upon those who, after receiving this covenant, break the covenant and turn away altogether therefrom. Therefore to the Latter-day Saints this Gospel and this Priesthood come on the one hand, accompanied by great blessings and promises, and great power and exaltation, and, on the other hand, they come accompanied by dreadful penalties, by degradation and condemnation, greater than it would be possible for any being to reach unless he had had the opportunities which the Gospel and the Priesthood bring and afford. On the one hand we are promised in the plainest of all language that those who receive this Priesthood receive the Lord. For it is said:

“They who receive this priesthood receiveth me, saith the Lord;

“For he that receiveth my servants receiveth me;

“And he that receiveth me receiveth my Father;

“And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.

“And this is according to the oath and covenant which belongeth to the priesthood.”

Here is plainly pointed out to us as a people the future glory that God has in store for all those who receive and magnify the Priesthood. They are to receive the Father’s Kingdom, and if they receive the Father’s Kingdom, they are to receive all that the Father hath, for all that He hath will be given unto them. Can you conceive of this? Can any human being conceive of the immeasurable extent of the glory here promised—the immeasurable extent of exaltation here offered unto all those who receive the Priesthood of the Son of God, and who magnify it? It is impossible for mortal man to have the least conception even when his mind is enlightened by the Spirit of God—that is, the least conception compared with the immeasurable extent of the glory that is here promised. We can have some conception of it, we can have some foretaste of it, when we receive the Spirit of God, when it rests down upon us in power; but to conceive of the fullness of this glory is impossible for any being in this mortal condition of existence. When we understand these words and comprehend their full import we can understand how it was that Jesus when He was upon the earth sought to teach the people the greatest privileges which they had in connection with the Gospel which he bore unto them. The complaint of the Jews about the Son of God, was, that He being man made Himself equal with God. They had the same ideas, doubtless, in those days concerning God and man, that the sectarians of the world now have. God was a remote being, a being beyond their reach, far beyond their ken, and far beyond communication with them; therefore, they were ready to kill the Son of God because He enunciated the great truth that it was possible for man to attain unto God, and become like Him. Referring to the words of the Psalmist, where he said: “Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High,” he said, “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” But they could not understand the doctrine which God has revealed—the eternal truth that He has communicated to us in the Gospel. But God designed when He led Israel out of Egypt to make of that people a royal Priesthood—a kingdom of Kings and Priests. He designed to lead them forward under the guidance of the everlasting Priesthood, the Priesthood after the holy order of the Son of God—to lead them forward until they should behold the face of their God and see Him for themselves. But they would not. They hardened their hearts. They could not endure His presence. Moses, despite all the power which God gave him, and the revelations which He poured out upon him—Moses could not succeed in leading that people forward. They were a stiffnecked race; they were a rebellious race; they were an idolatrous race; they were hard in their hearts; and they would not have God to be their King. They wanted a lower order of affairs; they wanted lower laws, laws that were more in accordance with their fallen and carnal natures. Therefore according to those revelations which God has given unto us, He took Moses out of their midst, and the Holy Priesthood also, and the lesser Priesthood continued, the Priesthood of Aaron, a Priesthood that held the keys of the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel, the gospel of repentance and baptism for the remission of sins. He left that with them, and the law of carnal commandments which the Lord in His wrath caused to continue with the house of Aaron among the children of Israel until John. They were under this law during this long period. God raised up John as a forerunner to prepare the way for the fullness of the ever– lasting Gospel and the restoration of the Priesthood in its fullness, that Melchizedek Priesthood which Moses held, and through which he exercised such mighty power among the children of Israel. And it was God’s design—if the people would have submitted to it, if they would have received the message that He sent unto them through John and afterwards through His beloved Son—to have restored the Kingdom even to Israel, and to have built up the Kingdom in great power and glory upon the earth. But instead of receiving the Gospel and the Melchizedek Priesthood, they actually destroyed the Son of God. But before they destroyed Him, they destroyed the heir of the Priesthood of Aaron, John the Baptist, who was a direct descendant of Aaron, and by virtue of this descent held the keys of that Priesthood, and exercised the authority and power thereof among the Jews. Not content with rejecting the Son of God, they rejected even John, and the Aaronic Priesthood as well as the Melchizedek Priesthood was taken from the midst of the Jews, and they have remained without Priesthood from that day until the present time, even the Aaronic Priesthood having been withdrawn from their midst—the authority to officiate in the ordinances pertaining thereunto.

Now, this Priesthood which God has restored in these last days through Peter, James and John, is the Priesthood that continueth in the Church of God in all generations. The Church of God cannot be without it; for without it the power of Godliness is not made manifest to men in the flesh. A people can progress to a certain extent with the Aaronic Priesthood, but there is a limit to their progress. There are bounds beyond which they cannot pass. They cannot attain to the fullness of the glory of God the Eternal Father, without the presence of the Melchizedek Priesthood; for as I have read in your hearing, “This greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God; Therefore in the ordinances thereof,” [that is, in the ordinances of the higher or Melchizedek Priesthood] “the power of godliness is manifest.” This cannot be manifest without that higher Priesthood, without the power which accompanies it. “And without the ordinances thereof,” the revelation continues, “and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live.”

Without this Priesthood, without its ordinances, without its powers, without its gifts, “no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live.” Therefore it is essential that, if a people should be exalted unto the presence of God, they should have this Melchizedek or greater Priesthood, and the ordinances thereof, by the means of which they are to be prepared, or they shall be prepared to enter into the presence of God the Father, and endure His presence.

Now, Moses taught this plainly to the children of Israel in the wilderness. He endeavored to impress upon them the importance of so living as to retain this Melchizedek Priesthood in their midst—to so live as to conform to the law, or laws, and requirements of this Melchizedek Priesthood. Says the revelations, He “sought diligently to sanctify his people that they might see the face of God.” He wanted them to behold the face of God. You remember the expression he gave utterance to, when the Spirit of God rested upon the seventy Elders, and they prophesied. There were two of them that were not with the rest. They were in the camp and not in the tabernacle, yet they prophesied also. And Joshua, jealous for the honor of Moses, jealous because Moses was a Prophet of God, and doubtless afraid that these men were transcending their authority, asked Moses to forbid them. And Moses gave utterance to that memorable, that glorious expression: “Enviest thou for my sake? Would to God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them.” There was no jealousy in the mind of this man of God concerning his brethren having the spirit of prophecy, it excited no feeling in his heart to reprove them, or to check them, or to say to them that they were usurping some authority which belonged to him; no, there was no such feeling in his heart; for had he not sought to lead the people forward to enjoy that privilege? Had he not sought diligently to sanctify the people that they might behold the face of God? “Therefore,” said he, “would to God that all the Lord’s people were prophets.” Would to God that not only the seventy Elders had the spirit of prophecy resting down upon them, but that every man in the whole hosts of Israel had that spirit in its fullness and in its power resting down upon him. “How easy it would be for me,” Moses could have said, “to lead this people if all were prophets! How easy it would be for me to guide these hosts, and to lead them into the presence of God, if the spirit of prophecy rested down upon them throughout all the camp of Israel.”

But they hardened their hearts and could not endure the presence of the Lord. “Go thou, Moses, and speak to God,” said the children of Israel, “and then tell us what God has to say: be thou mouthpiece, be thou God to us; we will be content with this, the face of God is too terrible for us. We desire not to enter into His presence. We shall be content to have thee give to us the word of God.” These were, in effect, their words, and their actions corresponded to these words. As Paul says, “Which voice (the voice of God) they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (For they could not endure that which was commanded.” Moses stood between them and God. They could not endure the presence of God. They hardened their hearts against it. Therefore the Lord in His wrath—for his anger was kindled against them, because of their hardness of heart, because of their rebellion—swore that they should not enter into His rest, that they should not attain unto the fullness of the glory that He had in store for them—that is, He swore that they should not enter into this rest while in the wilderness; which rest is the fullness of His glory. So He took Moses from their midst, and took with him the Melchizedek Priesthood; and thus terminated, so far as Israel was concerned, the reign of the Melchizedek Priesthood among them. Occasionally Prophets were raised up who did hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, ordained by God for special purposes; but the people were under the dominion of the rule of the Aaronic Priesthood from that time forward until the days of John.

Now, my brethren and sisters, it is of the utmost importance that we who live in this generation should comprehend that which God is doing for and designs for us. He has precisely the same future in store for us that He intended for our fathers in the wilderness. God designs to have us led in that path which will bring us into His presence. He designs that this whole people called Latter-day Saints shall have the laws of his celestial kingdom revealed unto them line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, until they are brought into His presence, until every man and woman and child who belongs to this Church shall be able to endure the presence of God and live, until by means of this Priesthood, this higher Priesthood, every man will be prepared to receive the fullness of the celestial glory, and this by obedience to law, not by hardness of heart, not by rebellion, not by rejecting the counsel of God through His servants, not by taking our own way; for notwithstanding all that is said by those who oppose us, and by the entire Gentile world in regard to the Priesthood of the Son of God in their opposition to it, these Latter-day Saints must obey the Priesthood of the Son of God, and be led by it in all things, or they never will enter into the presence of God our Eternal Father, never, worlds without end. God has placed this Priesthood in the Church for the express purpose of leading His people forward, just as Moses endeavored to lead the children of Israel forward by giving unto them His law, by revealing unto them His will, by instructing them in the things of righteousness, and leading them forward until they should attain unto the fullness of His glory.

Let us take these things to heart. Let us ponder upon them as a people. Let us purify ourselves with all our might, mind and strength. Let every man in his place and station seek to magnify that Priesthood that he may through magnifying it, attain unto those glorious blessings and privileges which God has promised.

God designs that this people called Latter-day Saints shall be a kingdom of priests and kings. He intends that the Melchizedek Priesthood shall be held by this people. He intends to preserve it on the earth, and those who attain unto this Priesthood, and magnify it to the renewing of their bodies, and to the receiving of the promises of God, will receive the blessings which God has promised—that is, they will receive all that God has to bestow, they will be joint heirs with Jesus and inherit with Jesus the glory of the Father, and there is nothing that the Father has that He will not give unto us, for all will be ours, everything we can conceive of—glory, immortality and endless lives—if we are faithful to the maintaining of our integrity and the keeping of our covenants, and the doing of the will of God in the flesh.

How important it is, then, brethren and sisters, that we should all be faithful during this probation; that we should walk humbly before our God; that we should obey every law and submit to every ordinance and apply everything that is taught to us to ourselves, and embody every principle in our lives as fast as it is taught to us, beginning with faith in the name of the Lord Jesus, and progressing from that principle forward by repentance, by baptism, by the laying on of hands, and by obeying the other laws and ordinances as fast as they are revealed, until we shall be prepared through obedience to law, and through the redemption which obedience always brings, to go back into the presence of God and the Lamb. We have entered upon an upward career. Let us press forward in that direction, adding faith to faith, adding knowledge to knowledge, adding gift to gift, adding power to power, until we shall behold the face of our Father and our God; and that will be granted unto us. It will be granted unto us to behold the face of Jesus; it will be granted unto us to have angels minister to us, and there is no blessing we shall not attain unto if we continue faithful to the Gospel, and to the covenants of the Holy Priesthood which we have received.

That God may help us to be faithful and lead us forward until we are brought back into His presence, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

The foregoing was delivered in Paris, Bear Lake County, Idaho, Sunday afternoon, August 10, 1884.

Remarks by Elder Charles W. Penrose, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, July 26, 1884.

I have been pleased in listening to the remarks of Brother Caine, who has just returned from Washington; glad to hear that his heart with ours is turned toward the truth, and that his desire, in common with ours, is to build up the Kingdom of God in the earth, and to contend for the rights which belong to us as American citizens. Some people seem to imagine because we have embraced a doctrine which is not popular in the world, because we have embraced a faith which is contrary to the generally received notions in regard to religion, that we ought to have no rights whatever as citizens of our common country. We do not look upon the matter in that light. We consider that we have the right under the Constitution of the United States to believe anything which seems right to us, and not only to believe it, but to carry it out in our practice, so far as we can do so without interfering with the rights of other people. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States says: “Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” We understand that amendment as it is written. We do not wish to interpret it, or to give to it any meaning other than the plain language conveys. The language is, “That Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion.” With the establishment of religion, then, Congress has nothing to do. Congress cannot set up a religion, nor can it pass any law respecting an establishment of religion—that is, to prevent its free exercise. There are some people in these latter times who interpret that amendment to mean that people may believe what they please, but it carries with it no freedom of practice. People may believe what seems right to them, but they must not carry it out if it happens to be contrary to the views of the great majority. Now, it appears to me that that is a very narrow interpretation of the meaning of that Amendment to the Constitution. It appears to us, as it must to the great bulk of the people of the country—the sovereign people—that without any constitutional amendment, or the passage of any law, people everywhere are of themselves free to believe. We do not think a law can interfere with belief, even if one were passed for the purpose of interfering with it. A man’s belief cannot be controlled by any Act of Congress or of Parliament. No edict of a government or any other lawmaking body can interfere with my freedom of belief. When a proposition is placed before my mind, and I reflect upon it, and it appears to be correct, my mind receives it and I believe it. Sometimes persons believe in spite of themselves. Sometimes a man will believe a thing in spite of his own desires not to believe. Then this faith cannot be controlled by any person outside of the man himself, and sometimes he cannot control it himself. No edict or law, or any power of man on the earth can alter a man’s belief, or prevent him from believing. A law can be enacted to prevent the carrying of that belief into practice; but it cannot interfere with belief, and it needs no amendment to the Constitution, no enactment of Congress or of any lawmaking body on earth, to protect a man in mere belief. Then it is clear to us that the intention was, that a man should have not only the right to believe, but that he should be protected in the free exercise of that belief. As the language states, Congress is not to pass any law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibit the free exercise thereof. What is the exercise of belief in religion? Why, it is certain acts men perform prompted by their belief, prompted by their religion. Suppose a man believes it is right to be baptized in water—buried in water for the remission of sins—how can he evidence his belief in that principle? He can only do it in the way specified by the Apostle James. He says: “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.” “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” That is the only way in which faith can be truly shown—by works. If I believe that baptism is right I evidence my belief by being baptized, and if I am not baptized it either shows that my faith is very weak or that it does not exist: that I have not the courage of my faith, or else that I do not believe at all.

Now, we consider that we have a perfect right under the Constitution of our country to believe what seems right to us, and then to carry it out. “Well,” someone may say, “do you think there should be no restriction to this? Are people to be protected in any kind of religion they may have? Suppose a man were to come here from India who believed it a religious duty, under some circumstances, to strangle a man, would he have the right under the Constitution of the United States, to strangle? Again, there are people who believe it is right, in India, to burn a widow on the funeral pile, that her spirit may be sent to keep company with her husband in the other world. Would that person, or those persons have the right, under the Constitution of the United States, to carry out their belief in this country?” We say no. We say that the Thug has no right here to practice his faith. We say the Suttee could not be established in this country. “Why not? You believe it is right under some circumstances for a man to have more wives than one, and that those who thus believe are protected by the Constitution in the practice of their religion. Why should not those who believe it right to strangle, or to burn widows, have the right to practice their religion under the Constitution of the United States?” The dividing line is very simple, as truth generally is. It is very easy to be drawn. It is to be drawn in consonance with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, and with the principles that underlie our government. In the Declaration of Independence it is laid down that there are certain rights that cannot be alienated, that are natural, that are inherent, that are not imparted by governments: they do not belong to politics, but they are inherent in the individual—the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to property, and the right to the pursuit of happiness. These rights are inalienable. They belong to every individual. They are not conferred by law. They belong to us. They are born in us. They belong to every person who breathes the breath of life. Then, an act of any individual or any government which infringes upon these natural rights is wrong in and of itself. If any individual interferes with the rights of his fellow men he may be restrained by the secular law. The right to life, and to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness, and to property belong to all individuals alike. One body of people professing one faith must not interfere with the rights of any other body of people professing another faith. The Latter-day Saints, as well as the Latter-day sinners, the Methodist as well as the Catholic, the Jew as well as the Gentile—all people alike in this great country must be protected equally in these natural rights which belong to them.

Here, then, is where the line must be drawn. Anything that persons profess to do under the name of religion, which interferes with the rights of others is wrong, and the secular law may step in and protect the citizens and restrain or punish those people who attempt to do this under the plea of religion. If I do anything which interferes with the life, the liberty, the happiness, or the property of my neighbor, the law has a right to step in and protect my neighbor and restrain me. But if my religion—that which I believe to be true, and which I try to carry out as a part of my faith—does not interfere with human rights, does not infringe in any degree upon the rights of my fellow man, neither Congress, nor any other lawmaking power on the face of the earth, has the right to interfere with me under the Constitution of the country. I have a right to the exercise of my religion so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of other people. There is where we draw the line, and we think it is the right place. And we are standing up, not only for our own rights in this respect, but for the rights of all people upon the face of this land. As has been said by Brother Caine, this afternoon, in passing certain enactments which infringe upon our religious liberties, the Congress of the United States is doing something that will come back upon the very individuals who have been trying to establish this principle or to enact these laws. Because, we may be the society or body aimed at today, and tomorrow another sect or party or body may be aimed at by the same enactments which are passed against us, and perhaps will hold good in both directions. It is a poor rule that only works one way. It may be found convenient today to single out the “Mormons,” because they are unpopular, for special legislation; but in a little time some other religious body in this country may have the same inimical legislation applied to them, to bear down upon them with greater weight than it does upon us. You cannot violate a principle of truth without receiving very bad consequences. Those who attempt to do that will be sure to reap the fruit of their labors at some time or other. And when the Congress of the United States commences to move away the foundation stones of the system that the fathers of this nation built up, they are working on very dangerous ground, and the consequences thereof will not be confined to the few people against whom these measures are made. It is the duty of every patriot, of every man who loves his country, and of every woman who loves her country, to do their part in preventing the passage of such enactments as these, and in vindicating the principles and doctrines which enter into the Constitution of our beloved country. So we are standing up not only for our own rights, but for the rights of others, and this is one of the duties enjoined upon us by our Heavenly Father.

We have been brought from the various parts of the earth into these mountain valleys that we may establish a system of religion which has been revealed from heaven, which our Heavenly Father has committed to us. We have not taken this religion from any of the sacred books that are in existence; we have not concocted this system from the Bible, or from any other religious work; but it has been revealed to us in our own day and time. God has broken the silence of ages. That same God that spoke to the prophets of old, whose record we have in the Old Testament, and who sent His Son Jesus Christ in the meridian of time to die for the sins of the world—that same God that inspired the Apostles of Jesus Christ in their great works has Himself spoken from heaven in our own day, and angels have come down from the courts of glory with a message of life and salvation for the inhabitants of the earth. This Church, this system, this organization to which we belong has not been set up by the wisdom of man, but has been set up by the power of God, by the command of the Almighty, and has been sustained by him up to the present time. All the efforts which are made to break it down will only tend to build it up. Every law the United States may pass with the intent to disintegrate this work, to divide the people, to crush the power that exists in the midst of the Latter-day Saints, will only tend to consolidate the people, to bind them closer together, to make their faith more intense, their convictions more certain, and to make their determination more persistent. That will be the effect. God is working with this people, and has worked with them from the beginning. And this, as we have heard this afternoon, is not a mere matter of faith. We have seen so many proofs of an overruling power, and manifestations of special providence, as a people and as individuals, in answer to our prayers, that we know that God lives, that God answers prayer, that God Almighty is with the Latter-day Saints while they keep His commandments and do His will, and that He will overrule for good all the evil which is intended against us.

This work is established for the purpose of bringing about His designs in regard to this earth upon which we live. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. The cattle on a thousand hills are His. The silver and the gold belong to Him, and the life of all mankind is in His hands. He is Lord over all, blessed forever, and it is His right to rule and regulate and control all things on the face of this globe. Jesus Christ His beloved Son has been here. He dwelt on the earth for a time and performed the work allotted to Him, by which he obtained all power and sits at the right hand of the Father; and the time is coming when He will stand on the earth, establish His government and dominion, extending it from pole to pole and from shore to shore, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our God and His Christ; not in some figurative, mystical, spiritual sense, but really and truly as a matter of fact. The Savior, as foretold by the prophets, came upon the earth literally and truly. He was hung upon the cross, and His spirit left His body. He was laid in the tomb, but He was raised again from the dead, not in a spiritual sense, or some mythical sense, but really and truly His body was raised from the dead. In that body He appeared to His disciples, and went up from their gaze, saying that in like manner he would descend again. And His promises are that when he shall come the second time, it shall not be as the babe of Bethlehem, despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; nor to be persecuted by His own, but that He shall come in the clouds of heaven in power and great glory to sit upon the throne of His Father David and reign and rule from the rivers to the end of the earth, so that all nations, kindreds, tongues and people shall serve and obey Him. Now, we look for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we expect it just as much as when the sun goes down we expect it to rise above the hilltops in the morning. And when He comes we expect it will be Himself—Jesus of Nazareth, our Elder Brother, the firstborn of God in the spirit world, the Only Begotten of God in the flesh. We expect that He will come and reign over the earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and we expect that all kingdoms, all governments, and all institutions that men have set up will be broken down, and as Nebuchadnezzar saw them in the vision which Daniel interpreted, they will become as the chaff of the summer threshingfloor, and be swept away, and no place found for them upon the face of the whole earth; because the Kingdom of God and of His Christ will prevail everywhere, and it will cover the earth. For it is the kingdom that was spoken of by the Prophets, and we are told that “the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heavens”—that is over all the earth, is it not?—shall be His kingdom and shall “be given into the hands of the people of the saints of the most High, and their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom.” Now, we expect the fulfillment of all these things, and when they come to pass they will occur just as they are written, like other prophecies have been accomplished. When Isaiah prophesied that “a virgin should conceive and bear a son” and that they should “call his name Immanuel,” the prophet meant what he said, and it came to pass; and all the predictions in regard to the second coming, as it is called, the second advent of the Messiah, and the establishment of God’s Kingdom and government on the earth, will be fulfilled exactly as the prophets have predicted. There is no need to mystify, nor to spiritualize, nor to explain them, they will come to pass word for word; for “heaven and earth may pass away, but not one jot or tittle of the word of God shall pass away; it shall all be fulfilled.”

Now, this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to which we belong is established by the Almighty for the express purpose of opening up the way for the accomplishment of this great work. In this Church is the germ of that kingdom that Daniel saw. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, set up by the power of God, by the authority of the Most High, is exactly the same Church that Jesus Christ built up—that is, the same in all its essential principles; the same organization, the same kind of officers, the same doctrines, the same in its spirit, the same in its ordinances, the same in the power that attends those ordinances, doctrines, principles and commandments as were revealed to the ancient Church. It is governed just exactly in the same way that the church which Jesus Christ established when he was upon the earth was governed. Every principle which was taught by the ancient Apostles in their time is taught by the latter-day Apostles in their time. And the Apostles in our day have the same authority or Priesthood, as it is called, that the Apostles had in their time whom Jesus ordained; because those that held the keys of that apostleship in the earth in former times have come down to the earth, literally and truly, and ordained men to the same authority and apostleship which they held while living in the flesh. That is how the apostleship has been restored. That authority exists in this Church, and it will never be taken away again. That which is called by the Latter-day Saints the Priesthood, is the authority given of God to men to act in His name, so that what they do by His authority and in the way that He has appointed on the earth shall be acknowledged in heaven—that which they seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven and that which they loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. It must be done as God directs, according to the revelations of His will. But this authority, this right, this power from God exists in this Church, as it existed in the ancient Church, because it has been actually restored by the very men who held the keys of it. And really, after all, it is that that the world is fighting. All these plans and schemes, all that legislation and these influences that are brought to bear on this Church, upon this system called by the world “Mormonism,” is brought to bear in consequence of the restoration of that power and that authority. It is the authority of the kingdom. It is here to stay. It is here to prevail. First it will preach the Gospel of the kingdom as a witness to all nations; it will then gather together the elect of God from the four quarters of the earth; it will build temples to the name of the Most High God in which men can administer in ordinances that pertain to the salvation of the living and the redemption of the dead. It will accomplish all that has been predicted by the prophets concerning the Latter-day Kingdom.

Now, this is the kind of work in which we are engaged. It has been introduced by the Almighty to bring about all those grand events that we read about in the writings of the old prophets that have not yet been fulfilled; there are a great many things contained in the Old Testament that people pay little attention to nowadays. They have an idea of things coming to pass in some spiritual fashion, or some mythical, mystical kind of way; they don’t know exactly how; and it is the business of certain men who are hired to preach the Gospel, to make mysterious explanations of passages of Scripture, which they manage to cover up, and succeed in confusing the people more than before the expounding was attempted. Nevertheless, all those predictions that refer to events that are to take place in the earth in the latter days will all come to pass as they are written, and this work, this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this thing called “Mormonism” has been introduced by the Almighty for the express purpose of bringing these things about; that is why it is universally opposed. All these different sects of modern Christendom are like the sects of heathendom, without communication from the eternal world. They receive no revelation from God. Their ministers have no authority except that which they obtain from their congregations. Many of them do not pretend to have any other, when you press them closely. They preach those tenets which the people believe and which are acceptable to the people—each minister of each sect preaching that which the members desire to hear. All these different sects contain many good people who are trying to do right, trying to serve God, and a great many others that are hypocrites. But as sects, as societies, as churches, they are not authorized of God. You can trace them all to their origin, and find that that origin is human in its nature. They have not come from God, they have come from men, some of them good men, perhaps. Men have met together and formulated creeds and organized societies, and these societies have grown and spread abroad, and after a while have become orthodox in the earth. At first they were persecuted and opposed, but as they grew in wealth as well as in numbers they made a name and a noise and became a power in the earth, and are recognized and understood as orthodox sects. But there is not one of them ordained of God. They are not set up by divine command, and their ministers have not been divinely authorized to preach the Gospel, nor to administer in the things of the Kingdom. There may be and no doubt are men among them preaching that which they believe to be true. But a man’s belief is not authority. A man may believe a thing to be right, but that does not give him authority to represent God in that matter. A man may believe it is right to sprinkle a babe and call that baptism. But even supposing it is right—though it is not—the fact that he believes it is right would not give him the authority to administer, because he does it “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” and he has no right to take these names upon his lips in vain, and he does take them upon his lips in vain unless he has been authorized to use these names. No man has any more right to use the name of Deity in the administration of an ordinance, without authority, than a common citizen, without authority, has the right to use the name and pretend to be the representative of the Government of the United States, or of Great Britain, or of Germany; not a bit. But men seem to think because God does not interfere, that they have a right to do a great many things that he never commanded, and do them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Now, as I said just now, the authority to administer in the things of God’s Church has been restored in the way that I have told you. That is why we claim the right in this Church to administer these ordinances, and that is why we lay down the broad assertion that outside of this Church there is no authority in the world to administer in the name of the Lord. If there is such authority, let those who claim to have it, show their credentials and prove where they obtained their authority from. Now, in this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints not only is this authority restored, and those same doctrines, principles and ordinances which were had in the early Christian Church also restored, but accompanying these are the same spirit and gifts and manifestations and power that existed in the ancient Church. And here is one of the great proofs of the truth of that which I have advanced to you: Wherever the servants of God connected with this Church and holding this authority go into the world—and they go out without purse or scrip and administer: there are no salaried preachers in this Church—wherever they go and proclaim this Gospel they tell the people that if they will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and repent of their sins, and be baptized for the remission of sins, they shall receive the Holy Ghost, through the laying on of hands; and that this Holy Ghost that shall be given to them is the same spirit exactly in its manifesta– tions, in its power, that the Apostles conferred upon the people by the laying on of hands in the early Christian Church, and that rested down upon the old prophets by which they wrote the things called scripture: the same spirit that Jesus Christ had without measure; that spirit that He gave to His Apostles when He breathed upon them and said: “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you * * Receive ye the Holy Ghost:” that same spirit that was upon them on the day of Pentecost; that spirit which manifested itself to the Church in Corinth by the gift of tongues, interpretations, visions, dreams, healings and miracles, and all those signs which Jesus Christ promised to them that believed. These are manifest in the midst of the Latter-day Saints; this spirit, this power, is revealed to them and communicated to them. Not merely to the Presidency and the Twelve Apostles, and other leading Elders, but to each individual, to every person who believes and repents and is baptized, and upon whom the hands are laid of those having authority from God to administer in His name. Now, these men might claim this authority and be impostors; for the world has been full of impostors, and there are plenty of them nowadays—religious impostors; these men might claim to have this authority, but they could not communicate this power, the Holy Ghost. But wherever people receive this doctrine, and obey it in the spirit of it, their testimony is, in every land, in every corner of the earth, wherever the servants of God have penetrated, that they have received for themselves by revelation, by the Holy Ghost from on high, a testimony that this work is the work of God, and that these men are His servants. That is why they are here. That is why they are gathered in these valleys of the mountains. They are here because they have received the truth, and a knowledge of it, because they have received the ordinances of the Church and obtained the power that accompanies them; because God has witnessed to them individually, that He has spoken from the heavens, that He has reestablished His Church, and that the time has come for the building up of the latter-day Kingdom and the establishment of God’s dominion in all the earth, and they are called to help in the work; not only the Apostles and Priesthood, but all the members of the Church are called to take a part in the work. And here we are, in these mountain valleys, bound together as a band of brethren—not by the power of man, not by the coercion of man, not by oppression, not by arbitrary rules, but by the spirit and power of the Eternal God, sent down from on high, which has been shed abroad universally upon the members of the Church. This is our testimony to the world.

We know that God lives. We know that there are “special providences” of God. We know that this work will prevail. We know that all these adverse plans and schemes of men, either from individuals or from nations, will only tend to roll on this work, and bring about the purposes of the Almighty in the midst of the children of men. That is why we have so much confidence. It is not because we think so much of ourselves. We do not profess to be a great people, except in our unity—in that we are great—except in our industry, temperance and sobriety, for we are a temperate, sober and thrifty people. Of course there are exceptions to this. There are men and women among us, like there are in all denominations, who will not hearken to good advice and do right. Notwithstanding the promise made by every man and woman that comes into this Church to be holy and righteous, true and faithful, and to avoid sin, there are some who will not be bound by their solemn obligations, nor abide their covenants with one another. And those who will break promises with each other are very likely to break promises made with God Almighty. But as a body we are a united, thrifty, temperate and sober people, and we try to do that which we consider to be right. We may make mistakes like other people: but as a body of people we are on the straight and narrow way, the one path to the celestial city, and we desire to turn neither to the right hand nor to the left. Those who walked in that path in ancient times were told by Jesus Christ that they would be opposed by the world, that the world would hate them. “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” We have been called out of the world in the same way. We are called with a special calling, and we have a special mission to perform. There is not a soul in this Church but has a mission. We are called out of the world to be the people of the Lord, to be Saints of the Most High, to consecrate and dedicate ourselves body and soul, with all that we have—the fruits of the labors of our hands, the fruits of the efforts of our minds—to the work in which we are engaged, the work of the Great God in the earth, He using us as instruments. This is the kind of people we are. This is the kind of people the world are opposed to.

Now, in regard to that feature of our faith that they make so much fuss about—a right we claim under the Constitution of the United States, and against which laws have been passed in Congress, framed to prevent our carrying out the commandments of God in regard to our family relations—that feature seems to upset the equilibrium of our “Christian” friends. What is the matter? “Why, you believe in men having more wives than one.” Yes, some men, good men. We don’t believe that a bad man should have a wife at all. None but the good deserve the fair. And we believe that righteous men, virtuous men, men that would not improperly use any power or faculty of their nature, ought to be permitted to have wives and raise up a holy posterity and train their children in the ways of virtue, honesty and uprightness. We do not believe it is right for men to give way to their animal passions. We do not believe it is right to do so either in plural or single marriage or outside of it. We believe marriage to be an holy estate, ordained of God, with which Congress has not the right to interfere. It is a religious matter with us. It is a holy ordinance established by the Eternal Father. We claim that the women of the Church are the daughters of God, and God has some right as to their disposition. We do not believe it is right for a man to pick and choose where he likes, and do as he pleases independent of God Almighty. We read in the Old Testament that, “When man began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughter’s of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.“ And it is stated that the iniquity of man was great, and God brought a flood on the earth. Now, to understand that correctly we have to know what kind of position those persons were in, and why they were called the “sons of God.” Those men were in the same position as the Latter-day Saints. They were heirs to the Priesthood. They were the sons of God. They had obeyed the holy covenants. They had received the word of the Lord. They were consecrated to the Almighty. But they went outside of their covenants and their engagement with the Lord, and took wives of the daughters of men that were not in the covenant, and thus transgressed the law of God. The law of God in relation to this has been the same in all ages, and has been given to this people—that the sons of Israel shall wed the daughters of Israel, and shall not go out to wed with the stranger. These men did that, and God was displeased, as He is today with Latter-day Saints, who are called out of the world to be His servants, to be holy unto the Lord, to be clean because they bear the vessels of the Lord, when they go outside and wed with the stranger. The law is that they shall not do this, but shall wed under the everlasting covenant and have their wives given them of the Lord and sealed to them by an holy ordinance revealed from heaven, in a holy place prepared for the purpose—sealed for time and all eternity, so that death shall not be able to break the bond of union; that though death may separate them for a little season when they come up in the resurrection, there will be no need to marry or give in marriage, because they were married on the earth by authority of God Almighty for time and all eternity, just like Adam and Eve were, for God gave Eve to Adam before death came into the world. We believe that good men, who have demonstrated their fitness for the responsibilities of holy wedlock, may, under the direction of the Lord, obtain more wives than one, may have them sealed to them by the same covenant and by the same bond, to be their wives in the eternal world; and they expect when they depart hence to go where Abraham is—to that place that is called Abraham’s bosom. There they will be in congenial company. They will verify the words of Jesus, who said, “Many shall come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God;” while others who supposed themselves to be “the children of the Kingdom” will be “thrust out.” And I am afraid that a great many of our good Christian friends who are so terribly shocked about this feature of our faith, when they get to the door and look in and see Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and Keturah, and those concubines given of the Lord to Abraham—when they see them in the eternal kingdom they will want to turn away and go to more congenial company, which they are at perfect liberty to do. If Abraham was on the earth today, these same good people would put him in the penitentiary, and yet they call Abraham “the father of the faithful, the friend of God,” and want to go to his bosom when they die! If Jacob were here with his four wives, through whom he “did build the house of Israel,” the names of whose twelve sons are to be inscribed upon the gates of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, that is to come down from God out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband—I say if Jacob were on the earth today, they would put him in jail! Well, this is the consistency of some people who profess to believe in the Bible. Men come here to try and sell the Latter-day Saints the Bible. Why, bless your souls, there are no people on the earth who believe as much in the Bible as the “Mormons.” We believe in the Old and New Testament, King James’ translation. It was through our belief in that record that most of us became Latter-day Saints; for, being familiar with the Bible, when the servants of God came with the Gospel we found it was the same as laid down in that sacred record, and that induced us to embrace the faith that is commonly called “Mormonism.”

Well, now, this feature of our faith to which I have alluded—I have not the time to comment upon it in all its bearings, and a great many people would not understand it if I did—is a divine institution. Let me bear my testimony to this congregation, as I would like to bear it to all the world, that it is a pure and holy institution; not to bring women into bondage, but to place them in that position for which they were created—to give them the opportunity to become honored wives and mothers, so that there might be “no margin left for lust to prey upon,” no field for the tricks of the seducer and the adulterer, the corrupt and the ungodly. God Almighty has established this system. It is a religious ordinance established by authority from God, by revelation from on high and administered by religious ceremonies. It belongs to this Priesthood and to none other. We are not seeking to extend it to the world nor to introduce it to other people. It is confined to the Priesthood. It is “a law unto my Holy Priesthood,” saith the Lord, and there are bounds, limitations and regulations over which we cannot pass. And it is not for the wicked.

Now, then, in this sense, looking upon this as a religious institution, as a sacrament, as an ordinance of our faith, as a part of our creed, as an establishment of our religion, we claim the right to the free exercise thereof before God and before man. If anybody can prove to us that it is wrong, that it is impure, that its effects are bad for this world or the world to come, that would be another thing altogether, and would have its effect with us, because as members of this Church we are in for truth, for salvation, for the glory of our God. We want to attain to the celestial kingdom. We want to fit ourselves for the society of the holy ones, the society of the best that ever lived upon the face of the earth, and for that we are Latter-day Saints. If men could prove to us that we are wrong, then they might have some chance of converting us. But when they trample upon our inalienable rights, upon our constitutional privileges, upon our religious liberty, why, then, we feel like resisting. But we are not going to fight. We naturally repel the assaults against us, but it is in the way of defense. Our motto, like that of the volunteers in London, is, “Defense, not Defiance.” We defend our rights and privileges against all attacks, and in doing so we are standing up for the rights of all the people of this great country. For if you tear away the underpinning from the structure the fathers established, the whole institution may come down with a crash. I tell you we have got to watch for these things, and this is part of our mission. We must preach the Gospel and build up the Kingdom of God, and contend for our constitutional rights, because they are given of the Lord. The Constitution of our country was revealed of God. God has made known to us that He inspired the framers of the Constitution, and caused that instrument to be brought forth, so that all people might be protected in their rights. We claim the same rights as other folks, and no more. We have received this principle of our faith in connection with many more, and we claim that if we do not infringe upon the rights of others we should have liberty in the exercise thereof. If a man was permitted to force some woman to be his wife, or to interfere with his neighbor’s wife, or infringe upon the rights of another man, then the secular law might step in and interfere. But while the woman is free—no woman among us is coerced, no woman is placed in bondage, every woman is at liberty to marry or not marry—while that is the case we do not think that the law has any right to interfere; and we intend to contend for our rights inch by inch, lawfully, respectfully; but in this we are as firm as these everlasting mountains that are not moved by the blasts of winter or the heat of summer. This is the work of God, and woe! be unto us if we do not preach the Gospel! Woe! be unto us if we relinquish or attempt to sell or barter or compromise one of the eternal principles that have been sent down from the heavens and which we have to carry to the ends of the earth! But if we are faithful to our mission and calling, if we stand firm and true, and regard God rather than man, God shall fight our battles. Everything that seems to be against us will be turned for our good. The clouds that overshadow us from time to time will part and roll away, and the glorious sun of prosperity will shine upon us. If we are true and faithful God Almighty will overrule all things for our good, and bring us off more than conquerors. And every nation and people and institution and society that fight against Zion shall become like the dream of a night vision—it will pass away; and those men that fight against this work will be, as the prophet said, “Even as when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite.” So it will be with all who fight against this work and try to overthrow it. Not because we are mightier than anybody else, not because we are so numerous, not because we are learned, not because we are wealthy, but because God Almighty has established this work, and He will cause it to prevail. I bear my testimony that I know this to be true.

May God bless the Latter-day Saints and unite their hearts that they may be one. May they be able to keep those precious things in earthen vessels that God Almighty has committed to them. If they have found the Pearl of Great Price may they value it above all earthly things, and endure every opposition and every influence brought to bear against them and come off triumphant; and may God bless those who have gathered with us this afternoon, and give them a knowledge of the truth of this work, that they may enjoy its blessings with us and be saved in the Kingdom of God, for Christ’s sake. Amen.