Remarks by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 5, 1866.

I am glad to enjoy the privileges that are extended to us on this occasion, and to meet with my friends, and to unite with my brethren in the ministry to render the occasion instructive and profitable. Whether we have much or little to say with regard to the great good there is to be secured and enjoyed, I would hope that in our efforts we might be blessed and favored in making some suggestions to the audience that will be calculated to awaken in their minds good thoughts that will lead them to God, and to a knowledge of the principles that are involved in its work.

From all I have been able to gather from observing the course taken by ministers in their labors for the enlightenment of the people, I have come to the conclusion that, perhaps, there are not very many who will be able of themselves, and within the limited circle of their personal labors and exertions, to tell everything, even if they should know it, and communicate all that may be communicated for the benefit of the people. I believe that the servants of God, in their efforts generally, reveal to the people the workings of their own minds, under the influences of the Spirit of God, and are able to bestow upon them for their comfort, encouragement, and aid in the great work in which they are engaged, the results of their experience, of their reflection and thought. The Gospel that we have received is something that, as I view it, bears a direct relationship to our condition here and hereafter, and that it proposes to so direct our actions and our conduct in life, that they may all be made to assume a proper character. When our actions are right they have the character of virtues, and virtues commend us to God and to one another. Virtue, when practiced by us, is the surest and best foundation that we can have for confidence, not only in God, but in ourselves, and in one another, a degree of which is necessary to our happiness, to our comfort and joy. It appears to me that the man or woman, whose course of life is such that he or she has no confidence in his or herself, properly can have but very little in God. As brother Hyde has remarked, the time is near when we are to encounter the realities of our religion. I believe it is so. We have professed to receive the Gospel and have adopted our faith years ago. We have received more or less of a series of lessons that have been given to the Saints, from time to time, through the revelations of God, as they have been communicated to His people.

There is a feature in our religion that I have thought was but little understood; it is like many other things that would be of much more value to us if they were well under– stood; our understanding of it is limited as a people, and about that very feature in our religion I feel disposed to make a few suggestions, as the results of my own thoughts and reflections, and of all that has been opened up of the matter in my mind with regard to it. As this feature of our religion is now receiving considerable attention from the people of the United States, who have become deeply concerned in regard to it, probably it would be well if we talk a little about it ourselves, that they may not be the first to learn, the first to know that which we ought to know.

The question arises here, what is it that they have become concerned about? Not about our sins; but they have given us credit for a great many good things. They can but acknowledge that we have been brave in conquering the dangers of pioneering our way into an untried land and country; a land that was barren of comfort, barren of these things that were necessary to the sustaining of human life. They will compliment us today for our persevering industry, for the toil that we have endured, and for the perseverance that we have evinced in working our way, not to where we expected to find hidden treasures of gold and silver, but to the desert, to find a place so poor, so barren, and so forbidding in its aspect that none others would desire it, but that we might, in its desolation and isolation from the rest of the world, enjoy the poor privilege of living there without having our right questioned. They say we were brave. So we were: we had good reason to be so; we could not well be anything else. We encountered the desert with all its worthlessness and with all its unproductiveness, and we not only made bridges and roads, but we actually conquered the desert.

“Why do you not say that the Lord did it?” If I were to say the Lord did it, then would you not ask me how the Lord did it? I know how he did it, because I saw it done. The Lord led us out here, but I know that he walked us on our own feet all the weary miles of our journeyings until we reached our destination. I know that since all this our friends from the States have come out here, and can now partake of our hospitality and feast on the fruits of our labor, industry, and enterprise. They are pleased at finding a comfortable halfway house between the Atlantic and the Pacific, where they can rest, eat our fruit, and enjoy themselves; yet they smooth down the wrinkles upon their visages (the fruits of indwelling hate), look very grave, and returning home lie about us, and represent the people of Utah different from what they are.

We would suppose that they are blind with a holy horror, excited in them by the contemplation of a phantom which haunts their imaginations continually; they are afraid that the people in Utah will do wrong; they have got so far from the confines of Christian civilization and refinement that they are fearful, if they do not take some action in relation to the Saints, that they will go widely astray and perpetrate some great wrong. We have been asking them for years to admit us into the Union. Would they listen to us? No. Does our constant begging and praying for admittance into the Union ever awaken a feeling of sympathy in them towards us? It does not. Yet they make out to be so alarmed for our moral safety that they seem to have forgotten all the festering corruptions of the great cities of the east.

When the great nation with which we are connected politically begin to make our faith the subject of special legislation, is it not time that we should know and say something about it? They do not complain of any dishonesty and corruption among us; they do not tell us that the land is sowed broadcast with iniquity; they are not alarmed about this, but they are alarmed because men out here in Utah dare marry a wife honorably and fearlessly, and then publicly own her as his wife. This is all they complain of. If we will only ignore this, I do not know but they will admit us into the Union. Do you think we had better ignore this little bit of our religion, or have we really determined within ourselves, soundly and sentimentally, whether it is actually necessary, proper, right, and just. If we could only slip it off and get admitted into the Union, it might be an advantage to us; but if it is worth enough to cling to, even if we have to live out of the Union, we ought to know it, that we may be the better able to make a good trade when we do trade. It is simply plural marriage that they complain of. They corrupt themselves elsewhere all over the world; but out in Utah men actually presume to marry women honestly; they presume to consider this the best course to be pursued to maintain the purity of man and woman.

How shall we determine anything about the value of plural marriage, so that we may know whether it is worth anything or not? I do not know any way better than by determining first whether single marriage is of value or not—whether it extends any advantages or not to those who are parties to this relationship. Were we to ask the multitudes of the earth what the institution of marriage is worth, what the amount of blessing and salvation that accrues from it, to those who are parties to it, we should, no doubt, receive for a reply, “We do not know.” A man marries a wife to keep his house, to do the drudgery, to become a slave who shall do the labor about his place, and become the creature of his wants and wishes. Does he entertain any ideas of any value that pertains to the institution of marriage beyond this; if he does, it is but little. A great many men live in the world, and throughout all their lives they never appreciate the value of marriage in such a way as to ever induce them to marry; they think they can get along better in single life.

How can we be led to an understanding, in a limited degree, of the many advantages that result to men and women who are honorably married? Why, look at the evil and the corruption, and consequent wretchedness that curse the condition of that broad margin of women that never are made to feel the responsibility, comforts and blessings resulting from a pure, and healthy, and virtuous marriage. Where is this state of things to be found? In every Christian community that I know anything about. It is the root of that festering corruption that is eating out the core and vital energies, and sapping the foundation of life in the race of man. It is found in every community where it is declared that a man shall marry one wife only, and it shall be considered a virtue; but to marry a second wife while the first wife is alive, is considered a crime and punishable by confinement in prison, or the payment of a fine, because it is a sin. What, this in a Christian land? Yes, this in a Christian land! Christianity of the most approved kind is advocated where it exists. In the same thoroughfare the victims of corruption and vicious passion, and the devotees of Christianity jostle against each other. In the same locality edifices, whose lofty towers point to heaven, and wherein are held sacred the paraphernalia of Christian worship casts its lengthening shadows over the dens of corruption and crime, where the victims of passion and unhallowed lust live to drag out a miserable existence; in the reeking corruption which is the result of their own sins. The religious sanctuary and the brothel flourish together; they have their development there; in that land we see woman in her most wretched condition. We first see her in the morning of her life, innocent and pure—innocent as innocence itself, pure as the spirit that comes from God. In this condition we see her enter upon her life’s journey. We meet with her when she has progressed, when she has trod far in the path of folly, degradation, wretchedness, and sin; but she is innocent no more. Are the blessings of home extended around her any more? No. Has she the blessings of the warm sympathy of kind friends any more? No; they are frigid and cold; the warm heart gushing out the blessings of friendship is closed against her; she is not fit to be associated with any more; she is unfit to be welcomed to the society of her more fortunate sisters; and, consequently, she is not welcome to return to a pure and better life, could a disposition be awakened in her to do so, and she seeks for the means of prolonging that worthless life as best she can find them. If she carries personal charms, they are to feed the wishes and satiate the appetite of the gloating libertine; for he will give her money. When those charms have faded from her form—when youth is passed and followed by decrepit old age, she becomes the loathsome thing that no one claims or desires, for which none manifests any warm sympathy and affectionate regard. This is the fate of a class of women who were born pure and innocent as you, my sisters, were born, situated as you were, bearing the same relationship to high heaven by creation as you bear, yet she drags out her miserable existence to her resting place, the grave, when death terminates her suffering and wretched existence; no father was there, no mother was there, no kind sister to weep over her departure, no brother had regard for her, no kindred relationship to pay so much as the tribute of a single tear on the spot where her frail dust found its last resting place.

This is the unwept, friendless fate of an extensive class of our erring sisters. What do we call them? Oh, she is merely “a common woman on the street,” “prostitute,” which means a woman, created by and bearing the image of God our Heavenly Father—a woman prostituted to become the victim of passion—passion unhallowed, impure passion in man who should have guarded her virtue with the most scrupulous care, with the most vigilant watchfulness—man who should ever have recognized in her his sister, who should have regarded her as the personification of the purity and innocence of heaven itself, and who should never have made her the victim of his unholy passion. But she has fallen, and this terminates her wretched career. If she leaves an offspring, the vile stain of bastardy is attached to it, and her children are cast out of society, like their disgraced mother; they are discarded and shunned by what is called refined and Christian society; no paternal provisions are made for them, no paternal care and anxiety is cherished in relation to them. The state only sees in them, if males, prospective soldiers, who for a little pay are marshaled to fight its battles, and bleed and die upon the battlefield. If any of them happened to be brave, can venture further and kill more than his associates, the probability is that he will gather to himself the honor, and the glory, and respect which his frail mother failed to secure.

This is the most favorable termination of the earthly career of that class of unfortunate women and their children. I appeal to you, who are honorable wives and mothers, if you do not think there is real, unmitigated misery in this? Or do you think that it is merely something of my picturing? I am not here to treat you to empty romance. The tithing of all the misery, wretchedness, and crime that exist among the female sex, or our race, in the great Christian cities and heathen cities of the world, cannot be told; it would be vain for me to undertake to tell it all. I have instanced what I have, that you who are wives and mothers may see something of what you have been saved from, by being blessed with the opportunity of becoming honorably married. You are saved from all the wretchedness which characterizes the life and death of your unfortunate sisters.

Does marriage possess any value, then? Would it not be a very good thing if the blessings arising from it, which you enjoy, could be extended to all? Why is it not so? Because monogamic Christianity says it shall not be extended to all. This Christianity is like the prophet’s bed, “shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” I do not know that the prophet thought anything of Christianity as it now exists in the world, although this figure is very apt in its fitness to it. Comparing monogamic Christianity with the prophet’s covering, it may be of a fine texture and good, as far as it goes, but it is decidedly too small. This is unquestionably the fault with a Christianity that does not extend the mantle of salvation to all who should be the recipients of its blessings. If all men and all women in a community were honorably married, you can readily understand one thing, that there would be no prostitution of women in that community, there would be an end of the corruption of man in that community, there would be no illegitimacy there. You can see, then, that it is only a question of advantages resulting from a pure marriage to all the inhabitants of any community, who can be blessed by such an institution of marriage; only introduce this, and the cause of all this sin and moral and physical degeneracy would have an end.

“But then,” says one, “is it right?” “We should have no objections to a plural marriage if we could only believe that it was right.” How in heaven’s name you would have to feel, to feel that it is wrong, I cannot imagine. You say that when one wife is married to a man, there is in that transaction nothing but what is religious; nothing but what is godly, healthy, pure, and good; it is good enough to go to church with; it is something you can pray about; you can have it sanctified by the presence of the priest. It is sacred; it is so commendable that the most fastidious will hardly blush at the idea of a man marrying one wife. He who marries one wife is considered an honorable man, and his wife finds a place among honorable women, and their children are honored upon the same plane that is secured to them by the character and standing of their honored parents in the community. They have their entry into society; it smiles upon them and extends to them its patronage, and their path is the path of honor from the time they open their infant eyes and gaze upon the surrounding objects in the midst of which life to them has a beginning, and through all the subsequent stages of the lengthened way. These blessings come to them because their parents were honorably married and kept sacredly the vows that made them husband and wife. Their marriage was virtuous and just. What a pity it is that this state of things could not be extended to all. I allude to this single marriage because I want you, Latter-day Saints, that are before me today, to begin to think, if you never have, to begin to reason, if you never have, that you may know and understand, if it is only to a limited extent, the reasons that exist why marriage is a pure, holy, and saving institution.

Says one, “The Bible says it is.” But suppose the Bible did not say so, would that make any difference? If a woman were associated in the relationship of wife with an honorable man who kept his marriage vow, would it change the fact that there would be purity, innocence, truthfulness, and virtue in this that could not be found elsewhere—that could not occur without the same intimate relationship between man and woman—aside from the covenant that makes them man and wife.

We say, then, if this is the reason why in Heaven’s wisdom it was ordained that man and woman should be married, it was simply to regulate the actions of man and woman in the most sacred, holy, high, and responsible relationships that exist between them, to preserve in man and woman the fountain of life in purity, that there might be given to earth a people in purity, and free from the taint of inherent corruption. How do I know that? Because that it only requires the careful and continued observance of the law of marriage, as God has revealed it, to preserve man and woman in purity.

Then what bearing has a pure marriage upon the interest of the world that it should be necessary to introduce it as one of the leading features in the great work of God, developed and established in this our day for the prosecution of his will and purposes in the salvation of mankind? Has it any bearing at all upon the purity of man and upon the race? From the little reflection that I have bestowed upon the matter, I have learned to regard it as the world’s great necessity—the great necessity of the race today, and it is God’s greatest necessity in reference to the salvation of the world, and to the development of His universal empire of peace and righteousness over all the earth. Why? Because I have learned that there has been, and that there is still in existence, operating and producing its deadly effects, a system of physical degeneracy that is telling fearfully upon the history of the race.

The Bible tells us that men used to reach a longevity that extended to near a thousand years; this was near six thousand years ago. To say that this is not true would be to question the validity of the Bible, and I would not dare to do that, however presumptuous I may be in a thousand other things. We are descendants of that same race who enjoyed the blessing, if it was a blessing, of an extended longevity; yet the statistics of today relating to the average life of the human race show that it extends to a fraction over a quarter of a century. Should anybody be alarmed at this? If they not know the causes which have led to it they will not be; but if they have a knowledge sufficient to understand that if the race has so degenerated, physically, in five thousand years that the term of a man’s life is reduced from near a thousand years to a quarter of a century, the question would be awakened in their minds as to how narrow a margin of time is left for the continuation of our race on the earth before it becomes entirely extinct—that there will not be a man, woman, or child to awaken the cheerless condition of the desolate earth with the music of their voices and the light of their smiles. They have ceased to be.

It used to be told us when we were children that the world was coming to an end. We thought it was coming to an end; that something was about to be revealed from somewhere that would burn it up. We see that the world is actually approaching desolation, to a point beyond which it would not be possible for human life to be extended. Is there nothing alarming in this? To me there is. I pore over, in my own mind, what my prospects are as a servant of God. I have entered upon this work, which we denominate the work of God, and which comprises the building up of the kingdom of God and the extension of the government of God over all the earth, carrying with it the blessings of the rule of righteousness and peace, and it promises that I am going to be a prince and a ruler over countless millions of intelligent beings like myself. Where are they all coming from? Why, they will be your children. That cannot be; for as the human race is fast wearing to an end, there would not any of my children be left in a few generations more. You are, no doubt, mathematicians enough to see this. I give the Lord credit in my feelings for having known this long before I did; and hence I say that plural marriage is the great necessity of the age, because it is a means that God has introduced to check the physical corruption and decline of our race; to stop further contributions to the already fearful aggregate of corruption that has been developed as the result of sin in man and woman. What will that do? It will take off a great tax from the recuperative energies of the race by relieving them from the necessity of contending with increasing corruption beyond its present limits; that man may begin to live until he attain to the age of a tree, as he lived before he first began to sin and violate the laws of his being. It is to effect this that the Lord has introduced plural marriage. “But,” says one, “why do you not prove it from the Bible?” You can read the Bible yourselves. I want to know, see, read, and understand, as it is evinced in the physical condition of the race that these are truths, whether the books refer to them or not. If there was no revelation to reach us from foreign quarters, it is a revelation that is before our eyes; its truth is demonstrated within the circle of our own being—within the narrow limits of our own observation it is made plain, and we should understand and comprehend. When we know this, then we know what the Bible may say with regard to polygamy being true, because we find the evidence of it in truth itself. That is what polygamy is worth. It is simply an extension of pure marriage to all the social elements in the community, man and woman, that is all.

Who is it that says there is licentiousness connected with plural marriage? It is the libertine; that man that is corrupt himself; who has worshipped at the shrine of passion; whose passion clamors in his corrupt soul for victims. He dreams of it and talks of it; and because the Saints believe in a plurality of wives, he thinks there must certainly be a lack of moral purity there—virtue must be easy with the people that have more than one wife.

What do you think they have found out? After making experiments that have turned out rather futile, they have found out that with all their mistaken notions of their deluded fellow citizens in the mountains, the virtue of woman and the sanctity of the marriage relationship cannot be invaded with impunity—it is guarded with jealousy. The same men that were brave in coming over the plains, and energetic in making the roads and in building the bridges, etc., are still here, and continue to be brave. They have not dared so much in the past that they will stop daring now.

Are you going to say something in support of plural marriage? No. I do not wish anybody to tell that I have said a word by way of supporting and sustaining plural marriage. Are you ashamed of it? No. Do you love it? Yes, I love it because it is true, and stands alone, without my aid. “What are you talking about it for, then?” That you may understand the truth and know its value, and secure to yourselves the blessings that only can accrue from the knowledge of the truth. That doctrine is safe and can take care of itself; and if you make an application of the truth to yourselves, it will take care of you; it will secure you from corruption, wretchedness, and death, and give you life and immortality; while others will still sink under the accumulating weight of corruption, until they go down to hell.

“But,” says one, “I have been looking, but I have not seen much change that has taken place in consequence of the introduction of polygamy.” You are not a very close observer, perhaps. When the first edition of Federal officers came out here, we had hardly made a beginning in practical plurality of wives; however, it was awful times for them; they could only once in a while see a woman, and when they did see one, they inquired who she was. “O, she is Elder such a one’s wife.” “Who is that woman over yonder?” “She is brother so and so’s wife.” “Who is that woman that is crossing the street?” “She is Bishop such a one’s wife.” “O, the devil, the women are all married out here.” They begin to look round for a peculiar kind of institution that flourishes so well in Christendom, where such prevail, where they make ample provisions for the gratification of lustful passion; no odds how foul, black, and damning in its consequences, still it can find its gratification at those favored institutions. Those Federal gentlemen began to look for similar accommodations in Utah; but instead of finding them they found schoolhouses and houses for the public worship of God, dedicated to the best interests of humanity, for the improvement of the condition of our race. Their peculiar institutions they could not find here, and they could not stay; they went to Washington, and there they began to send up awful howls about the sins of Utah, and the necessity of active measures by the general government to chastise the Mormons in Utah.

How far they have succeeded is evident. The great Buchanan war brought the flower of the army of the United States out here; the bran and shorts were left behind. They came to correct the poor misguided Mormons. For making prostitutes of the women? No. There are plenty of them at home; but the Mormons make wives of them, and this awakened all their sense of horror. It is this that excites our friends in the east—because we think more and better of women than they do. That is the foundation of all the difficulty; they do not complain of us for anything else now. When the C. V.’s from the west came out here they did not succeed any better. Then they thought they would try the negro. He got part way out here, got tired, and they turned him out. What they will do next to correct our morals is not for me to say. They may tell us that we ought to demolish our schoolhouses and put up houses of assignation, and keep houses of accommodation, such as travelers can find in other countries. They are well pleased with our potatoes and johnny cake, but they would be still better pleased if we would have the other luxury.

We fought our way to this country against all the hardships and obstacles that stood in our path, and, through God’s blessing, we have overcome them; we have cultivated the land and done the best that we could under the circumstances, and we have provided for ourselves and for our wives and children as well as we could, and we have been contented. If the husbands of Utah were poor, their wives were willing to share that poverty with them; they were willing to nibble a living from the same dry crust, out of the same stinted fare that we partook of, because they were our wives, and we regarded them as honorable and as good as ourselves, if they behaved as well. This our friends do not like. Our business here in the mountains is to develop a community in which man and woman shall find, through the extension of honorable, pure, just, and virtuous marriage, the legitimate position that Heaven ordained them to occupy as wives and mothers, husbands and fathers, and a response to every requirement of nature, without stepping aside from the path of virtue and honor.

That is what God designed when he commenced this work—“Why did He not introduce it at the very commencement of this work?” Because He could not—because our ears were not open to hear it—our prejudices would not allow us to receive it. If I had been talked to about plurality of wives when I was baptized into the Church, the Lord may know, but I do not know what I would have done. I had to go wandering over the world preaching the Gospel years after, had to work longer than Jacob did for a wife to get myself in that state of mind that the Lord dare name the doctrine to me. We were not aware that any such a thing as plural marriage had to be introduced into the world; but the Lord said it after a while, and we obeyed the best we knew how, and, no doubt, made many crooked paths in our ignorance. We were only children, and the Lord was preparing us for an introduction to the principles of salvation. “What, the principles of salvation connected with marriage?” Yes; because they are nowhere else. “Will not our preaching save us, our going to Church, and our paying tithing?” People have been preaching, praying, paying tithes, building cathedrals and churches, and the deadly work of physical degeneracy is still going on until the race is nearly upon the brink of extinction. Christianity, as it now is, and has been for centuries, has proved entirely insufficient to stop the great evil—to check it in its fearful growth.

The Lord understood this when he talked to the people of Nephi: He told them they should have but one wife, and concubines they should have none. Why would He not allow them to have concubines? I suppose it was because He delighted in the chastity of women. This was simply avowing His feeling with regard to that matter. Concubinage was displeasing in His sight. He left them at liberty to have a wife, but concubines they should have none; informing them that when He wanted His people to raise up seed unto Him, and if it was necessary they should have many wives He would command them. That is simply what He has done. He has commanded us. It is well enough now for the brethren and sisters who have been in practical polygamy for many years to begin to understand something of the nature and object of the institution, that they may not trade it off simply for admittance into the Union, or for anything whatever that may be offered for its exchange. However their enemies may plead to the contrary, the Saints are gathered together from all the world, that the provisions of a virtuous marriage may be extended to all the social element in the community, and that by this there should cease to be developed in that community the curse of woman’s prostitution or man’s corruption, and where mothers in Zion can make it their business to teach their children the way in which they should go; to implant in early childhood principles of truth; to lead them to God; to grow around the hearth like plants of righteousness, that the saying of the old preacher may be verified, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

We are not a numerous people, but we are more numerous than when the Lord told Adam and Eve to be fruitful, and multiply and fill this their earthly inheritance with intellectual beings like themselves. How well that first pair succeeded is evidenced here today. We need not be discouraged, for we can count thousands that are pledged to this work, which is established to re-people the world, to fill the earth with virtuous, pure, and holy men and women. That is the work that devolves upon us. Should every woman be married? Every woman should be married for the same reasons that one woman is married, namely, to subserve the same high, healthy, and Godlike objects of our being. And for the same high purpose should every man be married.

There are certain facts of our existence which we cannot escape from. We are men and women. The very reason why I have spoken here today is that we are men and women; we have come here with men’s and women’s natures, passions, and appe– tites; and if we are ever saved in heaven, we shall be saved as men and women. Our business here is to save men and women by teaching them to live lives of purity. These are self-evident truths. When we count up the men and women that are in the world, we shall find a broad margin more of women than men; and there is a numerical difference in the sexes, as they are developed in our community and every other community. Women must be saved, if the task should devolve on a man to marry two or three of them, and treat them as honorable wives, bless them, and bless their children, provide for them, and teach them principles of purity. When we who made this feeble beginning in that matter can bear the struggle no longer, we will call around us our stalwart sons and daughters, and pledge them before high heaven to devote themselves forever, and their children after them, to the great work of man’s regeneration.

Let us get the body improved first, that the spirit may live and dwell in a pure tabernacle. When this is done, we can go and cultivate the spirit as much as is needful. The world wants a religion that will address itself to this task, because it will enter into the relationship that exists between man and woman, that will purify them and establish within them the seed of eternal life. Let us pray always and never faint, and ask God to bless us in all that we do, and never do anything that is not sufficiently holy that we can ask God to bless; carrying the purity of Heaven’s religion and ordained principles of salvation into every relationship of our lives, and let the Zion of our God extend forth upon all the earth from this point. What will become of the world? They will live in their corruption until they sink and die in it. Our blessings are to build up the kingdom of God in purity and in its perfection in these mountains. This is our work, and may God help us, is my prayer, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remarks by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, delivered in the Bowery, in Great Salt Lake City, General Conference, Oct. 9. 1865.

I am happy to meet with you, my brethren and sisters, this morning, and I simply give expression to my feelings, in repeating what has been expressed by others, that this Conference has been to me one of interest—richly instructive and edifying.

In the admonitions that have been imparted we have been led to see, what in us is weak, dark, and should be improved. And in addition to that, the instructions have been rich in suggestions as to the ways and means by which we can secure to ourselves the blessings of that much needed improvement. While I have listened, the inquiry has risen in my mind as to how we, the people of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, could substantially and profitably pursue the labors devolving upon us and honestly continue the struggle to become what we are denominated—Saints.

In the admonition that has been imparted we were truthfully told, that we were as yet only in part what we should be as Saints; that with all our labors and experience, with all the advantages for acquiring knowledge that have characterized our history thus far, we have yet much to learn. This truth, it appears to me, should be impressed upon the minds of all who think and reflect. It is one that is evinced in our conduct and actions as a people. There is no one feature in our history that is rendered more distinct or plain to be read and comprehended by the reflecting mind than this—that we, in all our learning, learn but slowly, and have as yet learned comparatively little of that large amount that may be learned, and that we yet manifest in our lives but a small degree of that perfection that should characterize us as the children of God, as the people of the Saints of the Most High, who are blessed with the light of the Gospel, ministered to them continually in simplicity and in truth. All our meetings, like the present, where there is congregated together the largest representation of the people of God to be met with in any one place, still continue to be characterized by instruction and teaching on those principles that it has ever been the object of our heavenly Father, and of his servants, to impress upon the minds of the Saints.

Now, how shall we, as the servants and ministers of God, expect to see in ourselves, and in the people to whom our ministrations extend, a permanent and progressive improvement, as the fruits of our labors, unless we, to some extent, justly and truthfully comprehend the principles that are involved in the work that is devolved upon us? It appears to me, as but consistent and truthful, that the enlightenment of the people and the development in them of the knowledge necessary for their blessing and exaltation, should legitimately follow the development of knowledge and a just comprehension of truth in those who minister to them.

Well, we are almost all teachers and preachers; in some relationship in life, in some position in the community, we all put on the character of teachers; and when we take into account the sum of the evils that exist as barriers between us and the enjoyment of a fulness of happiness, when we consider what these are, to remove, conquer, and overcome them should be our labor. And if the knowledge of God, of truth, and of the principles of the Gospel is necessary to the accomplishment of this work, it should be our business, as servants of God and of the people, to learn this lesson ourselves; for it is evident to my mind that our attention and devotion to the truth and to such a course of action as the knowledge of the truth would suggest to us, is that which should regulate us in life, and the extent of our devotion to this is always marked and determined by our appreciation of its value.

If we, as a people, were capable of appreciating, and had justly estimated the counsels that have been imparted to us continually in relation to what is denominated our temporal salvation, our devotion to the advice would have produced far different results. There would not have been, as there is today, a feeling to expostulate with the people on the necessity of laying up and securing to themselves bread against a time of want. There would not be the empty granaries and the comparative lack of that which should exist in abundance among the people.

I do not know what name men may give to the causes that have induced this condition of things. In my mind there exists but one general reason—our lack of comprehending the truth in relation to the nature of the work in which we are engaged; and that with all our opportunities of acquiring knowledge and getting understanding we are, as has been truthfully told us in the fatherly admonitions imparted to us during this Conference, only just beginning to be Saints—only just entering on that work, the consummation of which will make of us that kind of a people for whom the Lord says it is his business to provide.

Now, perhaps, we may have been to some extent presuming too much upon the kindness, charity, and goodness of our heavenly Father. We may have fancied, perchance, that he is pledged to preserve us irrespective of the course that we pursue, simply because we have supposed that we are Saints, because we have been baptized into the Church. But this truth cannot be too forcibly impressed on our minds—that if it is the business of the Lord to provide for his Saints, it is our business exclusively so to live that the Lord may have Saints for whom to care and provide, whom He may protect, and who may securely rest beneath the shadow of His wings, enjoying the blessings of His protection against evil.

But what is it that will constitute us Saints? A knowledge of the work we have to perform, and then a faithful, humble, undivided, and unreserved devotion to its accomplishment. That will constitute us Saints; that will constitute us teachers in the midst of the people; that will constitute us a people to whom the ministrations of the Priesthood will extend as a fountain of blessings.

The attainment of this knowledge, the possession of this rich understanding, is that to which you and I must reach ere we are established in the truth beyond a chance of becoming unsettled. This is the way it appears to me. My paths may be crooked, and my efforts to attain to this position and condition may be feeble, and not only feeble, but they may be characterized by a corresponding amount of improprieties and inconsistencies; but this is what appears to me to be the great object that is before me, that invites my exertions, induces me to labor and struggle—not till I am worn out, but until I find the realization of my brightest hopes in the possession of that which I seek.

As the Gospel presents itself to me, as the work of God is spread out before my mind, so I judge of it, so I appreciate it, so I talk about it, so I recommend it to you, my brethren and sisters.

“Well,” says one, “when will we learn?” That depends altogether upon ourselves. “Why,” says one, “will not the Lord have something to do with it?” The Lord has to do with it; and if we would be more careful about what we should do, instead of troubling ourselves about what the Lord should do, it might perhaps result in bringing us to the enjoyment of greater and richer blessings. Why, the Lord knows what to do, and He has no need of our instruction. The Lord is supposed, by me at any rate, to be fully up to all that devolves upon Him in relation to ourselves. The Lord is waiting for us to come along; He is only waiting for us to come up to that which it is our privilege to enjoy.

Some people may suppose, perchance, that the channels of knowledge are not open to all the people, as they are to the few. Some may cherish the idea that position, or place in the Church and kingdom of God may make a vast difference in the attainment of the blessings requisite to our happiness, and to our acceptance with God, and to our progress as Saints in the way of life. Position may make vast differences, perchance; but I do not know of an individual so low, I do not know of an individual so poor, but what the fountains of knowledge are as accessible to him as to the highest, as well to the last as to the first. It is not from the fact that the fountain of knowledge is only open to the teachers among the people, that they occupy their position. The teachers in the midst of the people are something like what we see in our schools. You go into our schools, and if the teacher has a large number of pupils in charge, he very likely will have recourse to this bit of policy—he takes some of his most advanced scholars and gives them the position of teachers amongst their schoolfellows and associates. Well, does this exalt them above the character or capacity of pupils? No! They are still learners in the school, and it is just as necessary for them to continue their labor for the acquisition of knowledge as before. This is the character of the teachers in Israel; that is, as I view it. This is the way I view myself as a teacher in the midst of Israel—as one upon whom has devolved the duty of extending the principles of salvation to those around me. When I labor to teach or instruct, I do not feel that they whom I am instructing need instruction any more than I do myself. I feel that all the necessity that may exist for any increase of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding in reference to the humblest soul in the kingdom of God, exists in all its force for me.

Well, with this feeling I look upon the work of God, I think of it, I study about it, and then I make my efforts for the accomplishment of the duties that seem to devolve upon me. And when I get to know more and become wiser with that increase of wisdom, I shall not need to tell anybody, it will be evinced in increased propriety of action to the accomplishment of what I seek to accomplish. What duty, then, devolves upon us as the ministers of God—the Priesthood dispersed and living among the people? Why, we should seek for the development in ourselves of that knowledge without which we tell the people that neither they nor we can be exalted to glory and greatness.

“But,” says my brother, “we must tell the people they should be correct in the duties of life in its multiplied details.” Yes, this is good; this must be; but what is it that will correct all these matters? My neighbor kindly takes me by the hand today and says, “Brother Lyman, you can walk in this, that, or the other direction, it is safe.” It may be ground that I have not explored and do not understand, and I feel that his direction and instruction are a blessing to me. So is that a blessing which shall lead and guide the people until the “day shall dawn, and the day star shall arise in their hearts,” whether it be the kindly instruction of teachers who live in their midst, and with whom they meet and associate from time to time, or whether it be the suggestions of the written history of those who have long since passed away, it makes no difference. The history or record contained in the Bible presents an example of the right, and it is suggestive of right to those who read it, and upon the same principle that what could be said to you by the living teacher is suggestive of the truth.

Now, this appears to be what we need; we want to have understanding developed within us. Well, what is it? Perhaps if I were to describe my notions and views of things, it would not be the same as if described by some other man. One of the ancient apostles spoke of understanding in such a way that we can judge something of what his views were in regard to it. Said he, “We know that Jesus has come.” It was a great question in New Testament times among the immediate successors of Jesus—“Has Jesus come, or has he not?” “Has Jesus been and died, or is it an imposture?” the same as it is about the Saints now—“Is this the work of God or is it an imposture?” Well, now, says the apostle, “When that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding to determine between those that serve God and those who do not.” This is what we want; we want understanding, that we may know for ourselves that this is the work of God. Why? Until this is developed within us there is a chance for uncertainty to hang around and cling to us, and a possibility that our feet may be moved from the path of rectitude and truth. We may be like men whom I have seen that have traveled for a score of years with, and have labored in the Church, and have suffered—that is, about as far as men have suffered who have not died—and then, after the expiration of this time, we find them floating off to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south. “Why, good brother, what is the matter? I did not believe you would ever have left the Church.” “Ah!” said he, “I have not found it what it was said to be.” Such individuals have not understanding developed within them; they do not know that this is the work of God. The apostle in ancient times knew that Jesus had come, because of the gift of understanding by which he was able to determine for himself. It is this understanding that, when developed in the mind or soul of a man, sets aside all uncertainty and silences all doubt. Uncertainty departs from the mind at once, and the soul settles in unbroken, undisturbed tranquility and repose, so far as the nature of the work in which it is engaged is concerned, and the language of that soul is, “I know that this is the work of God.”

Now we, as the ministers of God, called from among the people to labor among them, should remember all the time, that it is our first great duty to learn ourselves, to obtain knowledge and understanding ourselves, and then to use all the judgment and understanding with which God may favor and bless us, to enlighten the people and to lead them onward.

But, says one, the people have been taught for years, and they have not yet learned; when will they learn? I will tell you. When they have been taught long enough they will learn. How? Just as you and I when we went to school. We had to study our lessons until we could master them, and then that labor was completed.

I am glad of this continuous principle that seems to mark the character of the work of God. If we do not learn in two, five, ten, twenty, or thirty years the truth that would make us free, still the opportunity is open, still the chance is afforded us to learn and to mend our crooked ways. This is why I love the Gospel; this is what first fixed a deep and abiding regard for it in my affections—the mercy that was in it, the kind for– bearance, that seemed to have a life like the life of the Almighty—eternal, that would never die.

Let us be encouraged to hope for such an increase of intelligence among the people—the fruit of the labors and ministrations of the ministry in their midst, as shall develop increasing perfection of action among the people, and by-and-by they will know enough of themselves to adopt such a policy as would enrich and save them temporally.

Well, says one, would they not get spiritually saved if they were not temporally saved? I do not know. I want to be saved, and I would like to be temporally and spiritually saved. If there should be any difference between them, I want them both. This is the salvation before us. If we had that spiritual salvation which, in the language of the Savior, constitutes eternal life—the knowledge of God, an understanding of the principles of salvation, if we had a sufficiency of divine wisdom, in that light would vanish all these dark clouds that exist around us as so many drawbacks to our prosperity and to our progress in the way of life. In that light we would be able to appreciate the value of doing right, above that of doing wrong. This is the way the matter appears to me, and I look forward to the time when the Saints will be all they should be, as Saints. I hope and labor for it, and there is no feeling in my soul but what reaches forward with hopeful confidence to a time when the last dark cloud shall be moved from the minds, not of everybody, but of the Saints with whom our labors in this work begun, and with whom we have been associated the last thirty years of our lives; of the Saints with whom we have endured toil, with whom we have been driven, and in whose fate and fortunes we have shared. We expect it for them, we hope for it for them, and we labor for it for them. Will not you labor with us? We tell you that to know God is eternal life, which is simply repeating the truth declared by the Savior of the world; and while we impress this repeatedly, again and again, on your minds, and bring it to your attention, will not you unite with us in struggling for the acquisition of that knowledge for yourselves? Why, says one, can’t you get it for us? No; it is all I can do to get knowledge for myself. Well, but, says one, can’t you impart to us? I can do what I am doing this morning—making the best effort in my power, within the compass of my ability, to awaken such trains of thought and reflection in your minds as will lead you to seek after the truth, and seeking, find it. If what I have learned, if the little knowledge I possess should have enlightened any other mind than mine, or could be possessed by any other individual than me, without his action being required for its attainment, things would be different from what they are. Our Father has fixed it so that we might live, and find the elements of happiness and joy for ourselves; and when they were acquired, they would be ours to possess, fixed within, the treasure of our own souls, forever ours, constituting our happiness with all its eternal increase and greatness.

Let us wake up and feel that we are the children of God, and that as God’s children, the object of our being here is to find and realize within ourselves that development of our natures that we inherit from our Father and God, that will exalt us till we can be fit associates for Him, that between Him and ourselves there may exist all that wealth of harmony that will constitute the happiness of heaven, the bliss, and glory of the saved and sanctified.

Well, now, to acquire this, what is the labor before us? What is neces– sary? That we turn from evil. Well, how shall we know evil? Why our evils are pointed out continually, not only by the feeble dawnings of light within us, but by the light of that inspiration that burns in the hearts of the servants of God, making their comprehensions of truth reach incomparably beyond those who have not in such a way devoted themselves to the acquirement of knowledge. In that light our weaknesses and follies are brought to our understanding, that we may see them, and that seeing and comprehending we may go to work and regulate our actions so that when God blesses, aids, and strengthens us, we may acquire that knowledge that will exalt us above the influence of the ignorance that is around us.

Now, my brethren and sisters, having expressed these few thoughts, I hope that we may be able to go away from this Conference to our respective homes to live and labor in the great work of our Father, and that when the half-year shall have passed away, and we are again assembled in this capacity, that we may feel, and not only feel, but that it may be true, that we are a wiser and better people than today; and that we may entertain more truthful conceptions of God and the character of his work, and be acting in a manner better calculated to please Him and to secure His blessings upon us, than today.

That this may be our happy lot, and that God’s blessings may attend our every exertion for the development of Zion on the earth, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1863.

I am glad to have the opportunity of making some remarks in relation to some matters that interest us as Saints. I do not feel disposed at the present time to seek either to please myself or you by undertaking to discourse in a very methodical manner, but I wish simply to talk of such things as may be suggested to my mind and of such matters as will interest us and as affect our interests as a community. The character of our meetings are such as seem to render short sermons the order of the day; they are texts from which the people may preach their own sermons, and this will, doubtless, be most appropriate.

I have been much interested in the instruction that has been addressed to the Conference since its commencement; and the topics that have been talked upon are of all-importance to us who are engaged in the building up of the kingdom of God. I have listened with pleasure to them myself, and my thoughts and reflections have been pleasing, especially so because of the belief which I entertained that those instructions were directly connected with the working out of that salvation that we are seeking for.

I was much pleased and gratified with the allusions that were made and the instructions imparted this morning to that portion of our community who are called to preach the Gospel and minister for the salvation of mankind, by acting in the capacity of teamsters to drive teams from various parts of Utah to Florence and then back again to this point with their freight of Saints.

I have been led, from what I have observed, to entertain some serious reflections with regard to these our brethren, believing in my own mind that they are too apt, as a general thing, to dismiss from their feelings, if the sentiment was ever entertained by them—they are too apt, I say, to forget that they are actually preachers of the Gospel and ministers of salvation to the people, in their capacity as teamsters. I fear that they have thought themselves less honorable than others, because they had not to go abroad and simply tell the people of principles by which they might be benefited and saved; and because of their entertaining this feeling a small degree of recklessness and carelessness in relation to their conduct have been allowed to gain the mastery over them. While we are acting as a lot of teamsters we do not arrogate to ourselves the dignity of being missionaries; we are apt to think that there is nothing in that kind of business that is calculated to ennoble and enlighten mankind. In the most honorable acceptation of the term, we are only going to drive a team to the States and back again, and, consequently, there is little or no responsibility resting upon us, beyond that which may be placed upon those who are appointed to regulate our actions, to take care of the teams and to act in the capacity of Captains. If we do this duty, as we consider it to be one, in that way that will be considered well done, and so that it will be accepted by our brethren, then all is done that was embraced in the nature and character of our calling. I want to say to our brethren who are called to act in this capacity, that they are in every sense of the word ministers of salvation, and as such they should be men of pure feeling, they should be men honest in bearing forth pure and holy principles and men that should honor God in every feeling of the heart, with every thought and every action, men who should be mindful of God and of their relationship to him.

If this feeling could be cherished within those men, it would save them continually from recklessness; it would save them from the commission of many wrongs, from many evils that are done by those who are so unfortunate as to be destitute of the knowledge of the truth which has been daily imparted to our brethren. By this means we cannot only be delivered from sin, but we shall never suffer the evil consequences, and we shall know better than to say or do anything that will cast a darkening shadow over the otherwise bright fame of other individuals. I would really love to see men that would go to drive teams act as though, to a certain extent, the responsibility of God’s Church and kingdom devolved upon them; I would like to see them act as men, as Saints and servants of God, and I would like to see them make themselves men of purity, the examples of the rectitude and propriety of their own conduct, so that their actions would be altogether commendable to God and such examples as would be acceptable to all good men. The man who simply goes to preach the Gospel is no more doing the will of Heaven than the man who drives an ox team for the salvation of his poor brethren. The man who has horses to drive and carry him along over the country to aid him in forwarding the purposes of Heaven, should feel that the position is an honorable and responsible one. No matter what a man’s sphere of action be, if he be devoted to his calling, his labor will be acceptable. The man who has no oxen or horses to drive, but who has to pass over the country preaching the Gospel, is very fortunate if he can get horses to draw him along through the district of country in which he is called to travel. Amidst all the difficulties which he may encounter he should feel that his position is both an honorable and responsible one. If men have this feeling what will they do? Why, they will pursue about the same course that those brethren will who have been called by this Conference to go on a foreign mission. These young men are going out into the vineyard to become praying and preaching men, to become examples of propriety and to let their actions evince that decorum and rectitude of feeling that will prove them to be all they profess—Saints and servants of the living God. This is a just and a proper feeling for them to entertain and their conduct should be in strict accordance with their high and holy profession.

What are these brethren expected to do while upon this mission? What would naturally be expected of men called to act in this capacity? We would expect that they would remember God; but how should they remember him? They should not merely remember him at stated times, when they might, by specific regulations instituted, be bound to offer their supplications to him in prayer, but they should attend to this in its time and season, they should remember him in secret that he might not forget them in public, and in this way they will not only remember God but they will have reason to think of his goodness and they will always have him in their thoughts. Let them adopt this plan, and then when you meet them on their journey or see them collected around their camp fire, their time will not be wasted in useless and foolish conversation, but their time will be occupied in the adjudication of such questions as will lead their minds to the understanding of the truth and to the comprehension of the character of that God whose representatives they are called to be.

This is what we would expect of missionaries; we would naturally expect they should be praying men, that they should be Godfearing and God-loving men continually. And what we should expect from that class of missionaries we should expect and we ought to see with and among every other class of missionaries, the teamster as well as the preacher. The teamster labors to build up the same kingdom that the preacher does, depending for its development upon the influence and power that the truth gains among the children of men. How is this to be accomplished? By laboring and gradually gaining strength and by obtaining a still stronger hold in the affections of the people.

Then I hope that the teamsters, and I suppose they are all present at Conference—but if there should be some of them at home they will doubtless find the instruction good for them before they start upon their journey, and even when they are performing their return journey they can do much by favoring the improvement which there ought to be in this class of the ministry—I hope that they will study to be sober, both spiritually and morally, and when they get to Florence I do not want them to harrow up the good, kind feelings of their brethren the returning missionaries, by becoming slightly inebriated, and accept of my assurance that you can be credited with performing the whole journey if you never get drunk once. It seemed to me when I was there last season that there was a portion of that same reckless spirit among our brethren that was manifested by the Gentile emigration that I saw passing over the road. They seemed to feel that they had never performed the journey before, and they appeared to feel and act as though they thought that although they might never have been drunk all their lives, still they must celebrate such an important event as the performance of a journey from here to Florence by getting drunk! I was sick when I was there, but the nights were made hideous and horrid by that mistaken class of missionaries who were sent out with wagons and teams to bring in the poor. There were some of them who did not see the nature of their business, the purity of its character and its holiness, but they would give way to recklessness and to acts of immorality. I allude to it here because I saw it then as a thing to be corrected, and it is one that I have no doubt will be corrected.

There are a great many things connected with the accomplishment and performance of the duties of this class of missionaries to which is attached by some a great degree of importance, while by others perhaps these things will be regarded with indifference. Now, I have long entertained this feeling of attaching importance to this kind of missionary labor: perhaps I am wrong; but it does not change the fact that I have entertained and cherished it as a correct and true principle, and as such I have taught it before the Saints, which shows that I feel interested in the proper management of our emigration and solicitous that a good example should be set before the ingathering Saints.

In our going abroad to proclaim the Gospel, we go to preach its principles to the people, and there is nothing else that I know of laid upon us to perform but to preach the Gospel and proclaim that righteousness to the people that has been made known in these last days, that those who believe may continue from their introduction into the Church and kingdom of God to travel onward and upward in the principles of salvation. Well, then, if this is all that devolves upon us as missionaries abroad, then we have nothing else to preach or practice, or in which to engage ourselves, but the performance of that duty. And permit me here to remark, that I am exceedingly glad to see the change that has been and is transpiring in regard to the manner in which our brethren go abroad, and the kind of treatment extended to those who are dependent upon them while they are absent. I believe I can appreciate these blessings. The appointed missionary has no excuse, there is now no reason why his affections should not be entirely devoted to the ministry; but there is no reason why his energies should be wasted in a useless anxiety about things which are entirely beyond his reach. We might as well try to change the condition of the dead as to think of turning all men in favor of our Gospel, this will never be, but we expect to make many converts. In going forth to do our duty in warning mankind we should not have our minds troubled and perplexed on account of our families being destitute of johnny cake at home, and when we have the assurance that our families are provided for, then there is but one labor, but one branch of business in which may be enlisted every feeling of the soul. But if a man has no cause of trouble, he can engage heart and soul in the work of the ministry and think of nothing else but the Work in which he is engaged. “But,” says one, “I cannot forget my wife and child that are at home.” You are not required to forget them. I could always remember my wife and my child, but did I sorrow over them and fear that they were starving to death? No; I did not. Why? One reason was that they had never starved to death before when I left them; and I knew that we had traveled together and appeared to walk hand in hand with the meager hag, and that she had met us at every corner of life’s path, but I also knew that our poverty had never produced starvation. Under these circumstances then, when absent on missions, we kneel down and pray, “God bless the distant ones at home,” and then go on about our business.

I hope for the blessing and prosperity of the Work of God, for its continued increase, and that the Elders who go abroad may feel to the extent they should the importance of the position they occupy and the true nature of the Work of God. Brethren, do not think of anything but to increase the Work in which we are engaged, for if it succeeds we should be sustained. There is always an increase of our individual work in the increase of the aggregate of God’s kingdom upon the earth. “But,” says one, “I do not know when I shall get that other wife or those dollars I am after.” Now wait a little; never mind those things at present, but attend to your duties in the Church and kingdom of God. “Why,” says one, “have you got rich?” No, I have not in one way, but in another I have. Some would imagine that I had according to the Mountain Boys’ manner of speech, but I have not got rich in this way; I have got rich in learning to wait my time for everything, and to be patient until the proper time comes. I do not say that I have got rich, but I have gained. I won’t say that I have gained as much as I might have done, but I am going to keep on gaining and adding more and more to my already acquired stock of patience, and I want to see all the brethren going on in this way. “But,” says the young brother that has no wife, “would there be any harm in me taking a wife?” I presume that under certain circumstances there would not, and I presume equally that under other circumstances it would be wrong. Then, when you are sent abroad to preach the Gospel, do not take a wife, but attend to your duties in that calling. I have been abroad for almost thirty years, performed numerous missions, and I have never been commanded to go abroad to take a wife. I want to see the brethren who go on missions give their minds and talents to the preaching of the Gospel, that by their honest treatment of the people the Saints may be honestly gathered, be taught and led onward and upward in the pathway of exaltation and happiness.

When men labor in this way, the prayers of the just will bless them; they will become rich—in what? In the faith and confidence of the souls that have become enlisted in the truth through their philanthropy. This will make a store for holy reflection that will last perpetually and eternally. But if we would secure this in its fullest extent while here, remembering others as we think of ourselves, we must extend and manifest to them the same honest, truthful and proper conduct that we wish to have extended to us. There is none of us who would desire any wrong to be extended to us; we would not crave it; we would not ask for it unless we asked it in ignorance, but never while in the exercise of good judgment. If you would never have evil at your door, never carry evil and lay it at the door of your brother or sister, but be honest, pure and just. You can do this, if you cannot do everything; and Elders in Israel who act in this way are always blessed. You never saw such men engaged in any labor but what they were blessed. You never see them go abroad but what they are blessed; and when the fruits of their labors flow in the homeward tide to Zion, that blesses them; it tells of their integrity, of the truth of their teachings, of their conduct, of their example and of their actions, as well when abroad as at home. Those persons who were thus gathered tell of their teachings, of their counsels, and of the advice which was given to them by those Elders, which was productive of salvation under all circumstances, at all times and in all places. This is the time when we might afford to weep, as the President said in reference to the young brethren that are going abroad; when they come back, having magnified their calling before God and the Saints, then he said he could weep, and who could not? It would be no tears of grief, no effusion of sorrow, but it would be simply the overflowing of the feelings of joy and gratitude. This is worth all that has to be endured while absent from our friends. Does this privilege and blessing of holding the priesthood belong to these young missionaries alone? No, there are hosts of them. Why, the whole land is filled with Elders holding the Priesthood of God; they are to be found numbered with the Elders’ Quorum, with the High Priests and with the Seventies, and, in fact, all through the land you can hardly see a man who does not hold the Priesthood of the living God. And the purity of life that should characterize the man who is a minister of Jesus Christ should be above the mediocrity of ordinary men. The man who administers the words of life and salvation continually to the people, should set forth that which he seeks to develop in himself and he should seek to put away that careless indifference of character which characterizes many others; he should have a sacred and holy regard for the truth; he should make life subservient to the truth always, and should never do violence to the principles of purity for any reason that could be urged nor for any cause that could be plead, but he should be among the people an example of righteousness in whatever capacity he might be called to act as a revelator and a minister of God. By doing this, do you not think there would be a reformation? Yes, there would be a reformation and an increase of intelligence and of purity of life. “Well,” says one, “do you not think there is an increase already?” Yes, I do; but who does not know what has been the claim and character of some men in times past; for instance, a man that has done one thing great and good has satisfied himself with that, hence he has made no further exertions to do anything in any of those quorums by which to raise and gather around him the ornaments of society.

Now, let us not be satisfied with these good feelings and influences of the heart; but let us be faithful and stand for God, let us say we have received much that has been good and precious, but still, good Lord, we want more. For that let us pray on, let us preach on and practice purity of life, and still seek to be the ministers of righteousness that we may gain that which we have not yet acquired, and get that which we do not yet possess.

Now, this Conference should be the means of carrying to the people suggestions and instructions of this kind by means of the Bishops and their Counselors. Supposing that these men holding the Priesthood, instead of holding it as ministers of God and of the truth, should waste their time in idleness, and should make their office the means of their own aggrandizement, and, instead of improving the opportunities afforded them to facilitate the advancement and improvement of the people, should neglect that which is really necessary to be done and turn the labor upon work that would be unprofitable and that would involve the people in debt and difficulty, of what benefit is such a minister? The result would be that the people would feel burdened throughout the land and there would be discontent among the citizens. But supposing the presiding officer should take the lead and say, Here is a new interest, let us be awakened, and let us one and all unite to benefit the community—Would not this produce a good feeling? Then let the Bishop, the Priest, and the preacher, instead of introducing follies and nonsense among the people, spread out before them the principles of equity, and create within them a lively interest in the Work of God. Let the subjects of their thought and the topics of their conversation be such as will lead them to the acquirement of that intelligence that comes from God. But if the head gets sick and dull through age and the absence of the spirit of life, the heart becomes sick also. “What do you mean?” says one. I mean that the Elders can, by their faith, their energy and their life, instil into the minds of the people a perseverance and a determination to press forward such as is not likely to be, unless an influence is used for that purpose. By taking this course, they will secure the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and the confidence of their brethren.

Let me advise all men to be wise, and especially those who are not any older than I am; and if I am not considered to be old, I would say that I mean all men who are of my age, and also those who are younger as well as those who are older; I would advise all such to be sober, to be sociable and to do as much good as they possibly can, by setting a good example before their children, by being an example of propriety of action and by striving to keep far from them faults of an evil character. Now, it does seem to me that my ex– ample will have its effect among my friends. For instance, if a man indulges in drunkenness, and if I refrain from this habit, when I meet that man he will endeavor to be completely guarded and not be cursed by the evil consequences of his slavish habit. We want to be perfect in everything we do and in all life’s vicissitudes to realize that we do speak the truth, and let us be sure to remember one thing, that the intimacy of our relationship with celestial beings is such that we should be strict examples to others in the keeping of our word. We should never lie; if we tell a falsehood to a brother, however friendly and kind he may be, he could not change that lie into a truth; therefore cease from lying. We are all guilty, more or less, in this respect; when I go and make a promise to a brother, or if a brother make a promise to me, I hold that promise to be sacred, although the man was under the necessity of promising something because his business required him to do so, hence it is important that we be careful about making promises. Oh do not consider that we honor God or worship him any more by making so many promises. Let us especially be careful to abstain from all that is impure, unjust, and unholy; for if we are going to be like God our justice must be just, and it must have its exercise in the narrowest and smallest as well as in the broadest avenues that are in life’s relations, and we must be scrupulously honest in its administration.

Remember, my brethren, that honesty is the safeguard to our actions, and remember that every good gift comes from our Father and God. It is our duty to honor our Maker and God in all our ways; and I can tell you this one truth, that until we can love each other and regard each other’s interests, we shall fail to enjoy the blessings of celestial glory; and if you think of enjoying celestial glory without this element as well as the many others that are required of us, let me request you to stop and pause, for you cannot do it; you cannot enjoy this at my house when I and mine are glorified; but we do not want anything that is dishonest about us. Let us be faithful and just in our dealings and try to elevate ourselves in the scale of intelligence, and prepare ourselves for the benefits and blessings of Heaven’s common education. This is the point that we have been striving, studying and struggling to attain. We want to be educated in God’s way, that we may submit ourselves to God and be willing to be governed by his laws in all things.

We have got a little of the Lord’s property in our possession, and we call it ours. Now, if you undertake to persuade some persons to go with you, the question immediately arises, What are you going to give us to pay us for going with you to Zion? This is about the feeling, but the property which we own and are stewards over is just what the Lord has placed in our hands. He has stored away property for the benefit of his penniless children, and he will bestow it upon them in due time. It is hard to tell what the anticipations of the people are; but if they will acknowledge the hand of God in all things and live by the truth as it is revealed unto them, they will increase in influence and power with God and all good men. When they have enjoyed all that they can enjoy of life and life’s blessings, as they are gratuitously bestowed by God their Father, who do you suppose will be the most accommodated with the Temple that is to be built? If the Lord comes down to visit that Temple, he will come down to bless his people and not to benefit himself. Suppose he should come now, who are prepared to receive him? And who would share the greatest good and be the most accommodated by the building of this Temple? Why the blessings would be the people’s; the happiness and the benefits thereof would be for the people, and the glory that it would afford to the Almighty would only be that which the blessing would afford him of seeing his children happy in the enjoyment of the benefits of his mercy. This would be his blessing, and he would also enjoy the shelter that was made for him in the Temple of our God. Now, let us go to work with this feeling, remembering that we have a great deal of responsibility and care upon us; let us not cease to be active, for we have always plenty to do; we have always enough responsibility to keep us busy and to keep the great stone of the kingdom of God rolling onward. It is a common saying that a rolling stone gathers no moss, but I do not care for this saying, for I know to the soul that lives in the Gospel and enjoys its life-imparting influences, there is a stream of imperishable wealth flowing unto such a soul. A man cannot perform a good action without its bringing its corresponding reward, neither can he perform an evil one without its corresponding effects upon his life and character.

My invitation is, especially to the Elders, let us go abroad as men of God to build up the kingdom of our Lord and Master. Let us know nothing while upon our missions but that which tends to the interests of that kingdom to which we belong, and let all we do be done for the interest and upbuilding of the kingdom of God. Let us carry its interests with us in our hearts; let us speak of it in the private circle; do not let it be spoken of in the pulpit alone, but let it be spoken of between man and man, husband and wife, father and son, parents and their children, and in all life’s associations; yes, let the light of eternal truth be kindled in every heart, let the fire that will consume the dross of our errors be lighted up in every soul, in every household, until every household becomes a sanctuary of the Most High, and until every family becomes a worshiping assembly such as will be acceptable to God—a people whom he will delight to own, to honor and to bless, and then, whether a man have one wife or two, or a dozen, his home will be a happy one, it will be a little heaven below. It will be a happy one, because it will be a peaceful one and because that home will simply be one sacrifice upon the altar devoted to God, to truth, to principles of purity and to heaven. “But,” says one man, “can a brother obtain celestial glory if he has only one wife?” Yes, he can have great glory with one wife. “And,” says this brother, “would you not advise some men not to have but one wife?” Yes, I certainly would. “And who would you advise?” I would give this advice, because I know that there are a great many more men getting more than one wife than are capable of treating them decently; I am sensible of this. But then I have no advice to give about getting wives at all, but I have some advice that I always have to give to those that have wives, and that is to treat them kindly. “Well, but,” says one, “I would like to have my wives obey me.” Well, then, I will tell you how you should act. You be obedient to those who are placed to counsel and guide you in the principles of life; and if you follow their counsel, your wives will not be likely to rebel against you. This is what I have to say upon this subject, and the reason I say it is because I want to have that portion of intellectual humanity that is subservient to me understand their posi– tion and relationship to each other and to God. If I make myself before them a continual, perpetual and unceasing example of obedience, and then ask them to obey me, I shall have no fear about their compliance. I seldom, if ever, ask them to obey me. If they do not know that and do not feel that I have honored them, they have not as much sense as I have given them credit for.

I would like my family to love God and keep his commandments, to abide by the principles of purity, to love to impart them to their children by practice, by teaching and by example and by every means by which children can be influenced by their parents. Then, if this were carried out in every family, there would be something in the tendency of our lives that would have a regenerating influence upon the rising generation, physically and mentally. Then let us try to be Saints as husbands and fathers, Saints as children and friends, and in all life’s relationships let us act truthfully and consistently. And if we who minister in the ordinances of the house of God were to do this, and were all to open our mouths in favor of the truth, where the truth is dropping and distilling upon the people like the dews of heaven, this would make everything green, fresh and lively throughout the land of Zion, and then Zion will increase and grow and its never-ceasing embellishments will be seen in the conduct of the people, for Zion will be sanctified by the conduct of the Saints.

Now, my brethren and sisters, in conclusion, let me say, may God bless you and me in doing all the good we can, in practicing righteousness, in doing that which we know to be right and in living that which we do not know but are taught by faith to observe, and thus fill up our lives in usefulness, then when we get to know the truth more perfectly we shall re– joice therein. If we only do this, we will bring our application of the truth home and there allow it to do its work, for the fruits of the truth are here and we shall realize the bless– ings of them forever. And that this may be your happy condition and mine is my prayer, in the name of Jesus: Amen.

Discourse by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, October 7, 1862.

I do not know that it is necessary for me to tell you that I am glad to be here. If you have but a little of the feeling that influences me, you know very well that I am glad to be here. I am not glad to be here because my mission is ended, for such I do not consider to be the case at all. We often say we have been on a mission, and have fulfilled a mission, and have returned as though that something had been completed and accomplished. I have been on a mission, but I have not come from a mission, or from that mission. I have been on a mission; I have come home on a mission; I am still on a mission. The obligations of that mission, I feel, are not ceasing, not becoming less, but they increase from day to day and from year to year with the increase of knowledge and understanding and the apprehension of the principles of truth. I am here today for the same purpose, for the prosecution of the same labor that I have been in, in every place that I have occupied as a minister of the truth since I first became acquainted with its principles, and by such acquaintance I became connected with the Work of God.

My text is furnished me in the people that are before me today. Who could look upon this assembly and be so dull, so stupid that the inquiry would not arise in his mind, What are we here for? Why all this gathering together of this mixed multitude of people; people from so many nations; people of different tongues, of different customs, different traditions and notions, yet having one and the same feeling in reference to a few of the details that make up the great aggregate of life’s actions? For what purpose have we been gathered together from distant nations? Some may have thought that our gathering here was only for the sake of being together, for the sake of creating a multitudinous community. The multitude we see assembled here today are here because the kingdom of God is to be built up; for if the kingdom of God is to be built up, there must be people to constitute it; there must be a people to be ruled, or the rulers would have nothing over which to rule. If the mere assembling of the people together constitutes the kingdom of God now, why has it not constituted the kingdom of God at other times? People have assembled together before; communities have existed before, yet the existence of such communities has not and does not now constitute them the kingdom of God. One reason why the gathering together of the people does not constitute the kingdom of God is, that the mere gathering of the people is not particularly an intellectual operation, it does not of itself particularly inform the judgment or enlighten the mind in reference to God, and man’s relationship to God and his purposes.

We commenced our labors with you in lands far distant from this we preached the Gospel to you; listening to that, and receiving the testimony of the servants of God and following the course that was indicated by them, you have become changed in your circumstances and locality. You were located in other parts of the globe and were citizens of other nations, but now you are here located in the peaceful vales of Utah. It is now time for the gathered Saints to begin to learn still more, if they have not already begun to do so; and if they have begun to learn, to continue to learn something of the reason why they are gathered together, that they may be able to discover the true relationship between the actions they perform, the labors, duties and services that are required of them, and the development, increase and growth into strength and power of the kingdom of God on the earth. When we talk about the kingdom of God our thoughts are apt to travel away from scenes of earth, as though it were a matter of the ideas alone and not connected with our earthly operations, labors, duties and services.

There is no action in life, no labor that we perform, no relationship that we sustain to God and one another, but what should be connected directly with the development of the kingdom of God. Says one—“We must become perfect and holy; we must become Godlike; we must become like the angels or like the spirits of the just who dwell with God.” This is true; but where is that transformation, that change in our condition, feelings and circumstances to be wrought out—in heaven or on earth, at home or abroad? Where is the school in which we are to be taught the plain, simple, unvarnished administrations of truth in a way to bring it within the range of our feeble comprehension of truth that we may understand it? Are we to learn it in any one place to the exclusion of all others? No. Are we to learn God and truth where we live? Yes. If not, where in Heaven’s name do you expect to learn of him? Do you live in heaven with God and his angels? No; you live here on the earth, here in Utah among the rugged mountains that are around us. All you know you know here, and all you can learn you must learn here while you are here. To acquire a knowledge of God is eternal life. That appears to many to be a great something. I say something, because people know nothing of God. Where are you going to obtain a knowledge of God.

People talk about going to heaven, but when we find ourselves in heaven we shall find that we have reached it, without going to it. Heaven is a development of internal powers and external changes. We learn to know God now as human beings, influenced by the effects of sin and folly, degraded and surrounded with darkness, misery and wretchedness. Shall we wait until these are put off before we can learn of God and get to know that which will constitute in us that knowledge which is eternal life? No. We came here to the valleys of Utah in obedience to the requirements of the Gospel, simply that we might here continue to be taught. We came to this distant region to learn of God. How? By, in the first place, learning ourselves. Can we know God in this way? Yes; we can know him in no other way. We cannot go to where he is, to be taught of him personally and to associate with him. What have we in this world that gives a truthful indication of his character to the mind that is open to the light of truth? We have ourselves been made in the image of God. Then it is essentially necessary that we should learn ourselves as an all-important step to the knowledge of God. We must learn to correct our lives and our actions; we must learn to govern ourselves and sanctify our affections, that we may be prepared to hold communion with heavenly intelligences.

The kingdom of God is established now for the development and increase of its principles within us, to reflect light on the darkness that surrounds us and reveal to our understanding the true relationship we sustain to God, and the reason why the requirements of the Gospel are laid upon us and why we can be saved by listening to them, and why we are not saved if we refuse to listen to them.

When the sound of the Gospel first reached me, I used to have this childish idea, that if I ever knew the truth it must be because the heavens would be opened for me to gaze upon the glory that is within the veil, and this would be the only assurance I could receive that the Gospel is true. I lived under the influence of this idea until I passed measurably from the condition of childhood, of hearing as a child and understanding as a child. When I began to approximate towards a riper condition of mind, I became satisfied that it was not by merely looking at something that the mind became enlightened; that it was not by merely guessing at something that is incomprehensible that knowledge is developed in the soul. I learned that the Gospel was true in a very simple way. The Gospel required me to pursue an upright, just, virtuous, honest course of life with all the world around me and to live at peace with all men. I commenced living in the world without quarreling with anybody; I followed the dictation of the Gospel and its requirements, and it has saved me from war, contention, and strife with my fellow man, from quarreling with my family, with my brethren, with my friends and with my neighbors. In this way I found out that so much of the Gospel was true, and I did not have to go to heaven to find this out neither. This is the way I want you to begin to learn God, and the consequences will be peace and the joy that springs from peace. Then heaven will be in the home where you dwell, in the land and country where you live, in your associations with your friends and neighbors and kindred in all life’s varied relations. Another conse– quence will be a constant indwelling of the Spirit of God; that Spirit that brings life and light, and knowledge and understanding to the soul of man, that quickens the intellect of man and sanctifies every power to hold communion with still higher and holier principles.

We say we want the Holy Spirit; then let us so live our religion that we may have the Holy Spirit, which will improve our condition continually, making us better and better citizens of the kingdom of God with every degree of gain over ourselves. In this way we may cultivate and develop in us individually the principle of immortality that will constitute, when applied to the great body of the people of God, the immortality of his kingdom, the basis of its eternal and deathless perpetuity. Then the development of the kingdom of God in power on earth, temporally, depends upon the self-culture of its members, upon the culture of the feelings that rule the soul and that give character to the action of the creature. When we consider that purity of life is necessary and requisite to qualify a man to be a citizen of the kingdom of God, we shall cultivate that quality and labor for its development and increase. To how many of the infinitesimal details of life’s actions does this principle extend? It should extend to them all. We cannot do any wrong that will render us acceptable to God and make us better. That is right which improves and gives life. There is a right way and a wrong one to all we do.

If we cultivate the ground there is a way which, if pursued, will be fruitful of consequences the most disastrous, while an opposite way will produce profit and reward us for our labors. There is a way that is fruitful of noxious weeds where something better should grow, and this is as truthfully the result of the conduct of the farmer as is the rich harvest of healthy grain that affords him bread and sustenance. Some people think they can pray the weeds out of their fields and gardens, but their prayers can only be effectual when accompanied with a reasonable amount of honest labor rightly and wisely applied. I am in favor of praying. I love to pray myself, and I love to have the Saints pray. But when you have a great many weeds growing on your land, pray for your land, and do not forget to go out on to that land and pull up, remove and destroy by your diligent labor the weed-plants that so much annoy you.

We have been told that the Lord will not plant our grain for us and cultivate our fields. We are here to learn how to do that for ourselves, if we do not know. This part of our education we have to gain, if we have not already gained it; and this will enable us to aid in the building up and development in its greatness and power of the kingdom of God. Let our labor be so applied, that when we bow down before our heavenly Father to ask him to bless anything we have or do, that we can do so consistently. Let us hoe up the weeds and enrich our fields, and ask God to give us a bountiful crop to reward our toils. We will do all we can do, and then ask God to bless that labor and leave the result with him. If your wagon has been fixed in the mud get hold of the wheel yourself and lift all you can, and then ask somebody else to help you if you need help.

There is another field that is equally taxed with the support of a noxious growth: I refer to ourselves at home. We carry about with us our notions, our habits of thought; and our habits of thought give character to our actions. When, for instance, the storm of passion is aroused in our bosom, we yield ourselves up to it without an effort and unresist– ingly allow ourselves to be carried away by its influence from a course of propriety and right, and we do wrong and say wrong things. Let rising anger be suppressed; let the place where it had its incipient being become its grave. Never let the mouth utter the word that should not be spoken. This counsel is just as applicable to myself as it is to you. I have learned long since that I was not called to preach the Gospel because I had no improvement to make on myself, or because I could not become any better. I have come to the conclusion that the more I talk about the right and the less I talk about the wrong, and the more I become occupied with the right the less danger I shall be in of becoming occupied by the wrong. This is good for me, and, being good for me, I recommend it to the Saints. I want them to live peaceably and quietly with one another and learn to do the little things in life’s duty right. That we may learn to do this, it is necessary that we should control our passions, for if we do not control them they will control us, and under such control we do wrong. When we control ourselves, the result is equanimity of feeling such as is necessary to the exercise of an enlightened judgment, if such judgment exists within us. Cannot God help us? It altogether depends upon whether we are disposed to help ourselves or not. God will help and bless us when we pursue the course that is acceptable to him. If we strive to subdue stormy passions within us, he will assist us in the good work until the Spirit of God is not merely a casual visitor, but a constant dweller within us to increase our store of knowledge, extend our views and make our conceptions of God and truth more as they should be. Let us live in this way and we shall speak kindly of one another and be more charitable to all men.

The result of our education is differences of feeling and differences in our way of life; we have brought these differences with us from our distant homes. We have brought with us to Utah more or less of the old notions that have grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength; throughout our lives their influence has been upon us. So far as these are in opposition to the truth and the right, they must be overcome, for as we learn the truth we must exchange our incorrect notions for notions that are correct in reference to living with one another and in reference to our general conduct in life. It is not some service we have to perform at some remote place from where we are now living that will benefit us, but it is how we deport ourselves here towards one another and towards God; how we shall make our farms, cultivate our grounds, and how to use that which we have been blessed with as faithful stewards of the manifold mercies of God. We have much yet to learn; the improvements we have not yet made are all to be made, whether they relate to the cultivation of our fields and gardens or to the cultivation of our minds; it is our duty to garnish and embellish them and make them beautiful and lovely as the residence and heritage of intellectual men and women. This will bring into existence God’s temporal kingdom on the earth; then the sanctified and holy and acceptable of his children will dwell in palaces, will be surrounded with wealth, and there will be no desire of their hearts but what may be satisfied. There will be a fountain opened to them where they may satisfy their thirst, however intense it may be for ought that is good, great and ennobling.

Learn, sisters, when you teach the truth to your children who prattle around your knee, and are trying to cultivate a love of it in them, that you are determining their destiny and your own, and their relationship unchangeably with the increase, perpetual and eternal growth of God’s kingdom. Think of this, and do not for a moment pass by those labors of love to your children as matters of comparatively little value, for in them are your hopes of glory, heaven, happiness, bliss, and joy in that great future of glory we are looking for. How can a mother teach her children the right if she is reckless of it herself? How can a father do that if he neglects to set before his household the example of propriety that should constitute the constant and ceaseless labor of a father? Then, let us remember that all this work is upon us; it is to redeem the earth, to be learning how to cultivate and improve its condition; it is to bring into existence a holy nation of men and women before God.

Who are they which constitute the bright hosts that worship around the throne of God? They are men and women and children, such as we see here today; intellectual beings like ourselves, who have been educated, taught, trained, led onward and upward from a condition of ignorance to the possession of that infinitude of knowledge that makes so incomprehensible a difference between us. As we are, so were they; and as they are in all their brightness and glory around the throne of God, so may we be with our wives and children, friends and associates in the kingdom of God on earth, when we have traveled along to that state of exaltation to which they have attained, when we have learned to vanquish the monster of sin and death, rising above him to live in the elements of truth and holiness in a state free from corruption and sin. This has had its beginning here, in all our life’s labor, care and relationship to one another; the existence beyond this is only the finished constellation of the glory which is commenced here, an advanced stage of its development. We are not so blind and dumb that we cannot comprehend the difference between the household where the words of righteousness are uttered, where examples of purity are set, and that household where such noble examples are not seen. Would you see your children around the throne of God? Would you see them clad in glory and crowned with immortality and eternal lives? Then teach them truth while they prattle around your knee; learn them to lisp the truth, teach them to love it ere they can fully know its worth, and as they grow in capacity to reason and understand they will then bless the father and mother that taught them truth and purity, and to hate and despise the wrong and choose the good. Truth will regulate all life’s details; I care not how numerous they may be, all will yield to the saving, sanctifying, hallowed influence and supreme love of truth. When we teach the truth to our children, it is one of the best proofs that we love the truth ourselves with all our minds, might, and strength. If we take this course we shall see the kingdom of God growing; its outward embellishments will appear, its wealth will increase and its power will spread abroad on the right hand and on the left until untold millions of earth’s children will repose in security, safety, and happiness, and be blessed beneath its banner. Then, its temples will rise in beauty, grandeur, and glory, and the home of every Saint will become a temple where God will delight to reveal the richness of his blessings to his faithful children. If our God shines as the perfection of beauty out of Zion, Zion must reflect that beauty; it must have an existence in Zion reflecting its beauty outwardly upon the world around. The glory of Zion must be created by the children of Zion. We cannot attain to this all in a moment. We first begin to make our homes tidy and to subdue every enemy to our peace, that we may have more comfort. If we wish our children to have an exalted taste for the lovely and beautiful, create something lovely for them to look upon, let them behold a practical example and exhibition of the beautiful and lovely when they are at home; when they go into the garden let them see the development of beauty, and when they come to maturity and remove far away they will think of the paternal home with delight and pleasure as the place where peace reigns, where joy is developed, where the odor of sweet flowers are inhaled by the visitors, greeting our early rising or cheering us when we retire to our rest. This is the picture of the home of a Saint, of him who loves to beautify Zion and exalt the children of Zion above all other people on the earth.

It does not follow of necessity that the poor man must possess broad acres. If your garden is no larger than this stand, cultivate it properly, plant fruit trees and other useful plants, and rivet the attention of your growing family to the contemplation of their duty; let them see an example in you from day to day and from year to year which will exercise a salutary influence upon the minds of your children throughout their future lives. If I have not myself been able hitherto to make such a home, it is the home that lives in my mind. I show you the ladder over which you may travel from any condition of degradation and ignorance to all that is noble, exalted, and Godlike. We must start from where we are, and we shall soon see better houses, more fruitful and lovely gardens; the residences of the Saints will grow into beauty and the cities of the Saints into magnificence.

The Prophet Joseph once took me by the arm in the street, and said, “I have so many blessings, and there is nothing but what you can enjoy in your time and place the same as I do, and so can every man.” But I have prayed this prayer, “If the bestowal of wealth upon thy servant, O Lord, will make him a fool and cause him to forsake the truth, may I remain poor until I can bear it.” We might as well complain that we were not all born at the same time as to complain of any disparity that may exist between us in pecuniary matters. Let the Saints who have just come to these valleys from their fatherland learn to be contented in whatsoever position they are placed in, that is, when you are in circumstances that neither you nor your friends can change for the better. To complain of circumstances that cannot at the present be improved would simply be a waste of your time, and your time is precious, for we are not going to live many years according to the common course of things to improve ourselves here. It will be to our advantage to live in this world as long as we can improve, and the longer we live here and improve, the stronger grow the ties that bind us to this existence. I want to see the kingdom of God grow from this small beginning that is right around us, until the whole earth is filled and blessed with its glory as it now blesses and fills the valleys of Deseret in a degree. We are connected with an enterprise that is great, noble, and honorable, with an enterprise that is not satisfied with a limited acquisition, with a small victory over sin, but it is an enterprise that grasps the world’s emancipation from sin, darkness, and death; it looks at no smaller object than the world’s freedom from sin and its consequences.

Being connected with so great an enterprise, I do not feel any more that I am a worm of the earth, but that I am associated with the Gods of eternity, and that angels are my kindred and of my family. This is the way I want the Saints to feel. If they feel this way they will shun all wickedness, and seek for right and try to do it all the time. I for one am engaged in the great work of building up the kingdom of God upon the earth, and I want to get the Saints to see the value of that practical purity of life that will utterly destroy the power of sin, purge out the transgressor from our assemblies and render us more and more acceptable to God all the time, because better calculated to bless the world.

God bless you: Amen.

A Discourse by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, Delivered in the Ninth Ward School House, Great Salt Lake City, December 25, 1859.

I feel very much to appreciate the privilege and blessing extended to me, and this opportunity of meeting with the brethren and sisters in this Ward, and also to have the opportunity, for a little time, to discuss with you those things that are of interest to us as Saints.

There are a great many things connected with the publishing of the Gospel, and its being believed on the part of the people, and being received by them as a rule of practice, that is interesting for us to consider. There is a great deal of variety connected with it, although its principles are ever the same, and the truth is unchangeable. Yet truth never, even with us, puts on all its beauty, until we comprehend it fully, and realize the great influence that the views we entertain with regard to the truth may exercise over our actions. It becomes important, then, that we should learn to think correctly, and that we should learn to adopt correct views about things which we believe; for as we think of a matter, so we will treat it. If we adopt such views of the Gospel that will lead us to conclude that a large amount of all that has to be done for our benefit and salvation is the work of some other individuals besides ourselves, it would be very natural for this, in its tendency, and in the influence it would have and exert over us, to lead our minds from that which would tend to our emancipation from sin and iniquity.

There are certain prominent things connected with the Gospel as it is generally treated, and as it has been revealed to us. The Son of God, the Savior of the world, in the way that it has been taught to us, is made to have a great share in it and a great deal to do with it. Some suppose that he has done so much, and has made such peculiar kinds of provisions for our wants and necessities, that there is but little left for us to do—little more, perhaps, than to attend to a few ordinances that are instituted for us: this is about all; but that the great plan and work that bring salvation are things that belong to the mission of Jesus Christ. If this is correct, it is what we ought to believe; if it is not, it is that which we should expose; and we should labor to undeceive the people; for we certainly ought to begin to entertain correct views. If there is a work left for us to do, it will be accomplished as the result of our exertions.

When we cling to what Jesus Christ has done for us, do you not see that our part will never be done? We may pray and sing, and pay Tithing, and go to church, and attend to all the outward forms of religion, and attend to all those things that thousands believed in doing, and then we shall find that our salvation will not be wrought out.

Now, I am not myself very much in favor of preaching long sermons about things that are a great way from home. Some people interest themselves at times by telling and undertaking to explain how Gods are made, and what they are made of, and all about it. There is only one way that I have any idea of knowing anything about Gods. There is only one class of them that I have had the privilege of forming an acquaintance with; and I would only wish, on the present occasion, to allude to this matter with a view to bring it down to our capacities—to our circumstances, as a matter that is practical.

We entertain various notions with regard to the Savior of the world. Now, whether this excellence that he possessed constituted him the Son of God—the heir of all his Father’s vast dominions, whether there were any of them that he inherited, or whether he acquired all the great and glorious qualities that he possessed, we will not now stop to inquire. Now, if Jesus is regarded as God, and if we wish to learn his history, let us read it as it is developed in the Scriptures; and if he is God, and you would know the history of the Father, learn it in the Son; for he assures us that he came to do the works which he saw his Father do. Of Jesus it was said, “He was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows,” and for this reason—“he loved righteousness, and hated iniquity.”

This is the way matters look with us—the way we examine everything that is presented to us. We are promised a victory over sin, if we will break off our iniquities and our sins by turning to God. There is no remarkable difference between us and Jesus, if he was anointed because he loved righteousness. What is the difference? We have the promise of becoming heirs of God, and joint heirs with him to all those extensive domains possessed by the Father, upon the conditions that we are as obedient to the commandments of God as Jesus was. Jesus was anointed and preferred before others, from the simple fact that he loved righteousness better than others, and hated iniquity more. And hence it is written—“For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” (Heb. ii. 10.)

We are told, you perceive, in the history of the Son of God, that he was made perfect through sufferings; and therefore we must conclude that if he was made perfect, he must at some time (no matter when that time might have been), have lacked that perfection which he appears to have gained by the sufferings he experienced. “Well, but,” says one, “of what practical benefit is that to us?” Simply this: We learn that Jesus—the individual whom we have been taught to adore from our infancy—to worship and revere—God our Father, possessed of an infinitude of power, ability, and capacity for happiness and glory, and for the accomplishment of his own will and pleasure, was once as we are. Then to think that the same opportunity is extended to us, that we may become all that he is that is great and good—to think that, with all our faults and weak– nesses—with all the temptations that hang around us, the same privilege that is extended to him of attaining salvation is also extended to us—that it is simply salvation that was extended to Jesus, and that the same as that which is extended to us. That heaven of glory and perfection which is offered to us in the Gospel is the same that was offered to Jesus; and the right to the possession of all those riches and this great glory that was attained by him are equally open to us. This is encouraging to me. Why? Because I am not only contemplating myself as a mortal worm—a creature that is annoyed with the faults and follies of fallen humanity, but I view myself in connection with this principle that is associated with the work that is to prepare us to be associated in that better condition, in which we view the Savior of the world as existing in that perfect sunshine of bliss, enjoying the rich reward of the saved and sanctified in the presence of God.

This view of the subject should create within us an ardent wish for the same glory, remembering that this is the door—this the salvation that is offered to us in the Gospel that we have received. But upon what principle shall we avail ourselves of these blessings? Has Jesus done anything that will bring salvation to you and me? The chief of what he has done is that he has revealed the plan of the Gospel—the scheme of human redemption, and manifested himself among his brethren; and we may say he has done a great deal more, for he has shed his blood for it. So have others shed their blood. But whose blood has cleansed you and me? It is said that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sins. Then why is it that we remain sinners? It is simply because the blood of Jesus has not cleansed us from sin—because it has not reached us. What is the reason? It is because we have not been found in that perfect path of obedience that ensures us a freedom from sin.

One of the old Apostles boasts of having been made a king and priest, washed in the blood of Jesus. What was required of Jesus? He was required to be baptized the same as you and I. He was required to walk in the path of obedience, in order that he might be an example of that obedience which is required of you and me, by which we may be cleansed from sin.

We will suppose that Jesus had come into the world and died on Calvary as he died, but that he had not left the principles of life in the world. Suppose he had never called the humble fishermen and endowed them, how much wiser would the world have been? Who would have been delivered from sin? Who would have realized the blessings of the Gospel of salvation? But Jesus lived, and Jesus died. Then what is it that should make us rejoice? It is that Jesus, who was here, has returned to the heavens—that his work is done. We should also be thankful for the truths that he taught, for the many good things that he said, for the Priesthood he left, through which the Gospel is revealed, and a medium opened through which you and I could be brought to the knowledge of the truth, accomplish that which will produce a deliverance from sin.

Then let us not rejoice altogether because Jesus lived, or that he died in the world, but that coming into the world he brought with him the Priesthood—that he brought with him the power, the right to officiate as well as to teach the Gospel of life; and by virtue of his appointment he had power to appoint others to act in his name. When he was crucified, and for a few days left this state of existence, it was to open the door of salvation to a fallen world. Well, then, it is the Gospel, after all, for which we respect Jesus. There was nothing about Jesus but the Priesthood that he held and the Gospel that he proclaimed that was so very singular. But he died for the world. Yes; and what man that ever died for the truth, did not die for the world? Prophets have died in our day. Men have testified to the truth, and for that truth have died; but has their blood redeemed us from the sin and transgression we were previously guilty of? Have we found redemption through them? As far as we have obtained it, it has been by walking in the truth. Jesus, who was the bright and full reflection of the character of his Father, was himself a perfect pattern of obedience. He not only recommended to the world obedience, but was himself a living pattern and example of that obedience which he taught, and through that obedience merited that which was conferred upon him. Hence we read that he was exalted above his brethren, simply because he loved righteousness and hated iniquity; and it is that same principle that saves you and me. We may talk of men being redeemed by the efficacy of his blood; but the truth is that that blood has no efficacy to wash away our sins. That must depend upon our own action.

Can Jesus free us from sin while we go and sin again? What is it that frees us from sin? Did not Jesus preach the word of life? Yes. But who is it that shall believe—that shall be benefited and instructed? It is we that are to be redeemed. Jesus could preach of heaven, of the works of Omnipotence, and the vastness of his creations, because he understood them. And if we were only a little more enlightened, we could probably understand a great deal more than we do; but in our present darkness we need further instruction. Truth exists all around us to a vast infinity, yet we pass on in our darkness from year to year, and add folly to our transgressions, and still continue to hope that yet, through Jesus, we shall be redeemed; but it will be when, by our own actions, we shall be released from the thralldom of sin.

“Well,” says one, “you do not think much of Jesus.” Yes, I do. “How much?” I think he was a good man. “But,” says the inquirer, “I think that is a very low estimate of him.” What, then, would you have him to be better than a good man? What and who is he? “Why,” says one, “he is the Lord from heaven.” Who are the characters or beings of whom the Apostle spoke, when he said—“There are gods many and lords many?” I suppose them to be good men. Jesus himself, when speaking in these last days, and explaining to the Prophet of this great and last dispensation, says, “Man of Holiness is my name; Man of Counsel is my name.” Well, what does this all show? Simply that Jesus was a man. We also learn that his Father was a man.

Jesus came to do the will of his Father, and none other work than that which he saw his Father do. And we, through our obedience, became brethren and sisters with him, and joint heirs to the rich inheritances that he is heir to. Why, the practicability of this principle is demonstrated in the case of Jesus himself. He came to this earth as a living example of the truth—of the fact that it was possible that man, though weak and feeble, can be exalted, saved from his ignorance, and exalted to the capacity of a God—that we, poor worms of the dust, partakers of the evils and afflictions that trouble and torment mortality—that we could be exalted—that we could come into this low condition, and pass from that low state of ignorance that we were in, and thereby gain an experience that would fit us for exaltation. Then the Gospel comes to us as a source of encouragement and comfort: therefore it should give us strength in our weakness, when the way may appear dark and almost without hope—when afflicted through the perplexities and hardships that we have to encounter; for Jesus has traveled on the way himself: he has traveled it, step by step, and piece by piece, and degree by degree, and has experienced all the grievous afflictions that flesh is heir to. Has he been exalted by it? We shall all say that he has. He has been exalted from that degree of imperfection in which we exist to his present condition, with power, might, and excellence, even all that is possible for him to enjoy. Then if it is possible for you and I to travel this same road, let us begin to inquire if we are doing it; for be assured that if we obtain that victory and exaltation that he possesses, it will be by doing as he did. He was obedient to the truth. He did not even presume to shrink from the bitter cup, though his feeling, as a man, rather inclined him to the seat of life. Hence, said he, Father, I would a little rather that this cup pass by; but on reflection he said, “Father, not my will, but thine, be done.”

Well, now, how would we have distinguished between this offering and one similar to the natural eye, but different in its design? Suppose a thing of this kind had transpired with us—supposing that it would have taken place in our midst, would we have any idea that it was a good man, a man of integrity, that died? How could we have known this? When he gives his own account of himself, he simply says, “Man of Holiness is my name.” He did not wish to have it understood that there was any being in existence, no matter by what majesty, might, and power he might be surrounded, that could go beyond the good men—the holy men.

What view does this lead us to take of the Gospel that this Jesus has led us to look into? Simply that it is a practical system of piety, purity, holiness, and truth—truth that is to be exhibited in our actions, purity that is to extend to all our motives and designs, and holiness that is to be a characteristic of our lives, and to extend to all there is connected with our lives, our actions, and all that we do and say; for the action of the mind is considered. If these thoughts be correct—be pure, the actions that will reflect those thoughts will be good and beneficial, and the body that sees it will be correspondingly pure.

Then where is this purity to be wrought out—this propriety of thought—this perfection of holiness? Where is it to be read of, that we may be benefited by it—that we may travel in the way that Jesus has traveled—that we may follow in the example that he has set? Can we get our neighbor in the way to be the holy man, the righteous man, for us, and we reap the reward in heaven? Oh no. We must be the obedient men and women ourselves. We must be the patient men and women, and feel all that forbearance and mercy, that loving kindness and charity ourselves; we must be the men and the women that will put on the habiliments of truth—the garments of holiness, and wear them for ourselves. We must wear them day by day, month by month, year by year, and forever.

I want you to see this, and to comprehend that the whole matter of your salvation is your own business and work. What else has Jesus done? What did he require of man? You examine principle in the Gospel as it is taught to you, and what requirement of that Gospel has been obeyed for you? None.

We are required to be obedient from the beginning unto the practice of every virtue that the Gospel can open out. This is what is required of you and me, that we may be saved and become just like Jesus. Then you see that it is entirely a practical affair with every one of us. We may theorize as much as we please, and talk about purity and holiness; and as long as we theorize about them, we shall find that they will do us no good—never, until we reduce them to practice and adopt that kind of holiness that is acceptable to God. How can we know that one great principle of obedience, excepting we comply with the requirements of the Gospel? How can we know what is good for us, excepting we be tried in these things? The Almighty is gratified when his purposes are accomplished, and when we are preparing ourselves to be exalted and admitted into his presence, that we may be prepared by that education to be filled with that knowledge and clothed with power as himself—be filled with that infinitude of capacity that he himself enjoys, and that those principles may be so implanted in our being and sought by us during our existence upon the earth, that we shall increase our own greatness and the glory and power of our God.

“Well, but,” says one, “where does this power come from? Does it come from God?” We should answer, “Yes.” Well, then, where did He get it from? Did he inherit it? No, he did not. When we talk of the Father and of Jesus, we can say they did not inherit it. Why do we say that Jesus did not inherit this greatness and glory? Because he is recommended to us as one who came to do nothing but what he had seen his Father do (who, like Jesus, had once been imperfect), and that, like him, he had risen to might, majesty, and power, and clothed himself with the truth and with knowledge that endowed him with power to act and to be acted upon, to design and to execute those designs. Well, then, the power of God is—what? Why, it is the Gospel; and the Apostle said that the Gospel was “the power of God unto salvation;” and it is the salvation of every individual and everything that is clothed with it.

Who is saved? Why, the individual that has power; and the individual that possesses knowledge has power. It is just as the Apostle says—he was not ashamed of that Gospel that was the power of God unto salvation, that was revealed by Him that loved righteousness and hated iniquity.

The Gospel, then, as preached unto us, is the power of God that saves. What does it do? It enlightens that which is dark; it gives us power where all is weakness before; it endows us with capacity where before there was no capacity, and where there was no strength.

This is what the Gospel does for us: it is that which saves and fills our minds with that which we need not be ashamed of; and it is the simple fact that we should carry to our home, to our firesides, to correct the evils that exist between man and man, between parents and children, husbands and wives: but it is, nevertheless, the power of God that saves. It is that which tranquilizes the power of the soul that is not wholly under the principles of truth. It is not like the empty proclamation of enthusiasm, but it is deliverance to the captives; it is freedom to the sick soul—to the soul that is in the dark, that knows not the truth, that has no hope that reaches into the vast future, and opens up prospects for the immortality and the salvation of the souls of men. This is the way that the Gospel opens to us in regard to the salvation of the soul: it will make everything in the soul tranquil as the blest in heaven. It is that which must abide constantly within us; it is that which must be developed in our homes. Why? That all the members of that home may become legitimate lovers of the truth, be truthful in all they do and say, and be calculated by their good works to subserve the ends of righteousness and peace, and to bring about the purposes of God. “Why,” says one, “the Gospel seems to be a great matter to be carried to the simple circles of our homes, and for it to enter into the trivial affairs of our everyday life; it seems to be a small matter to that vast infinitude of greatness and glory in its fulness that we seek to enjoy in a future state.”

Brethren and sisters, what greatness you expect to enjoy, what you intend to enjoy in the fountain of bliss that lies before the Saints! The origin of all this, the region where it must be commenced is in the soul, at the firesides, within the circle of your family. Where is it to come from? If the blessings developed that constitute the happiness of the saved and sanctified, that enrich the pleasures of those that have passed away, are attainable, why have we not been blessed? Why has not the Gospel brought salvation to our firesides and to our homes? Why, we have naught but imperfections of our own. But these could not stand in the way; for the blood of Jesus could have cleansed us from sin, aside from our own works, according to the feelings of some. Then why is it that we are these slaves of sin, and are afflicted with the consequences thereof? Why is it that the sanctuary of home is deprived of these blessings? The Gospel that saved Jesus, that clothed him with power, that bestowed upon him all the perfections that he possessed as a God, why has it not wrought out its work with us? Our firesides have not been blessed with the harmony and bliss that is affected by its purity and hallowed influence. We would not inquire where is heaven, or say how far it is from us, from our homes; for there would be a fountain of bliss to anyone who would partake of the food that angels feed upon—who would partake and realize the perfection in which they dwell, and the harmony by which they are associated, and those that dwell with them. Then it would be no matter of uncertainty with us; neither should we care whether heaven was a little way off, or at a vast or immeasurable distance; for then in our homes, within our own family circles, would be that heaven and happiness for which we are seeking. There would be perfection; there would be the beauty of holiness in spirit and in truth.

Now, this is the religion that should be developed at home; it should be of domestic manufacture as well as the clothes that we wear; and their beauty, you know we are told, should consist in the beauty of the workmanship of our own hands.

If we realized that our salvation depended upon our living in peace at home with our wives and children, and upon our cherishing the principles of virtue, of holiness, and of purity, do you suppose that we should ever be at a loss for an opportunity of doing some good? Do you suppose we should ever be at a loss to do something that would save the cause of truth? Our homes and our heaven would ever be with us. The constitution and establishment of our homes in peace, and making that happiness, and giving that satisfaction which will produce it, constitute the burden of our labor at home and abroad.

But we are called to go and preach the Gospel to distant nations, simply that the honest may be gathered together and have homes like you and I, until a nation shall be imbued with the principle of that heavenly government that we talk and read so much about, that the will of God may be done on earth as it is done in heaven.

According to this, then, the object is the same, whether you labor at home or abroad. I want this riveted on your memories—to have you think upon it every day. I do not want you to think that you can live your religion while you are quarrelling with your wives every day; I do not want you to think that you are traveling the road to salvation while you are quarrelling with everybody around you. What is the difficulty? What causes this quarrelling? “Why,” says the man, “my wife has a contentious spirit: she is not going to heaven; she is not going on the road to those perfections that will bring her to a perfect and sanctified state: she has put far from her the day of sanctification.” Then, as ministers of righteousness, I want you to go to work at home. Why? Simply because home is the place where you should live your religion.

“But,” says one, “I am going to wait until I go on a mission; then I will devote all my time to serving the Lord.”

If you wait till then, when you are gone thousands of miles away, what will your wife and children do? Who, having wife and children, and having labored to bring them here, and lived with them here from year to year, will neglect to develop in them the principles that will save and make them happy in time, and exalt them in eternity? I want you to save them by implanting in them correct principles; and then, if you are called to go abroad, you can teach the people the principles that will save, for you will have learned them at home. Then, if they should apostatize when they have been gathered here, as some do, to our own sorrow and to theirs too, you would have the confidence and consolation of knowing that your own family were saved, because you had taught them the principles of salvation while you were with them. Then why do some seem so anxious to live their religion abroad, while they neglect to teach and practice it at home? It is evident that they do not enjoy the spirit of the Gospel; and if they have not within them the principles of purity and holiness, and do not live their religion at home, what assurance have we that they will live it when they get thousands of miles from their friends?

I want you to go to work in your own circles, and cultivate the principles of righteousness, and let the world go their own way. Do not trouble about how your neighbors are getting along, but seek to make your own home the dwelling place of God; seek to make it a sanctuary where the richest blessings of God shall be enjoyed—where the truth shall be kept in rich stores to bless you and yours. Then that point will become a point of attraction to which your affections may repair with feelings of satisfaction. And if you go abroad, your peace will be increased with the reflection that you have left your family stationed upon the immutable and sure basis of eternal truth; and while time passes, and the angels of heaven carry you safely along, your friends and connections at home are still wending their way onward to the haven of peace and rest, where all is right—where peace and joy flow like a river to those who are sanctified through the truth.

Now, do not excuse yourselves because you are Seventies, and are therefore called to go abroad as special witnesses to the nations; for we are called to save our own: that is our first duty. It is true we can do a great deal towards bringing others to a knowledge of the truth; and if we can preach to the world—to those that are afar off, we can also preach to those that are near to us, and save them; and how? Do as much to save them as Jesus has done, and then we shall have done our duty. What is it that he has told us? He told us how to save ourselves with the principles of virtue, righteousness, and peace; and let us so live that those principles may be in the young men that are growing up around our hearths. There is nothing that is important to some except it is a great way off. But the foundation of purity should be at our homes: there God should dwell; there God should reign in all the greatness of his glory, and in all the perfection of his attributes. Where will this be? Why, wherever there is a good man—a man devoted to the truth, whose affections are identified with it and for it, and who loves righteousness and hates iniquity, as Jesus did. This is the way I want you to live, and then there will be less wickedness—fewer lies told—less tattling by the fireside about your neighbors. The husband and wife will have less difficulties of a character and kind that are unendurable. If we can come down from the exaltedness of our feelings and humble ourselves, we can avoid most of the evils that are common among mankind.

Who have these kinds of difficulties to which I have alluded? People that are very religious—people that go to church—people that are favored in various ways, and who preach long sermons for the benefit of such as themselves. What is the reason that they are not saved? Why, simply because they never have time to live their religion—because they never had an idea that to live their religion was to be at peace at home—that the paying their Tithing was offering an offering that would be acceptable to God; and those who did think so, had an idea that that of itself would save them. I want you to understand that it is all nonsense to take the latter position. “What,” says one, “should we not pay our Tithing?” Should we not pray? Yes, pray, and pay your Tithing. But this is not all: I want you to pray God Almighty to bless you with strength, with forbearance, with charity, that you may be merciful to each other’s weaknesses, and that you may look with tender compassion upon one another, as God looks upon us, his children, all the day long. This is what I want you to pray for. And husbands, if your wives speak harsh words, don’t speak another in return. “But,” says one, “how can I bear it?” Why, hold your tongue. You talk of ruling nations, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, and yet cannot hold your tongue! What wise rulers you would make!

I suppose, when the Bishop was made or ordained, you all thought that you ought to have been made Bishops—you were so clever, so accomplished, and so well qualified to rule, in your own estimation. I want you to prove that you are capable of being Bishops, by keeping your mouths shut when a storm of passion arises within you. Let it die. Never let the world hear the breath of heaven wafting away the ill-spoken word—the hasty declaration. No, never. Why not? Because, if hell is within you, keep it there. “Why,” says one, “is it not just as bad to think of hell as it is to speak it out?” No—not half as bad. Why? Because, if you thought of killing me, and were not to do it, I should not be hurt. But, if you took away my life, then I should be hurt. Hence, then, you see, there is a difference between thinking and doing. I want you husbands and wives to carry this home with you, and learn to hold your tongue, when you have nothing but some miserable, provoking thing to say. “Well, but,” says one man, “my wife acts so like the Devil that I cannot get along with her. I thought I was married to an angel, but I have found out I was deceived, and that she is a fiend.” If you were such a fool as to marry a wife of that kind, you ought to learn a little by experience.

Now, knowledge is power; and if you have married a woman that does not answer your expectations, that is not an angel, that does not abound in goodness, and that is not the very quintessence of perfection, what will you do? I will go and get a divorce. Then what will you do? Live single? No. You will marry another, then? You answer, “Yes.” Then you will live with her, conquer her, and control her, I suppose? “Yes,” says one, “that seems like the idea; and I will go home and let my wife know that she has got to mind me and obey me.” Why, what are you going to do? “If she don’t obey me, I will chastise her; I will beat her.” I presume you mean to treat her in the way that some of us are accustomed to treat our mules? “Yes,” says the man, “I will let her know that she has got to obey me.”

You poor miserable souls who think thus, if you go home and whip your wives because of what I say to you tonight upon family government, the sin shall lie at your own door, and the lash that will be upon you shall be far more severe than anything that you can inflict upon your poor wives.

I want you to go home and let them know that you are better men, that you are improving, that you are better than they, and that you are improving in righteousness faster than they are. Then, if your wife is disposed to quarrel, she will soon get tired of it; she will turn to righteousness and follow your holy example. Then let me urge upon you the necessity of proving to your wives that there is more consistency in your conduct than there is in theirs, and that you are capable of living without saying harsh things yourselves.

Brethren, this is the way I want you to govern your wives, and in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred you will succeed in governing them in righteousness; they will be faithful and true to you, and to the Gospel that has been revealed in this dispensation. And if you get a little mortified with something that may transpire, which is often the case, your wife would adopt the course that she has seen adopted by you: she would hold her tongue, unless she could say some very pleasing thing; and in this way there will be peace established in your home. Whenever there is peace, and the home circle lives in peace and quietude, the blessings of heaven and the revelations of the Holy Spirit will be there; its inspiration will be there, and it will be like a burning, never-dying flame within you, and you will walk together in peace and in harmony. You won’t stumble and die in the way; there will be no difference of feeling; but the twine of family affection will grow stronger, day by day, and year by year; and the passing year will add intensity to that affection that is within you, and you will have an increased determination to live your religion.

Then your children would see in their parents an example for speaking the truth and acting truthfully to each other. Then there would be an example before them, and they would, no doubt, obey the truth, and regard you as truthful and sincere in all your expressions, whether in regard to the things of God or those of a more trivial character. They would then see that you struggled not only to speak of the truth, but to exhibit it in all the actions of your lives.

This is the way I want you to live your religion in this Ward; this is the way I want you to sustain your Bishop, that he may not be taxed with all the little difficulties of your domestic circles. He is a little man, and it is enough for him to be taxed with the general business of the Ward. I want you to understand that he has need of what you promised him. Did you not promise him that you would sustain him by your works as well as by your faith? I want you to redeem that promise; for if it had not been necessary for you to do this, it would not have been asked. Then sustain your Bishop, and uphold him. “But,” says one, “I do not know that it is my business. If he is not smart enough, let the proper authorities put in another.” Why, bless you, the authorities did not want the smartest men; but they wanted to prove to the world that the Lord could make those smart whom he called and ordained. “Why,” says one, “you do not think much of our Bishop; you do not appear to estimate him very highly.” Yes, I do; but I want you to understand that he has got his own weaknesses and faults to contend with, the same as other men, and just as much of yours as you put upon him. I want you that are smart men to resolve yourselves into bishops, and to play the Bishop’s part at home, and to adopt the principles that he inculcates in your home circles. How very few there are who do this! But it is not too late to learn to judge righteously—to create quietude and peace, virtue and holiness, at your own homes. Then who will there be to annoy the Bishop with their troubles? Who will be sending to the President for a divorce, when you all get your little wards at home thoroughly disciplined? This you can do, by being united, more effectually than he can; for he cannot be always with you. Then you can bring out your little wards, and let him have the advantage of a leaf out of your books.

But if you cannot do this, hold your tongues and be ashamed, and just conclude that you will fulfil the promise that you made, and strengthen him, and simply because he needs strength; and aid him all you can; afford him all the comfort you can; and this will bring you together in the principles of truth: it unites you in one, so that your action will be one; your feelings and your spirit will be one, and you will walk in the same path together and be agreed.

Take this course in regard to living your religion, and you do well. But possibly you do not need any of this instruction. If you do not, I am very glad of it. And if you have qualified yourselves and cultivated your minds to that degree of perfection that you do not need it here, you may just pass it over to your neighbors. Let righteousness be developed in this Ward, and let that unanimity of feeling be manifested that will cause the instructions of your Bishop to be warmly received; and let faith be exercised for him, that he may be full of knowledge and power, and have influence among the people for whose good he labors day by day. This is the way I want you to act in regard to this matter; and, to do this effectually, you must make all things right at home. Do not leave this great work for the Bishop alone, but let it be the duty of every man in the home circle, and there will be unanimity throughout the Ward; and to the Bishop will be given what is required in his official capacity, and he will have power and strength, and he will be estimated to some extent by the influence which he exercises over the men that are in his Ward.

Well, then, what else shall we do? you may now inquire. There is another matter I want to engage you in. I want your help in a cautious, but effectual crusade against stealing. “Well, but,” says one, “the President said we could not stop stealing.” This is not what I was going to ask you to do; but I want every good man in this Ward to consider himself a missionary and a minister. I want you to get hold of the young men, and to advise them as fathers should advise them. “Well, but,” says one, “the young men here in this Ward have fathers; and if I should presume to give them advice, their fathers will be displeased.” I do not suppose they would. At least, I think you may venture to carry out my advice.

The spirit of thieving stalks abroad in our land, and it has its advocates among the people. It gets hold of the unguarded youth, and causes them to steal from their neighbors, being unguarded by the truth. You fathers, do you know this to be true? “Yes,” say some, “we hear that there is stealing done over yonder (pointing towards the west), and that it is Bill Hickman and his gang that do it. But do you know that there is a thief who visits your son and corrupts his morals, and who is making him believe there is no harm in stealing from a Gentile?

“Oh, to be sure,” say you; “I know that such a man visits my son. I don’t know exactly where my son is now, but he is about the city somewhere.” This is what I want you should know. Make it your business to know where your sons are, for they have only to go into some of the streets of the city to meet with thieves who tell them there is no harm in stealing from the Gentiles, and who tell them that the Presidency of the Church say so. This is the way the lies were told about us, to lead the unwise and unwary from the truth. Do you want to save yourselves from the scorn and disgrace that will cover your son wherever he goes? If you do, watch over your sons and also over the associations that they form. To you that have daughters, I would say, Watch over them, or by-and-by you will come to your friends with a pitiful face, saving, O my poor daughter, she is gone! Where? To Camp Floyd, to the States, and to the Devil. O my daughter, that we have raised carefully, and we thought she would live to honor us; but, alas, she has gone!

Yes; but you did not know, while she was with you, that she was forming an acquaintance with habits and making associations with those things that have succeeded in removing her beyond your reach. “True, she went to every dancing party,” says the unsuspecting father; “but how could I refuse her the privilege?” Perhaps the Bishop was called to go and pray for them, in order to sanctify the affair; and perhaps she went with the son of your neighbor whom you regard; and hence you will say, How can I refuse and offend my brother? Yes, offend your brother; for that is worth less than the salvation of your child. “But,” says one, “shall we not let our children go to parties?” Yes, let them go; I would not dare to advise you not to let them go. And why? Because it would not do any good.

If your daughters associate with those that have no interest in the truth, advise them to discontinue their intimacy with such persons, and enjoin upon them the necessity of pursuing that course that will preserve them in purity and keep them in the truth. If your daughter will go, what then? Why, let her go. Do not break her neck to keep her, for she would not be in heaven if her neck was broken.

I allude to this simply to elucidate the truth, and to show the way those things are accomplished of which I have been speaking. Perhaps your daughters have not associated with Gentiles, you may say. I would as soon my daughter would associate with some Gentiles as with many that profess to be Saints, especially those who have nothing to talk about but balderdash, and nothing in their minds but the wicked plans concocted by corrupt hearts.

I allude to these things thus pointedly and minutely, because they will affect your happiness and well-being, as well as that of your children. Do not undertake to crowd things to extremes, to obtain any of the blessings I have alluded to. Do not commit a greater evil than those that already exist, by creating others.

I pray that you may so strive to cultivate a love for the Spirit of God, and a love for his people, that you may constantly be under the guidance of that Spirit, and always have it abiding in you, that you may do everything in favor of the truth, dwell happily beneath its influence, and lead your children in the way of life. That this may be your happy lot, through diligence and obedience in the Gospel, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

A Discourse by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, December 25, 1859.

I am glad this morning, brethren and sisters, to enjoy the privilege again of meeting with you, with the opportunity that is afforded me of occupying a portion of time devoted to worship; and I would indulge a hope that the little time we are together may be so devoted as to be a benefit to us all. To effect this, I know of nothing better than to have our attention called again, as it has so often been, to a consideration of the principles of our religion.

One might suppose that all had been said that could or that need be said upon this subject. The necessity for our attention being called to the consideration of the principles of our religion must exist until such time as we properly and fully comprehend those principles, and from comprehending them are unable to reduce them to practice; for it is not until they are reduced to practice that they yield to us the fruits of salvation. Hence we shall have to refer to the principles of the Gospel again and again, that they may be kept before our minds, that we shall not lose sight of them in the multiplicity of things that exist around us to engage our attention.

When we consider the great amount of wrongs that are to be corrected by the Gospel, in connection with our being in the world, and then the amount of opposition against which we have to receive and practice the truth, a little reflection will lead us to conclude that the consummation of our work is far in the future.

When we consider the condition of the mind, influenced as it is by the prejudices of education, by the influences of those habits of thought and reflection which have been established in the mind, which is the result of the influences of circumstances with which we have been surrounded, we find that there is but a very small portion of the powers of our minds that are faithfully, patiently, and undividedly devoted to the consideration of the principles of our religion.

We have fallen into a habit of fashion with regard to the preaching of the Gospel, that if we say but a very little—preach but very short sermons, they must generally extend over a large extent of country. Comparatively speaking, we travel over earth and heaven frequently, when in our notions of things we have made these places to be a great way apart: we travel often over the extreme of degradation, wretchedness, misery, and ignorance in which we ourselves exist, to that better condition of things that we hope for in the vast future, when sin, with all its concomitant train of evils, shall cease to afflict us, or to oppose an obstacle to our enjoyment of the happiness and blessings promised by the Gospel.

This is the way, in short, in which we look at the subject, when the Gospel is presented to us as a remedy for all the evils that afflict us—a sovereign balm for all our ills. We only think of what we are now, and of what we shall be when our salvation is consummated.

A moment’s reflection will satisfy you, as well as myself, that this view of the matter leaves all that extensive and unexplored region that intervenes between our present sinful and our future saved and happy condition out of the question.

In order that we may be saved by the Gospel we have embraced, it becomes indispensably necessary that we should reduce the principles of that Gospel to practice. In order to do this, we must, for a little while, leave out of the question this general view of things, and perhaps refrain from the gratification of our feelings in the contemplation of that brighter picture of what we may be by-and-by, to contemplate in the light of truth our present condition, and learn how to apply the principles of the Gospel that will save us to the details of life.

We may say the Gospel will save us from all that afflicts us—from all that to us is a source of trouble and annoyance of any kind whatever. That embraces a great deal; it covers all the ill feelings that may ever be again awakened in the human bosom—every unholy passion and every evil in the soul, resulting from the influences of any corrupt habit that may have been formed from the education that we have received. I say it covers all this: it promises to remove all this; but in what way?

There are certain generalities in our religion that we all seem to become acquainted with more or less—those things that are preserved to us as requirements—that are placed before us in a form that is defined so that we can comprehend them. Those things we understand to be binding upon us to attend to as a people.

We consider it right and proper to observe the institution of the Sabbath. We regard it to be right and proper to observe the institution of Tithing. In short, we regard it as being right to observe sacredly every duty that is defined and pointed out to us; so that we, like the people of old, are particular about paying our Tithing, although perhaps not any more than we should be. But this duty we can think of; we can remember it. “It is not right,” says one. Yes, it is right. But as it was with the people of old, so it is a little with us Latter-day Saints: we think that the Tithing of what we produce by our labor will open to us the gates of celestial bliss and happiness—that it will bring us to that redemption from sin that we look for, when the Savior has declared simply and plainly, and in a manner that it would seem no one needs be mistaken, that “it is eternal life to know God,” &c.

Now the thing to which I would direct your attention is this, that you should remember your Tithing; but be sure at the same time to remember the object for which you are required to pay Tithing. “Well,” says one, “is it not to support the poor?” That is one thing. You suppose, then, that, if the Tithing goes to feed the poor, build up temples and houses of worship, to establish institutions of learning, to forward the cause of education in our midst, that the great object of its institution is reached. If this were all, then probably Jesus might have said that this is eternal life, to pay your Tithing punctually and faithfully: but he did not say this.

What is the greater object for which this institution was ordained? I speak of this because it is before all the people. The reason for this institution is simply the same as that for which the institution of the preaching of the Gospel, as it is denominated, was ordained of God.

Why was the Gospel taught to you in your scattered condition among the different nations of the earth? For the simplest of all reasons—the preaching of the word became an ordinance of the Gospel; that is, that it is necessary mankind should be enlightened, and for that very reason are the Saints gathered together, and for that very reason are they surrounded by institutions ordained to preserve them together.

By the preaching of the Gospel you will discover, by a reference to the course you are induced to take, following the direction indicated by it, that you all walk in the same path. In gathering you are brought to the same place, and you are supposed to receive the same instructions: the same principles are taught, the same advantages are extended to you, and the same blessings promised to you all, through your faithfulness.

What, then, can be plainer to the mind than that the great object was to bring mankind to the knowledge of the truth? For this cause you are required to pay Tithing, to favor the accomplishment of this great object. For what should the poor be nourished? For what should the Priesthood be sustained? For what should temples be built, and educational establishments be reared in our midst? Simply for the accomplishment of this great work of educating the human mind in the knowledge of the principles of truth—for the correcting, as a matter of course, of every error that may have found place in their minds.

This, then, is the object for which we are brought together; and here we are taught from time to time what is denominated the Gospel. We are told to live our religion. What does this embrace? Everything. It extends to every duty that devolves upon us in the accomplishment of the work that is before us. It is to give the principles of the Gospel that application to ourselves and to our actions that will leave in us and with us no error that shall not be corrected—no wrong principle whose deformities shall not be dragged into the light that we may see it and turn away from it, that we may be able to substitute in its place a view of things that is correct and fully consistent with the accomplishment of the object for which we labor.

What I would wish with regard to the Saints is simply this, that they may learn to apply the principles of the Gospel to the details of life—to the small matters in our moral existence, which, when associated together, constitute the great sum of all that fills up our time.

I want you to pay Tithing faithfully, and respond with an affection that is undivided to every requirement. For what? For contributing to that amount of means that is necessary and requisite for the accomplishment of this work that has for its object the emancipation of our race from the ignorance that has bound them. But remember that it is to learn to know God that we are associated together, and that all these institutions are established around us and in our midst.

I want you to learn that to live your religion is to apply the Gospel to the regulation of your actions in every department of human life. I do not wish you to think that you are living acceptably before God, and in the manner that he requires you to live when you pay your Tithing, and are doing other things that you know to be wrong, and that you are fully aware are not acceptable in his sight or conducive to your own happiness!

I want you to remember that the Gospel must have its application at home. I might preach to you here for forty years to live your religion. Is it possible, while doing this, there are people who would listen that length of time to the proclamation, day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, and then practice in the circle at home things that are directly opposed to all good principles, to good, and to happiness?

Who is it that commits sin in all Israel today? Do the best among the people? Do the most faithful and the most humble and the most contrite in spirit? Are they afflicted with any evils? Are they afflicted with any temptations to do wrong? Do they in any case whatever do wrong?

Who are they that do wrong chiefly? Those who have been taught, perhaps, for a quarter-of-a-century to do right. This has been sounding in their ears continually from year to year—“Do right, live your religion, break off your sins, be righteous, and forsake your iniquities by turning to God.”

Why is it they are yet afflicted with sin? Is it because they have not paid their Tithing? Perhaps they have been punctual in paying it. They may have been constant in their observance of the institution of the Sabbath, in attending meeting, and of ceasing all unnecessary labor on that day; yet once in a while a very curious thing gets out in the wind. What is it? “Brother So-and-so has done wrong; sister So-and-so has done wrong. Why—would you believe it?—they have actually had a little family disturbance, or what we sometimes call a quarrel!” Why is it? I know of no reason only that that religion, to the institution of which they have been paying so strict attention for so many years, has failed as yet to have an application—to what? To that portion of their lives and actions that pass within the circle at home. They come here and pray, and, for aught I know, they go home and pray as much as they can for the ill-feelings they have.

The point that I would like to impress upon your minds today is that to live our religion acceptably before God, and in a manner that will be conducive to our happiness and salvation and permanent exaltation in the kingdom of God, we must give it an application to the details of life. The minutest of life’s details must be rendered holy, just, true, and proper, by its application to them.

I do not want men and women to consider they are living their religion when they indulge in quarrelling at home. Husbands and wives living at variance with each other in their feelings at home are not living their religion. They are not applying the principles of the Gospel around their hearths and within the home circle.

Says one, “If we pay our Tithing, do you not think we shall get to heaven, though we do quarrel, &c.?” It will be a peculiar kind of heaven! It would be, as a matter of course, that heaven where men and women quarrel, simply because it is the only one for which they are prepared and adapted. If they were in any other, they would be rendered wretched to a certain extent. Why? They would want to get mad and have the old difference of feeling, to gratify a disposition to say a rash word for a rash word, instead of adopting the old scriptural maxim which is so good and heavenly—“A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

Perhaps people may suppose it is none of my business to allude here to matters that are transpiring within your home circle. If it is not, then I have nothing to do with your salvation. Is there no obligation resting on me as a servant of God—as a minister of righteousness in the midst of the people, to administer the words of truth to them in a way to save them, that they may have the advantage through an application of the truth to the regulation of their actions of deliverance from sin?

Then if this is the case, and I find a dark spot in your lives which is not developed in the public congregation, when you meet with the assembled thousands to hear the principles of righteousness treated upon in a general way, what must be done? Simply to require, in a spirit of kindness, a disposition to discharge faithfully the duties that rest upon us in these dark portions of your lives, if they exist; and if they do not, no one will be hurt.

Were you to bring to this assembly the feelings and the actions that evidence the existence of these feelings all through the week, we should have a very different assembly, so far as appearance, condition, and spirit are concerned, from what we generally have here. “Would you want to have us bring them here?” No.

I want to give you a few plain, direct hints, that you may take home with you as a sort of Christmas present, that you may give them an application around your hearth, that you may become better men and women, better husbands and wives, and become there the ministers of righteousness and truth, to correct the evils that exist there, if there are any; and if there are none, you can go home and rejoice, and thank God that you are delivered so far from the power of sin.

We have been taught, with regard to the Gospel, in general terms, what we are to do, and how we are to act; and we are told again and again to live our religion. I want husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and their children that have arrived at years of accountability, to understand that the great place of places where the principles of our religion should be applied, where they should be treasured, where they should produce their own legitimate fruit, is the circle of home. It is around the fireside in every home where the principles of right– eousness must be developed, where the principles that will give stability, power, and eternal endurance to the kingdom of God and to its institutions, must be in full force and daily application: they must there obtain a place within the affections of the persons associated in those circles.

We may talk about attending to the generalities of religion; but so long as we neglect its details that enter into the home circle, that are concentrated around our fireside—so long as we neglect the cultivation of the principles of heaven and happiness there, so long we shall fail to enjoy the fulness of what the Gospel promises to us. Here is where heaven must have its beginning—where its foundation must be laid, not only for our present happiness, but for its eternal perpetuity.

What do these home circles make? They make what I see around me today. They constitute the people, the community, the nation. If the principles of the Gospel are developed at home, when you come to the place of public assembly, you bring them with you: you bring with you the spirit of heaven, the spirit of peace and harmony. It is that principle which will lead to the consummation of that great work, the object of which is to bring about that condition of things wherein the will of God will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.

If you could do all this with a reference to those little things that disturb the peace at home, that plant a thorn where a rose should be planted, that cultivate principles of strife where quietude and harmony should prevail, great would be our happiness as a people, both at home and in our public assemblies.

If you neglect the cultivation of these virtues, their opposite will prevail and exert a deleterious influence over the minds and actions of men and women, which are made evident in their lives.

Would we live to enjoy the Spirit of God? This we are exhorted to do. If we would secure this inestimable blessing, there is no better way than to cultivate in the home circle that frame of mind and feeling that will render the Holy Spirit a constant and welcome visitor there; and not only a welcome visitor, but he might be changed to a constant guest that would be present ever to impart that knowledge which is life, that understanding that causes the soul to be fruitful in the elements of peace, happiness, and glory.

But while that little circle of home is distracted by broils, quarrels, dissension, and strife, by a lack of that affectionate regard for the principles of truth that should characterize all the children of God devoted to the principles and interests of his kingdom, the Spirit of Truth cannot find a resting place there. The soul may complain that it is barren and unfruitful in that happiness it fain would enjoy.

Here, then, is the great field of our labor. If we have thought, in our own extended views of the work of God, that we should go from one end of the earth to the other to publish salvation and save men, we find here a field is opened at our very homes—a field that should engage the attention of every man, woman, and child that has arrived at years of understanding in all Israel.

Here is a field for the Seventies. “Should the Seventies engage in this field?” says one. “They are called to preach in all the world.” Yes; and because they are called to preach the Gospel in all the world, they seem to have no idea that Salt Lake—the place of their homes—is any part of the world. They never seem to have the spirit of their calling, unless they are called to go away from home. Why is it so? I know of no reason only because they do not court that spirit at home—that they do not make their homes the same field of faithful, honest, and persevering exertions that they would make in the field away from home.

If the same prayers were to ascend to God with the same degree of fervency—with the same attention paid to the propriety of examples that are set—with the same word of wisdom and truth and goodness and virtue constantly flowing from them in the midst of the home circle that might characterize all their labors abroad, then the misery at home would become prolific in truth, in which plants of righteousness would spring up and yield the fruits of peace.

“I am a Seventy, and consequently have nothing to do here! There is a First Presidency here, a High Council, and a whole host of Bishops. I shall only be regarded as guilty of meddling with other men’s business, if I should say anything.” Then you will not even presume to talk to your wife at home—to call your sons and your daughters around you to advise with them and explain to them the parental anxiety and care you have for them, by making them acquainted with the duties that they are strangers to, by placing them above that which would lead them from the path of virtue, that they may escape the evils that surround them.

I want to say to the Seventies, High Priests, Elders and Apostles, Prophets and Presidents, It is your privilege and duty to extend the principles of righteousness in the field at home. You need not tell me, you Seventies, that you are qualified to preach salvation to the people of distant nations, when you cannot preach it around your own hearth at home. You must be a Saint, an Elder, a Seventy, an Apostle, &c., around your fireside, in the circle of your home, in the midst of the Saints gathered home. The best and most conclusive evidence that you can tell the truth abroad, and show an example worthy of acceptation, is to do it at home. If I am satisfied a man can tell the truth and live it at home, I have no fear of him anywhere else.

I want to say to all Israel, Wake up to your interests at home. “But how can this condition of things exist among us when the great mass of our community here are ordained to public service—to service abroad?” I want you to carefully consider one thing—that your calling, whatever it may be, was not to neglect your home and the cultivation of the principles of salvation within the home circle.

You may never be called to go abroad. “But,” says one, “I was ordained to be a Seventy, to preach in all the world.” Some that have been thus ordained die before they fulfil their mission, and some apostatize—which, by-the-bye, is a matter that can be most effectually remedied by simply adopting my little advice I have thrown out this morning—to cultivate perseveringly and faithfully those principles that are calculated to emancipate the soul from the thralldom of sin, misery, and death.

Cultivate this in your homes, and you will become ministers of salvation indeed, whether you go abroad or not. You will then discharge the duty you owe to God, to mankind, to yourselves, and to your families around you.

I want the Seventies to remember that this is a part of all the world where we now live. And if an evil exists in our streets here, it is as much an evil as though it existed a thousand miles from this place.

Is there a benighted soul here that can be enlightened by the words of instruction imparted by the servants of God? If so, why wait until you travel ten thousand miles? Make that benighted soul that lives here the object of your care. If you win it through the words of truth and knowledge, it is a soul saved, as much so as though you had brought it ten thousand miles.

What would be the result of this course of procedure? Vice, folly, and wickedness would receive a constant and firm rebuke, and no great noise would be made about it. We would simply be minding our own business in a quiet way. The young, in whose minds the habit of thought and reflection are being formed, could be corrected; their footsteps could be directed in the paths of truth and virtue; and there would be less inclination to steal, and less corruption of the youth in our midst.

“But,” says one of the Seventies, “Is all this lawful for the Seventies to do? Would we not be found fault with if we were to make it our business to talk with our neighbor, old or young, in the street, touching these things?” I do not think you would be taken up for treason by the authorities of the Church, at any rate; and I do not think the civil authorities in this country would take any exception to the preaching of honesty, virtue, and truth. But, above all, try to preach it in that most effectual way by your own truthful example. If you would preach to the wayward to restrain themselves from their folly, show an example yourselves of circumspection in your conduct—of propriety, consistency, and truth. Would you win the wayward to paths of rectitude, address them in a spirit of kindness, charity, compassion, sympathy, and love.

If this principle is good in a public and general way, apply it also at home. And before you go away on that distant mission you anticipate among distant nations that may occupy years of time, try to develop the principles of righteousness in the home circle, and establish them there, that they may be growing thriftily there—that in your absence the fruits of heaven may be developed—that blessings of peace and harmony may have their existence there: then your home circle is the seat of heaven—the nursery of truth, where all the perfections must originate that will constitute all your future greatness and glory.

Seek to make your heaven in your home; seek to develop its perfections there; seek to develop its truthfulness there. Why? Simply because you cannot make it anywhere else. It is not possible, because home is the nursery where all the constituent principles of heavenly bliss and glory are to be developed. Why, then, think of finding them in your wanderings over the face of the earth, when home is the only place where they are to be found, and where they must be developed. You bring the people from distant nations, that homes of this character may exist—homes that shall be rich in treasures of heavenly bliss developed and perfected in their circles.

This is the way I look at and think of our religion, and this I consider to be the right, the proper way for us to patiently, faithfully, and properly live our religion. We are afflicted in our country with a great deal of evil: there are evils of an outdoor character that are very troublesome and annoying, aside from those things that annoy us at home, when, if we lived our religion at home effectually, there would be less inclination of the youthful mind to vice, folly, and nonsense.

Now, that we may, as a people and as individuals, be wise, prudent, humble, and faithful in prosecuting this work of ours to its final consummation, is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Discourse by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, Nov. 22, 1857.

I can say, my brethren and sisters, in truth to my own feelings, that I have been gratified today in what I have heard. I have been edified; and, what is more, I feel that there is only one great reason why we do not realize more fully the blessings that would accrue to us, if we were sufficiently faithful, or as faithful as we might be to the principles inculcated in the remarks that have been made; and that reason is, we do not, to the extent that we might, “live our religion.”

We are not as perfectly united as we might be. I think that this is true. It is as certainly true as it is true that, if we could keep the law of God perfectly, we should realize a corresponding degree of happiness, peace, and affection in everything that should be made the subject of conversation or of thought, or that should become a matter of principle with the people. It is for us to cultivate that principle within us that should unite us together—that should cause our affections to be one, our feelings to be one, our interests to be one; for in this is our strength.

It may be truly said of us, as it is in the world, that we are united; and they say all the time that, whatever our leaders say or propose, we all go to work and sustain them therein. I would to God that it was true to a greater extent even than that to which our enemies may consider it to be true.

When we are compared with other communities in the world, it might be said of us that we are a united and happy people, for we enjoy a degree of union and the blessings resulting from that union that other communities do not enjoy. But this does not show that we do not fall far short of the perfect union that should cement the Saints of the Most High together.

If we could discover and be made sensible of any means by which we could become more perfectly united—more perfectly one, that would be a matter of importance to us. It would be of value to us, as it would lay a foundation with us for an increase of our intelligence; it would increase our chances of success—our chances of victory in the great struggle with the enemies of our God—with our foes within and our foes without. If we could but cultivate these principles with all our hearts, with all our faith, with all our souls, then our struggles would be barely begun when we should be able to rejoice in the enjoyment of victory.

“Well,” says one, “If we are influenced by the same Spirit—if we all do as the Spirit dictates, shall we not be one?” If all the people—the individuals that compose this community, were individually to be operated upon by the Spirit of God—were all enlightened by that Spirit that reveals the will of God, that makes known his purposes, and that imparts to the benighted soul an understanding of the purposes of the Almighty, so that we could appreciate them, there is no doubt in my mind but that the people would all see alike, and consequently act alike. But is this the case? With all our advantages—with all the instructions that have been given—with Heaven’s kindness in the continued, unremitting stream of revelation that has been poured out upon us for a score of years and more, have we become so enlightened—got understanding so that we all see alike, that we all understand alike? We have but to look and contemplate what we see exhibited around us to become satisfied at once that this is not the case with us as a people. If it were so, such admonitions as are called out from the Presidency of the Church would be uncalled for; they would be unnecessary; the people would not be admonished to be more united, to be more diligent and strict in remembering the principles and in practicing the instructions that are from time to time imparted unto them.

Now, while we cannot sufficiently comprehend the things of God by the Spirit of God to save us from error, and from mistakes, and from disunion, what shall we do? Why, let us humbly adopt the advice, or similar advice to that which is given by the ancient Apostle to his brethren in addressing them. He says, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”

Now, I do not quote that Scripture to direct you to be overanxious to learn all that the ancient Apostles may have said that might be adapted to the Saints in that time and under those circumstances; but I want you to act in this as they were admonished to act in that time; and if you cannot judge perfectly by the portion of the Spirit of God that you possess, remember that you have a more sure word of prophecy that is imparted unto you from day to day, from Sabbath to Sabbath, from month to month, and from year to year, unto which you do well that you give heed. And the sequel will be, if you give heed unto it, that by-and-by the day will dawn, and the day star of experience, of heaven, and of truth, and of God, will arise in your own hearts, and the fountain of light and life will become established within you.

Well, then, until this is the case, adopt the maxim inculcated in the song of one of our poets, who writes—

“We’ll mind what Brigham says.”

Pay attention to the inspiration of the Almighty from those in whom it lives and dwells—in whom it is a living fountain, as it must be in you, individually, before you will be saved from sin. Let us remember, if we cannot comprehend, by the Spirit that is living within us, all the truth in relation to what we should do and how we should act as we travel along, that we should attend to their instructions, and do what they say. If they instruct us to pray, let us pray; and if they instruct us what to pray for, let us pray for that; and when the fountain of inspiration is opened within us and becomes a living part and parcel of ourselves, then we will know for ourselves and comprehend for ourselves, and the President of the Church will not have to say from day to day and from time to time, “Wake up from your slumber.” He will not have need to tell us of our diversity of sentiment and feelings. There should exist among us a perfect unanimity of feeling.

If we wait for the Spirit of God to do everything, what are we doing the while? We are idling away our time; we are neglecting to use the means placed within our reach for our benefit and improvement. God has raised up in his Church Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers—for what purpose? Simply that you might be instructed—simply that you might be taught and brought to the knowledge of the truth. What truth? Why, the same truth the Apostles and Prophets understand—the same truths that the Seventies, High Priests, Elders, and the servants of God comprehend. It is to bring you to the same inspiration—to the knowledge of God, which is eternal life.

This is all the purpose that is to be accomplished in all this labor. It is the object of these ordinances, the institutions of heaven, to bring us from our ignorance, our want of knowledge, our lack of understanding, to a comprehension of the truth; and when we are brought to that point and place, no matter if we are counted by thousands and tens of thousands, the blessings of the Gospel are ours, if we are united; for we all occupy the same ground, we understand the same truth, and we are all in the same relationship with truth and with God, which make us one. It causes us to feel alike, to think alike, and to act alike.

If this is the case when we pour out our supplications to the heavens, what will be the character of those supplications? They will all be marked with the same consistency: the same understanding of the truth will dictate them. Our will will simply be the will of our President. Well, then, what will we pray for? We will pray for nothing but what will subserve the cause of righteous– ness; we will ask for nothing but what is consistent with the principles of truth and our own advancement in the comprehension of those principles. Would we ask for anything that the heavens would deny? No, we would not. Would our prayers ascend up without hindrance? Yes, they would. For what reason? Because they were marked with union, with truth, with consistency, and righteousness; consequently, they must be acceptable unto our heavenly Father.

What is the reason our prayers are not all answered? The reason is simply because we ask for things that our Father in his wisdom knows would do us no good. They are not answered, because we should cause our Father to defeat himself, if he were obliged to answer all our petitions, all our prayers and supplications. To have our prayers acceptable, they must be consistent; we must ask for nothing but what is pleasing in his sight, in order that our Father may hear and answer our prayers; and in this way we receive that for which we ask.

Now, to gain this point, it is desirable, because of the advantages that we shall secure when it is once gained.

It is possible that it may be the case that some may think there are other matters of greater importance to us and that should possess a higher interest to us than for us simply to become united through the truth. But if there is anything of greater importance, it is something that I do not know—that I have not learned. Victory has been promised unto us, upon the condition that we do right.

If there are any things connected with our present circumstances that are, to some, more than usually alarming or exciting, I do not know any good reason why they should be so; for if the work with which we are connected is the work of God, as we feel, and as most of us are often saying that we understand it, why should we be more excited this year than we were last year? Why should we feel any more uneasy when there are a few United States’ troops in the hills than if there were not? This is no less the work of God for their being there. Our Father is as near to us—his care and his protection is as much over us and round about us as it was before; and it is no more so, unless we get a little closer by observing more perfectly his requirements.

I fear that if the clouds were now all dissipated and driven away, and if the sunshine of prosperity should begin to shine upon us, some would forget God and the duties they owe to him and to one another: I fear that we should forget the sacred obligations which we are under.

I have never seen any time since I have been connected with the Church when I felt as much freedom, as much liberty, or as much of the Spirit of truth—the blessings of freedom and peace that it inspires, as I have since I have known that our enemies have been in our borders. The reason why I feel this way I suppose to be because of the great blessings that are pending at the present time; and I suppose that which would be a reason for my feeling so well should be a reason for the same good feelings with all Saints, if they only possessed the same Spirit.

“Well,” says one, “Do you think that you are more holy than the rest of the people?” I do not know whether I am or not; but I am fortunate, at any rate, if it is any piece of good fortune to feel at ease and free from trouble and perplexity. Are you not troubled? No. Are you not miserable? No. I am not troubled nor miserable. Why? Because I am happy.

If the people all felt so, they would not be very much troubled about any– thing. I do not say that I feel to pray with any more interest, with any more earnestness, with any more zeal, than I did before we heard the news that this army was on its way to Utah. I am no more disquieted in my feeling; and why? Because it is a settled conviction with me that this is the work of God, and I have no idea that there will be any failure, only that which is on the part of the people. The only anxiety that I have is that I may keep myself firmly bound to “Mormonism”—to the car of the kingdom of God and the work of God; and if God rolls on his work, as we have been told he would, during the last few weeks, we shall soon see his kingdom spread and extend to an amazing degree.

As the Lord has said it is his business to provide for his Saints, I have the promise of being provided for, if I only so conduct myself as to merit the title of a Saint. As to the way and the means how it is to be accomplished, that is none of my business. Whatever the Lord wants of me, he will let me know, because, if I keep myself right and straight, I shall always be on hand to respond to the directions of those that lead me and dictate me, and who should direct my movements.

Well, then, I am happy; I am as easy in my feelings as I well could be, unless I knew something more to feel well about; and I expect, when I know and understand more, that my happiness will be increased; for I expect that I shall understand many things that are now no source of joy and pleasure to me, simply because I know nothing about them. But so far as I have a knowledge of truth, that truth makes me happy and contented; and if I can be contented, I feel as though I would like to see all the people contented. If you cannot feel contented by the spirit that dwells within you all the time, adopt the old Apostle’s maxim—“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.” (2nd Peter, chap. i. 19.)

Listen to and carry out the instructions of brother Brigham, of brother Heber, and of all that speak the words of life and salvation unto you. If they tell you to go home and cultivate peace in your family, go and do it; and if they tell you to go home and cease your stealing, go home and be honest, and quit your stealing.

This is the way to be united; and if you will be honest and united, you will get the Spirit of God; and the more you have of the Spirit of God, the better you feel and the better you will act. Talk about people feeling well that act as mean as the Devil! It is nonsense. Does a man or woman feel well that will steal, that will traduce a friend, speak evil of a neighbor, and seek to stir up strife? No; they cannot. Does an individual feel well that will lie and cherish opposition to the advice, the counsel, and instruction that is given us from the Prophets that God has placed in his Church to rule and dictate us? If I were to judge others as I feel myself, I would judge that they could not feel well. Why? Because I feel well in acting with them—in saying amen to what they say. I feel and find the happiness that I enjoy by doing this, and no man or woman can find happiness in pursuing an opposite course; and if you are unbelieving, it is because you do not comprehend the truth with all your hearts—you do not understand it.

Well, how are you going to get better? Why, commence to do better. If you have indulged in lying, you know it is a sin; therefore, cease your lying. If you have stolen, quit it, and die unto sin. The reason you do not dwell in the life of righteousness is because you are not yet dead unto sin: the reason you do not live is because you are not dead; you are neither living nor dead.

You are instructed to pursue one course, and you will take another: you are instructed to subject yourselves to the will of Heaven, and you are all the time imagining and thinking, and something is in your minds that unsettles your faith and divides your affections. Hence, you do not enjoy the Spirit of truth to the extent that you would, if you would subject yourselves to the will of Heaven. Do as the men do who instruct you and lead you, and do it with your whole hearts. As the President said in reference to praying, do not hunt up any sentiments in your own souls; do not hunt up something to pray for when another is praying; but listen to the man who is mouth, and pray as he prays, and let your whole soul go out in the energy of his expression. Then what will be the result? You will become imbued with the same energy that he has; and if he feels well and is right, you will feel well.

Take this course, and the fountain of knowledge and eternal life will by-and-by be established within you. This is what we are seeking for. It is the rich boon of heaven that we are striving for; and why is it that we do not get it? It is here; it is all around us. We can look—we can travel to the place where it is. Why do we not enjoy it? Simply because you will not enjoy it. This is all the reason. How much do you enjoy? Why, all that you are willing and capable of enjoying—all that you prepare yourselves to enjoy—just all that you render yourselves worthy of in the sight of God; and if you would enjoy more, live better—apply your minds closer and closer to the principles of the Gospel.

If you live your religion in going to meeting on Sunday, live it also on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and every day and every night, until everything adverse to the truth is expelled from your household—until your family circle becomes a sanctuary where the Spirit of God abides—where it imparts its lifegiving influence to all that come within that circle.

If this were the case, it would constitute the Zion of our God. We should have Zion within, whether we were at home or abroad, or in whatever circumstances we might be placed.

“Why,” says one, “I suppose that I must do some great thing.” Let me tell you to try to do some small thing; and if you attend to the little things, when you become men and women in understanding and in the knowledge of the truth, it will be time enough for you to undertake the work of men and women in Christ.

How much can we do? If we were to be judged by our conduct and the course that we take, it would appear that our capacity is not very great; and if we do not know enough to attend to the simple instructions that are given to us here—if we cannot attend to things that are thus simple, how could we get along with greater questions, should they come before us? We have now as much as we know how to get along with and manage properly, without grasping after things beyond our present comprehension.

Brethren and sisters, I hope, and I not only hope, but am certain that, as a people, we shall adopt the principles that have been taught us, and practice them to so great an extent that our Father will accept of us—that he will not forsake us—that he will not turn his hand against us, but that it may be over us in mercy continually, and that victory, through his goodness, may perch upon the banner of Zion from this time forth and forever.

I want that we should be good enough—sufficiently meek and faithful before our Father and his servants, that we shall find acceptance with him continually. That we may be so wise as to pursue this course in our lives, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

A Discourse by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, October 18, 1857.

I have been highly gratified today and edified in what I have heard and in what has been expressed, not only here by the Presidency who addressed us this morning; but the greatest or highest source of gratification in all this matter to myself is that I feel as they feel and as they have expressed themselves; I feel the spirit that is in them, and I feel that it imparts to me the same blessing that it imparts to them. If it is in them a source of light, eternal life, it is the same to me; if it is a source of comfort to them, it is to me. I feel this in relation to our position at the present time and the circumstances that at present surround us, which are different from those that have surrounded us in days that have gone by.

As was remarked by President Young this morning, in his correspondence with our enemies outside, the time has been when we were at the mercy of those that were around us—those that wished us no good—that never have done us aught but evil. But our circumstances have so changed, and the work in which we are engaged has so far progressed, that it has brought us to the circumstances in which we are placed even now. It has not only brought us to know the truth, but we have the privilege, the ability, and the capacity, through the blessings of heaven, to take care of and defend ourselves.

What are the honest convictions that are within us? They are that we can defend ourselves; for we are where we dare speak in favor of the truth; and I thank God that we are today so far removed from the seat and power of our enemies, that they are unable to reach us in the summary way in which they have done heretofore. This to me is a gratification and a comfort: it enables me to look upon those things around me with feelings different from those in which I have been in the habit of contemplating them.

In times that are past we have been forced by the surrounding influence to look upon things around us as though they were only to be enjoyed for a short time—that though we had something one day, there was but little assurance that we would have them the next. If blessed with home, with our firesides, and habitations, and those things that rendered us happy, we had but little assurance that tomorrow would not sweep them all away. But here, in this place in which we are at present located, we have our homes, through the blessing of God, we have our associations, and we have all that we have in our possession to happify our situation and cause hope to live within us for that which is still better; and we are so far removed from the land of our enemies, that we can hope consistently that they may be continued unto us for many days.

As has been remarked today, look at it naturally, as men not connected with the work of God in which we are engaged, and we are blessed; we are in a place that is blessed, and the very place of which we have almost, at times, been inclined to complain and to feel that we were sharing in a hard lot—that we were forced to live and to dwell in such a place as we now occupy. But the things that we have thus regarded as hardships are blessings to us.

If you never had been able to appreciate them at all in their truthful character until now, just now open your eyes, and do not keep your eyes closed against the truth; but open them and look upon our situation—the circumstances that surround us, and you will feel, if you feel as I do, to thank God—for what? For the rugged mountains that are around us—for the barren and desert country that lies between us and the land of our enemies. You will feel, in the spirit of the persecuted of other days and other climes and dispensations, to bless God for the strength of the hills, and that the Plains that lie between us and our enemies are sterile and barren; for in these things are our protection.

“But,” says one, “would not God protect us?” Certainly; and how has God protected us? He has protected us by bringing us to the land where we now dwell—a land where, if there had been great labor bestowed upon it, it could not have been better prepared to constitute a home for the naked, the driven, the afflicted, and the despised people of God. It is every way calculated to give security to the people of God. For this reason I feel well.

If I have ever seen the hand of God—if I have ever seen or known his dealings with his people, or have ever seen a manifestation of his wisdom, it is more than ever manifest in his bringing us to this land, where the distance is so great from the land of our enemies. The character of the country intervening between us and them is better to us than millions of millions of armed men to protect us: it affords us a protection that cannot be found in the armies of the earth, were they all marshaled in our behalf.

Well, then, I feel to thank God that we are here; I feel to bless him for every foot of desert country that intervenes between this and our enemies. There is not a foot of barren soil between us and them but for it I feel to thank God. I regard it as a bulwark of strength to protect the infant kingdom of God while it should gather to itself strength, that it might exist in the midst of the nations of the earth.

For all these things I feel well today; I feel happy, and I would that all the Saints could feel happy. “Well,” says one, “I would feel happy, if I could.” What is the reason you cannot be happy? Where is the evidence of the truth that the people are not happy in this country? Where are those who are not satisfied in this country? I do not believe that there is a dissatisfied soul in the whole length and breadth of the land where the Saints dwell that enjoys the Spirit of God. Why? Because here is the only place that man can live and enjoy the Spirit of God without restraint: here is the place where the peace, the bliss, the prospect of happiness can be cherished in the mind of man, free from restraint.

Well, then, this is the place in which to be happy. But shall we be protected? Shall we be preserved? Shall we be upheld? Shall we be sustained? I say, shall we continue to enjoy these blessings? This is a question that we may answer for ourselves.

“But,” says one, “has not President Kimball said that we should be victorious?” Yes, he has said it again and again, that we should, if we would but do right. This is why I say it is a question for us to answer for our– selves. Now, will we do right? What do we say within ourselves? What is the feeling that lives within us in relation to this matter? Will we do right? I have no doubt but what we may all think that we will do right.

If we conclude that we will all do right, let us make up our minds for the struggle; for it will require all our power. We are not going to do right without an effort; we will not attain to that which is right without an effort; neither will we retain the blessings when we have them without an effort, and one that is constant and unremitting—as constant as the life that we seek and the blessings that we calculate to secure to ourselves.

When we engage in this struggle, it should not be with half a purpose, nor with our affections divided; a part of our regards running out to the things that are around us, and that are but of little moment, without regard for God and his work and the consummation and perfection of our own salvation; but we should commence this struggle with all the energies of our souls concentrated upon this one point —that we will do right, and as fast as we learn the right, do it.

We have been told what it is to do right, and that is to learn the will of God and do it. We knew the will of God in relation to a great many things, and you would think you were abused and underrated in relation to your knowledge, if you were told that you did not know how to do better than you sometimes do.

We know the will of God in relation to a great many things, because it has been sounded in our ears ever since we commenced in the work of God: it has been told us from day to day and from time to time.

You know that it is peace that we want. Our President has told us that he has sought for peace with our enemies. We have all desired peace with our enemies outside; but we shall not have peace in the complete sense of the term till we make it at home.

Have we made peace within ourselves and in our homes? Have we made peace in that territory over which we preside? Is the same unanimity of feeling, the same union, the same singleness of purpose developed within us, as individuals and families, that marks the action and the conduct of this great people when the public safety and the interests of the people require effort? When labor is to be performed or sacrifice to be made, and it is called for, is it made? Yes; the experience of the past few weeks shows this is the case. If you ask for men, they are on hand; if you ask for means, they are rendered without a grudge; they come freely, and then more than you have asked for.

What does this prove? Why, it proves that the feelings of unanimity exist in the body of this people. If this feeling exists to this extent in the mass of the people, one would suppose that it certainly would exist to a corresponding extent in individuals. Is this the case? Are we as ready to turn out, to make exertion, to lose sleep, to watch by night and by day, to weary ourselves again and again, that we may live acceptably before God—that we may bring ourselves into perfect subjection to the spirit of the Gospel that we have embraced—are we, I say, as ready to do these things as we would be to respond to the call to shoulder our guns and go into the mountains, as our brethren are doing and have done?

Are we willing, with the same hearty good feeling, with the same perseverance, to subject ourselves to the spirit of the Gospel and cultivate it within us with just as much industry, with as much indefatigable zeal as that with which we go into the mountains and labor by day, sleep out at night, and endure the weather, fair or foul, without grumbling, without faultfinding; so that our whole soul and our whole affections are in the cause? If we leave our homes for the love of God, and if we live our religion at home and honor the Gospel that we have embraced, what would it secure to us? It would secure to us a reward for all the difficulties, for all the losses that we have sustained. Would it save us from burning our dwellings and leaving the land covered with piles of smoking ruins? Yes; for this is the condition upon which we are promised these things.

I want to see the people go to work, as his servants have said, individually, throughout the length and breadth of this nation and kingdom of Israel, here in the valleys of the mountains. I want every man and every woman to say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” and when we learn his will, then go to work and do it. I want you to commence a war of extermination on the evils that are between you and your God in claiming this promise.

I do not in my heart desire to see men, women, and children flee into the mountains. But we should be willing to go, remain here, or do whatever is required, and feel that in so doing we were doing the will of God.

How do you feel, brethren and sisters? Do you feel as though we would do right and keep the commandments of God, and claim the promises that have been made us today, that, if we would do as we have been counseled, we should come and go, confront our enemies, and conquer them, and not many fall in the struggle.

[Blessed the sacramental cup.]

I presume that there is not a soul that belongs to the Church of the Saints, here or elsewhere, that feels a living interest in the prosperity of Zion, but what would wish that they might be enabled to pursue a course of life that would secure to them this blessing—that our brethren, a part of ourselves, those that are united to us by the ties of the Gospel, are called to go abroad to face our enemies, to be exposed as they may be to the chances of death, can secure this blessing and get the blessing and protection of our Heavenly Father.

Be perfect in your sphere; be constant, and you shall be preserved while in dangers that are around you, until you shall accomplish the object of your mission, return to us unscathed and unharmed, and rejoice in the blessings accruing from the victory gained.

Do you want this, mothers? Fathers, do you want this blessing? If you do, do as I have exhorted you this afternoon—put away everything from you that is evil, and cultivate the Spirit of truth within you, that your prayers may ascend up before God, and that they may be acceptable. Call down his protection upon the absent ones, as well as upon yourselves. Do not be careless—do not settle down in thoughtless indifference, thinking that because the servants of God have promised victory, that it must come, independently of your exertions. It is only upon this condition that safety is secured to you and to me, and that is, that we DO RIGHT.

It is only as the conditions are complied with, that the blessing is obtained; it is only as we live for them; it is only as we render ourselves worthy to receive, by the course of conduct that we pursue. This is the nature of the blessing that will come home to us; this is the blessing that our Father will bestow; and beyond this will we receive blessings? No. Well, then, have we not every reason to be faithful? Yes; and why? Because everything depends upon it.

Then, brethren and sisters, let us remember this brief lesson, and let us take it home with us when we go. “Well, then,” says one, “if we take it home with us, and do a requisite amount of praying, it will be right, will it not?” It will depend upon the way you pray. I want you to go home and pray acceptably; and, lest your prayers be hindered, be careful not to allow any spirit to live around you or in you that would not be pleasing in the sight of God.

Do not quarrel at home, because it will not do you any good. Now, that is reason enough. Do not cherish any bad feelings. “Why?” says one. Because they will not do you any good; and that should be reason enough. Do not allow yourself to do any wrong.

I want you to go home and do all the right that is required of you. You are only required to do right as far as you know what is right. You are not required to do right in the President’s place, nor for anybody but yourself. And the wrongs done by individuals, should they all be piled up until they made a pile that would reach the gates of the celestial city, would not justify you in a single wrong.

Then let us go home and turn aside this other calamity and this other chastisement that will come upon us if we do not do right. If we do not do right, the result will be that we shall have to suffer that which we are told: but we shall not suffer, if we will do right. If we do suffer, it will be because we have not done right; and we shall know in a few years whether we have done right or whether we have not.

If I could live for all the Saints or for anybody else besides myself—if I had any time that did not need to be occupied for myself, I would not mind doing right for others; but I cannot, for I have only time enough to do the good that I am required to do myself, in order to do my share in this work: therefore I want you to do your share.

You, each one, do your piece of work; carry it to your firesides, to your fields; keep it with you, so that it may be in you all the time. Keep your face Zionward every day and every night and all the time that shall be allotted to you; and when you will all do this, what will be done? Why, we shall secure an insurance against the destruction of the comforts that are around us and desolating our country. If we are not forced to desolate our country, there is one thing that is certain—our enemies will not occupy it; they will not dwell in it, and it will not be cursed by their running over it.

If these are not inducements for us to live our religion, I do not know what are. It appears to me that they should be sufficient to secure the interest and the affections of every man and woman that has a knowledge of the truth.

This is a point that I feel particularly and specially interested about: I care but little about big things or mysterious things. If we can only, as a people, take hold of these small matters that affect us at our home, which, if not attended to, will roll obstacles between us and our God, and then ask God our Heavenly Father to do for us as we would do for each other—to bless us as we want to be blessed—to be charitable to us as we are charitable to each other—merciful to us as we are merciful to one another, what will be the result? If we always do these things, there will never be anything in the way of our prayers.

But if we withhold our hand, and do not bless our brethren and sisters as we should, will God hear us when we pray to him? I tell you he will not. We might pray until we were so hoarse that we could not speak; we might pray in thundertones, till our prayers could be heard from one end of the continent to the other, and still he would not listen to us.

He has told us what spirit we should pray in and how we should act towards those around us. Then let us go and cultivate these things in our homes, in our family circles; for this is the most effectual way to carry out these principles.

If all the men in the Territory or three-fourths of them are called away, do they quarrel? No. Some of them write home to me and say they have been for ten days assembled together in a motley crowd of four or five hundred men, in circumstances not near so comfortable as those by which we are surrounded here at home; and there has not been a sign of difference or of contention or quarrelling in their midst.

Well, is this a sign that everything is all right in Zion? I do not know. I wish that the same feeling pervaded the circle of every family in the mountains that pervades those brethren in the mountains. Well, sisters, cannot you help to make it so? You can. You have been told how to make it so. Be charitable to one another’s faults, just as you would be charitable to your children, or as you would wish God to be charitable to you. When you pray, ask God to do as you would have others do. And, as you think it would be good for God and angels to do, and as you would have others do, even so do yourself.

If you go home and do that way, whether it is in the domestic circle, or whether it is in the more extended circles of your associations in life, there will be a peaceable, happifying influence around and within you, and that influence will extend from you to others.

You come to the Tabernacle and enjoy the Spirit of peace and of truth that is here—the Spirit of God. Well, now, you ought to enjoy that Spirit, the Spirit of peace, just as much at home as anywhere else: you should have it there all the time. There is a fruitful field for the cultivation of practical purity and virtue, that is as imperishable as truth itself, that will render you secure in that victory that is anticipated in the conquest before us. Let us not be found delinquent in the duties that are enjoined upon us.

That you and I may be enabled to attend faithfully to our duties is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

A Sermon by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, October 11, 1857.

The circumstances of our meeting this morning has brought me to this place to occupy a portion of the time allotted for the worship of today. I cannot say, as I have heard men say at times, that I have thought of nothing to say; for it has been my study and my labor, since my connection with the work of God in the last days, to learn what to say, in order that I might have something whereof to speak, in case that I should be required to say anything; and I would always wish to be able, through the blessing of God and the manifestation of his Holy Spirit, to say, at any time when it might be my duty to speak, something that will be calculated to benefit those to whom I may speak. I know of no other blessing, or glory, or wealth accruing from our living and our labors in the world, but that which we learn of the truth, that will bless us and make us free from the dominion and influence of error.

We talk about experience, and we have had a great deal of experience, and we are constantly in the school of experience. But I am inclined to think that it may be the case with us in that school as in other schools. We sometimes improve by what we experience, adding to our store of knowledge; and then, again, we may experience very considerable from which we derive no particular benefit, like the scholar that attends school, but from inattention, a failure to apply himself properly to his lessons and to the acquirement of the knowledge that is imparted, he fails to comprehend the truth to the extent that he might otherwise have done; and hence he is not benefited to the extent that he might have been, although he has been in the school.

Well, as Saints and as children of God, we are in the school; and if there is any higher purpose connected with our being in the school—connected with living in the world, and connected with all our labors in the world, and what we are supposed to be here for—if there is any higher object than the attainment of the knowledge that will save us, I do not know it. I never have heard of anything greater or more glorious, or more to be esteemed, than our being saved. It is simply for this that we are being taught and that we are learning: it is for this that we are required to be obedient: it is for this that we are obedient.

When we have been obedient to every requirement—made every possible attainment that can be made, what is our condition? We are saved from the bondage of sin and darkness, the consequences of ignorance. Well, then, it will be profitable for us to think of what we experienced—to think of the experience through which we have passed. Has it been a varied scenery, embracing an almost count– less variety of changes and of circumstances, involving a good deal of comfort, pleasure, and happiness, with a corresponding amount of sorrow, affliction, and wretchedness?

Have we profited from it all? When we have supposed that the hand of chastisement was upon us, and we have been afflicted, has that affliction been to us a source of knowledge to benefit and to perfect us in our sphere of action? We were passing through this as a necessary school of experience. And when we have passed through it, has it left with us an increase to the store of our knowledge? Has it profited us to an extent that we have comprehended more of the truth that influences our Father in the heavens? And have we learned more of the principles which constitute our happiness and that will be the bliss and the glory of the saved and the sanctified? Has this been the case with us, or have we done as many others have—passed blindly through the school of experience, passed through the sufferings, endured the sorrow, and experienced the joy, the pleasure, and the happiness, and still are unenlightened—still are ignorant?

I believe we may, with profit to ourselves, look over our experience; and why? So long as we have been connected with the Church, if we have not been following, as Saints, in the path of our own making, in yielding obedience to the requirements of the work of God—if we have been obedient to the counsel that has been given—if we have acted up to the calls that have been made—if we have done these things, we have done them for this purpose, for our salvation, our deliverance, and for our improvement, that it might tend to increase our happiness and our comfort.

Under this view of the matter, should we today really conclude that we have really been made sufferers, and that we have in reality been afflicted, and that we have really been made to participate in some wretchedness and misery, we cannot conclude that we have passed through these things for any other purpose than that we should have been brought to a comprehension of the truth by them.

If it was not our misery that prompted our Father in his dealings towards us—that gave character to his operations with us, then he had an object in view. He commenced with us to accomplish his own purposes, to bring about an increase of his own glory in our salvation. Well, when that increase shall be accomplished, we shall know that it was not our sorrow or our affliction that he sought: it was because he wished our salvation, that we were made to partake of the cup of suffering, that we should partake of sorrow before we could reach happiness and bliss as a reward for it.

Well, then, in what way should we look at what we have endured and at what we have suffered? Why, simply as lessons—as admonitions imparted to us for our benefit, for our profit, and for our learning, and that we might increase in knowledge, and this might produce an increase of the legitimate principles of happiness: and it was simply a conscientiousness that we were free from sin that led us to persevere in the pursuit of further happiness, by endeavoring to obtain a more extensive knowledge of the truth. It is for this, then, that we have endured all that we have endured. Have we regarded this in this light, while we have been passing through those scenes that have marked our history from the commencement of the work of God to the present moment?

It was said of the Saints anciently, that they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods; and no doubt they did. It has probably been the case in this dispensation, that the Saints have taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods. But to how great an extent have we taken patiently the spoiling of our goods as trials that were calculated by our Father in heaven only for our good?

We have been in the habit, in consequence of the feelings that pervaded our minds, of looking at the doings of our Father in a limited light; and we have been in the habit of looking at his operations in this way, and whatever was required of us today we regarded as being the fulness of his purposes and of his operations with us; and if we should comply perfectly or readily today with the requirements made of us, we have thought that we had attained all that was to be obtained.

Well, is this so? No. He has been making requirements of us continually: requirement after requirement has been made of us. He has required us to accomplish a work today, and something else the next day; and each succeeding day, from the beginning to the present time, has brought some change in his requirements. He has required us to travel in one direction, for instance, today; and then the accomplishment of the same work which he has to do requires us to take a directly opposite course to what we were pursuing. Well, then, if taking up one course today and another tomorrow seems to be undoing the work of yesterday and to be diametrically opposed to the work of yesterday, can we recognize the hand of God in it? If we have recognized his hand in these things, we have had a profitable experience by them.

“But,” says one, “how can it be that God should require one thing today, and then something else tomorrow? We thought he was a straightforward dealing individual—that there was no variableness, nor shadow of turning in him.” Well, this is the character of him; but, perhaps we have been in difficulty, and could not recognize the hand of God, and could not recognize the blessing in the present apparent suffering. We could not recognize the hand of God as on yesterday, when we thought we were in better circumstances than we are today. Where is the difficulty? It is simply that we have not recognized the hand of God so clearly as in the day that we have considered to be more rich with blessings and prosperity; and what is the reason? “Why,” says one, “we could not see the design of these things.” Well, if we could not see their ultimate design, there must have been a reason why we could not see; and we will consider that there was a purpose in this, as well as in the Lord sending the Gospel which has reached our ears.

Suppose that we should have known that it was his purpose to bring us to this place; why, we never could have believed that we were following his counsel when we were traveling to every other place; for in our journeyings we traveled towards almost every other place before we came here; and, in fact, every other place that we have visited we visited before we came here; and still we were following the purposes of God every time and in all those windings. Well, if we could not know it then, it will be good to know it now—to discover it and to look at it in a way and to an extent that will profit us. It will be well to look at the true position we have been in, now that we understand that all the scenes that we have passed through have been for the accomplishment of his purposes.

If we did not understand his purpose at the beginning, we must at some time comprehend it, or we never can see his hand in it—we never can be blessed with that freedom from ignorance, from error, and from darkness; but the chains that have hitherto held us in error and in bondage will continue to hold us until we reach that point. Then to see and to comprehend, by the light that dwells within us, that God is with us, and that he is round about us, and that he is fulfilling his purposes all the time, however varied our circumstances may be—however they may change from time to time, if we can but know that God is in it, what will be the result? Why, contentment that will be unbroken; it will be a feast to our souls; it will be the banquet of happiness for our minds to feast upon; and then, however difficult our circumstances may be considered, we shall have an inward joy, a peace, a satisfaction, and resignation to the will of our Father, that we could not have while we were bound down by the chains of ignorance and error.

Well, is there anything that we should know? Yes, if we would be happy, we should know that if the clouds of adversity lour around us—if there are indications of a storm continually threatening us, then, if we have not assurance and a knowledge of the truth that will enable us to look through the clouds that have thickened around us to the triumph of the cause that we are engaged in, the scenery will become discouraging to us; and consequently, we shall become unhappy. The consequence will be that we shall be fearful; and it will be that fear that produces unpleasant feelings and which is the result of ignorance. It is required of us not so much to read and comprehend the future which is not revealed, but like the schoolboy that is rapidly passing over lessons given by his preceptor, and who glances over them without seeing their importance, but simply commits the words to memory and passes rapidly along to something else. We should read and learn these lessons in our experience; and let us in all these windings see that there is an importance attached to every lesson of experience through which we are called to pass.

Then, if we can see the hand of God in all these changes and trials, and if we can see to the extent that the relationship is perfect in our comprehension, between the purpose of God and its accomplishment, then we are settled upon a basis from which we cannot be moved, and we are then standing upon a rock which cannot be shaken; and while the Spirit of God is upon us, we will not become wretched; but so long as that Spirit can find a place in us, we cannot become alienated from the things of God.

It was said in old times that when the Lord commenced his work in the latter times, he will actually accomplish it. Well, now, we have actually come upon the stage of action to take our part when that work is about to be done, and we are to constitute a portion of his agents to accomplish that work. And when we have done that which is needful for the accomplishment of his work, then we shall see the consistency of God’s hand dealing with us.

For the last twenty-five years, and especially when the kingdom of God was first established, it became necessary with our Father, as with any other workman, to have the requisite material for the building, and then in the next place to have that material in a suitable condition to accomplish the work with. The same as when the Presidency of the Church designed to build a Temple—a holy place to the name of the Most High, what is requisite? In the first place, it is requisite to prepare for a foundation; and then, in the next place, the material to lay that foundation is required, and the Temple commences to be built; and as the material is prepared, the work of the building goes on, and the material is adjusted in the foundation of that Temple according to the plan of the architect. Well, so with our Father, to accomplish his work in the last days; his first move was to find men that would engage in it, and then to send men forth to attract the attention of others—of those who would give heed to it.

This called forth the preaching of the Gospel as it was first sounded in our ears. Did we understand anything of the work of God in the last days? I speak from my own experience, and answer, No. We believed the truth as it was first announced to us, but not in all its extent nor what it really amounted to; but what developments it would show we were ignorant of. But still being attracted by the sound that brought with it the Holy Spirit, we followed it; and what has been the result? We are here today; we have passed through all the varied scenes that have filled up the history of this people; we have been associated with all the changes and vicissitudes that fill up the work of God for the last twenty-five years, and we are here today, and our experience is what we have passed through in that length of time.

And how have we profited by it? Is the great superstructure of the kingdom of God built up? Is the organization of the Saints complete? Are they perfect? No. Then what has been doing? Why, the people have been receiving instruction; they have been taught from year to year; lesson after lesson has been given; one field of experience has followed upon the track of another; we have been practicing upon those things revealed through the Priesthood upon the earth; and, by following this Priesthood, it has brought us to these times and to this place. Well, it has done how much of the work of God? How much of the foundation is laid? How much of the Temple is built ?

Why, you can go out here and see the Temple that is being built on this ground, and you can see how much. Just as much has been built as there has been material brought on to the ground and adjusted in its place according to the design of the architect. Is this all that has been done towards the building of the Temple? No. Here has been a canal built, and there has been rock quarried and laid on the way in almost every place from here to Big Cottonwood Canyon. But is the Temple built? No: but just so much as is adjusted there today tells us that so far the Temple is built. Will it be any different when the top-stone is laid? Will it make any difference with the parts that are already adjusted? No: they will still maintain the position that was assigned them; but that was not given them until they were every whit prepared, according to the plan of the architect, to take their place in the building.

Well, look at our place as Saints of the Most High God, and what is there developed in relation to the building of it? The Gospel has been preached, perhaps, to every nation under heaven, or they have heard the sound borne by our own report, either in Zion or in the nations abroad. But what has been done? Why, the people of the Saints have been wandering from State to State, from country to country, unsettled, having no abiding place, no permanent home.

Was it necessary for us to wade through all these scenes? Yes; it was necessary that we should move and remove, until we gained the place we now occupy. It is necessary, before the kingdom of God can be built up in strength and in power, to stand forever, that there should be developed in the people a sufficiency of the knowledge of salvation to hold them to the truth just as firmly and as steadfastly as these rocks are held to their place in the foundation of the Temple, so that there will be no disposition to apostatize. And the people must be possessed of capacity, like the rock in the building; they must be possessed of strength to bear the weight upon them in the superstructure.

This is the work that has been going on, and we have to learn, experience, and appreciate this; and until we do, we only learn as the brute beasts, who may experience, but know no reason.

The Lord has been leading us for our profit and for our learning; he has been leading us in a course of experience, and we shall be continually subject to changes and vicissitudes until our experience becomes sufficiently fruitful in knowledge that we shall be bound to the work of God. “How?” says one. Why, by a knowledge of the truth; and when we know the truth in relation to the work of God, shall we cherish a desire to depart from it? Does a man ever apostatize when he knows the work is true and that God is working for his own glory, and when he all the time sees this? No, never. You never see a man apostatize that in the days of his apostasy ever knew this or appreciated it. Why, if he knew this, he would not apostatize.

Apostates are found as we pass through the country, and they will say, “I knew the work to be true, twenty years ago, when you, brother Lyman, or somebody else, came through our section of country and preached the Gospel; I knew that it was true then.”

Then, why did you apostatize and leave the Church? Have you found out that it was false?

“Well, I do not know that I have, but it was that ‘Mormonism’ that was preached twenty years ago that I knew.”

Well, if you knew that which was preached twenty years ago, you would have recognized it today, because this is the first fruit of that which you were acquainted with; and if you had known it, you would not have departed from it. You did not know the Gospel; you did not understand it: you might have known or felt conscious that what some man told you was true. But what is the spirit of the Gospel to that man that comprehends it? It is that which comprehends all truth and all good; and there is no truth, neither is there any good outside of it; and there is, consequently, no chance for the individual that views the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this light to adopt those kinds of conclusions that lead men away from the truth and that cause them to apostatize.

If we realize this, then we are secure, and we are prepared for any contingency that may arise; and if God does not build up his kingdom with us and with the people that are gathered together to the place that he has appointed, there is but one reason why he does not do it, and that is, they do not understand enough of the principles of salvation; therefore, his kingdom cannot be built up entirely and completely.

Now, the fact of a man’s being gathered with the Church and with the Saints does not constitute his salvation in the kingdom when the kingdom shall triumph; for men will apostatize and go away from the Church, until they know that it is worth everything else, that it is everything that is good, and that it is all that can bestow permanent happiness upon man. Until they understand this, they are in danger, because there are agencies in the world, throughout the world, and a train of corrupt influences that are in lively exercise among men and that have gained power in consequence of the ignorance of mankind; so that until there is as much of the knowledge of the truth within the people that constitute the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as will sustain them till there is no disposition to look after anything else, until they consider nothing outside the kingdom of any value, they will be in danger of stepping aside and doing wrong. What is it that will save us? Why, simply knowing that the truth is so broad that it fills the infinitude of space and embraces all true happiness, glory, immortality, and eternal life—all that man will possess when he is associated with the redeemed and sanctified.

When we have this understanding and these views of the subject, will we ever go away from the truth? I say, No, we will not. What will we go away for? There is no money to be made; there is no blessing to be obtained; there is no power or riches that can be gained or acquired, or that can be hoped for; there is nothing outside of the truth.

Does a man get away from the truth by apostasy? No; he simply revels in the darkness, with truth all around him: the truth pervades the whole country where he may dwell and where he may travel; he cannot get outside of it. Then what has he done? He has closed his eyes and said, “I will not see;” and by doing so, what has he effected? He has only run around the circle of truth, until he is worn out and comes back and finds that the truth is still there. When he opens his eyes, there is the truth; God is there, his influences are there, his Spirit is there, his work is there; and he finds that he has not gone away from God, neither has he gone away from the truth; but he has simply closed his eyes and refused to see that light and truth which were presented to him.

What has he got to do? He has got to take up the truth where he thought he had left it, be obedient to its requirements, live to it, and put it on like a garment; he has got to shake off the shackles of darkness, and emerge into the light and liberty that the Gospel brings.

“Well,” says one, “Where?” Why, in that very place where a long time ago you closed your eyes against the light and the truth. You may apostatize, go away, and stay as long as you please; but you must get a good deal of money, or you will not have enough to get through with. I have never seen an individual that could get enough that would last him through.

Men may go round the world, and they cannot get away from the truth. It is simply because we do not understand the Gospel as a system of truth that we are subject to doubts and fears. If we did understand it in that light, we would not be carried away, for the best of all reasons, that we would not have any inclination to go away from the truth. If we love it, do you think we will apostatize, or become alienated from it? No, never.

Do you see what is requisite to learn, to prepare for those dangers to which we are liable? Why, it is simply to comprehend the truth; and when we do this, what shall we see? We shall see that God has a hand in all things—that he designs to build up his work and to establish it with us, but not until there is a sufficiency of the light and manifestations of the Spirit of truth in us that we could not be separated from it.

All this scenery that we have been passing through has been preparing us, just as the laborer, in taking the rock from the mountain, has been preparing it for its proper place in the House of God.

Well, what is necessary next? Why, you know, the stonemason, when he commenced on the rough ashlar that was in the quarry, commenced with heavy tools; and when he had knocked off some of the rough corners and smoothed down the exterior appearance of the stone, he then used lighter tools and continued to use lighter still, until the piece under his hand was prepared and polished and fit for its place.

Well, what will we have to be when we are as smooth as some of the nicely polished pieces of stone that will be in the house of God? We will have to do a great deal more in “Mormonism” than to join the Church and make a journey of some ten thousand miles. Men have been journeying all the time, but very few have journeyed so as to be saved in the kingdom of God; and what is the reason? Why, in their traveling there has been something that has been neglected. Well, if nothing has been neglected with us, and we are to be removed no more, but to become abiding fixtures in the kingdom of God, why, then we can see that it has been necessary that every evil should be drawn out, and that the Spirit of truth in every part of our organization should become a living pulse that should vibrate and reach every individual action and that should purify every individual thought, and that the fountain of life and thought within us might become well purified by its sacred and lifegiving influence, that it might purge out from us all that unhallowed leaven within us and round about us, and in which we find ourselves involved as we pass through the journey of life.

We get angry, we get out of humor, “out of sorts,” as the printers term it; hence we do not have that equanimity of thought which it is desirable that we should possess. Our passions rule us, and we do not rule them; the passions, the feelings that may be within us, overcome us, and we say we did not think anything about it. We do not think that we are to con– trol ourselves, that this is our business upon the earth, that we came here to learn our Father and the principles which influence him—to learn how he has put on power, and how he has surrounded himself with glory and strength, come off victorious, and never become subject to evil.

Well, are we learning it when our passions are running away with us like a wild, untrained team with the carriages that they are attached to? “Why,” says one, “we shall do as the Spirit dictates us.” There is a saying that I have read somewhere, that says the spirit of the prophet should be subject to the prophet; hence I infer that I should not always prophesy because the spirit of prophecy is in me; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, which we should have all the time. But although we should have the spirit all the time, we should only use it when it would be prudent and profitable to do so. It is so with all our conduct in life; it is so with all those duties that fill up our time and that occupy our attention in the domestic circle; for there is where we should begin to build up the kingdom of God—first in ourselves, then with our wives, next with our children, and then all build up the kingdom of God together.

Well, but we have been told that this was our sectarian traditions, to think of building up the kingdom of God in our hearts. But I want to tell you, not because you have not heard it before, but because it is a thing that you have been told again and again; and what is that? To live your religion; and to live your religion is to have every principle pertaining to the building up of the kingdom of God, to its perpetuity and perfection, developed in you; and what will be the result? Why, then, when you are adjusted in the Temple of God and assigned your position, you will not run away, but you will remain and become as a pillar here. What is a pillar? It is a fixture. You know they are put in a building to remain there while the building stands. If the building is designed to be an eternal place—a dwelling place for God, then they are to remain there forever.

You want to live so that your minds will be filled with his Spirit; and to do this, you need not take a mission to the sun, to the moon, or to the stars, to find out their distances or how much they weigh? But are you acquainted with your homes? You answer, “Yes.” Well, then, do right at home, do not do wrong, do not quarrel at home, do not stir up disunion, do not, in a word, do anything to bring about a pandemonium instead of a paradise; but do that which brings peace—that which produces the spirit of peace and of heaven.

But where division of sentiment, diversity of feeling, and discord exist, the principles of heaven are not there; the principles of peace are not there. Study these principles, and for what purpose? Why, that it may stir up the spirit of peace within you, that the spirit of peace may be, not a casual visitor, but a constant attendant, that he may take up his abode with you; and when an individual takes up his abode with you, then you do not consider him a transient visitor, but there is his home—there is where he lodges, where he stays, where he imparts blessings—if he is a minister of blessings, where he imparts good, if he has any good to impart. And if you open a door that this Spirit will take up his abode with you, then that fountain which will be opened up will become very plenteous in its supplies; it will become so to you because you welcome the Holy Spirit there, and you study to cultivate within you such a feeling that the Spirit will love to tarry with you day by day; and its book of instructions will be opened to you, so that each succeeding day will give you an increase of knowledge, and you will find yourselves able to comprehend one degree of light and knowledge after another, until your whole soul will be swallowed up in your love for the truth; your affections will be bound up in the truth, for which you will be willing to sacrifice all; and you will throw away all the old fogyism that was around you; and if you have acted as if you thought the world was yours, then you will think that it is your Father’s, and that he only lent it. You will acknowledge his ownership to it, and you will give yourself to him and to his cause continually.

What will this prepare you for? For any contingency that may arise; and you will be contented in the storm and confident of what the result will be. If the storm clouds lour around you, you will be comforted by the sunshine of the Spirit of God; and however dark the clouds that may lour around, you will find that Spirit to be your companion; you will see the sunshine that opens to you the prospect of happiness, of glory, and of eternal life when the clouds shall pass away.

Why will this be the case? Because you have prepared yourselves that the Spirit might be in you, having cultivated it all through your lives. Then you have a devotion to the truth, and the Spirit of truth will tarry with you, and by-and-by you will become fully devoted to the truth; your affections will become pure and holy; and then when you are purified and made holy, you will not depart from the truth, nor go into darkness and apostasy, because the sunlight of truth is within you.

This is what I want you to learn; and why? Because the days, the times that are around us require that we should be firm in our purpose, and not only that we should put up our hands or raise our voices to high heaven to sustain the kingdom, but that we should be prepared with every feeling that is within us to devote ourselves to the truth, knowing that it is all in all, and that there is nothing outside of it that is worth possessing.

Knowing this, then, let us be devoted to the truth, not blindly, but because the affections that are within us are chained by a knowledge of its excellency above everything that can be possessed—above every good that can be attained, and then we shall be secure.

Brethren and sisters, if we will cultivate this principle and seek to subject ourselves to the truth, all things are right around us. There can be nothing wrong to the man who is swallowed up in the truth—whose whole affections are swallowed up in the beauty and excellency of that truth which he has learned. There is no feeling in him to apostatize—there is no room for such a feeling, and consequently he will not apostatize.

Such a man would not apostatize at seeing the little plans our enemies are forming for our destruction. But when we have endured all the sufferings that our enemies can bring upon us, let us so live that we may come from the battlefield unscathed, unharmed, and be victorious; then we shall find that the least of the foes over which we have triumphed will be the enemies outside.

If we can triumph over our feelings, our affections, so that our whole souls can become subject to the principles of heaven, then we shall easily conquer the other foes. These are the things to be conquered; and when these are conquered, the others are at our feet.

What is continually declared to us through the mouth of the Presidency of the Church? All will be right, if we do right. Well, now, how can you neglect these things and do right? You cannot. But if we do right, what does it do? It saves our backs from the rod—it secures to us the protection of our Father; and if we fail to do right, he will do with us as he has been doing. He has led us through all the meanderings of our course; his hand has been over us all the time; and what has been his design? It has been his design to develop a people to do his own work—to move them until they should find the place where his kingdom should be built up in strength and in power.

Well, cannot we see it is idle for us to gather around us hopes that we can be saved and redeemed, or that God will redeem and save us any further than the principles of truth are developed within us? If we do see it, it leaves hope to us and an inducement to live better; and if there are lesser sins that find place and that still exist in the more narrow circles of our life, let the work of purification go on until there shall not be a faultfinding wife nor a husband that shall exact anything that is not right in the circle of his home.

When this is the case, where will wickedness find a place to be nestled and nourished? Where there is no evil in the heart, there is no evil committed. Let us strive for this with all our energies, and let us take the word with us to our homes; for the way is for us to take this home to ourselves. Let this be the case in every home, and the work is begun.

Brethren and sisters, may God bless you with wisdom, faith, prudence, humility, and every grace that is necessary to strengthen you, that you may take hold of this work and carry it home with you! The most of it is to be done at home, where you wash dishes and attend to the duties of domestic life: this is the sanctuary that is to be made pure and holy.

And that everything may go on right, that God may help you to purify yourselves and to reach this point—this consummation, is my prayer. Amen.

Remarks by Elder Amasa M. Lyman, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Wednesday Afternoon, October 7, 1857.

I can say that I have been gratified, edified, and blessed in various ways since the commencement of our Conference. I have not been anything but blessed, that I know of. So far as our meeting here is concerned, I have been highly gratified in hearing from our brethren who have just returned from abroad. The spirit with which they have expressed their feelings and delivered their testimony here is a living evidence that the cause of God and of truth is onward—that it is progressive—that it is increasing in the earth.

When we were young and had but just commenced to testify of the Gospel, we could not hear the same testimony that we hear now: still the Spirit of God was always good, and the testimony of the servants of God that were inspired by it was always good, and the days that are past were very good days, and the times past were very good; but today is a better time than any other that I ever saw: the circumstances that surround us today are better than any with which we have ever been surrounded since we have been a people.

Our prospects are brighter than ever they were before; and the clouds that gather around us, if there are any, are hardly perceptible, from the increased amount of light that is shining: they vanish, they disappear in the increasing confidence, faith, intelligence, and knowledge that exist in the people.

We need not question this, if we but for a moment contemplate the quietude, the harmony, and the peace that pervade the homes of the Saints—the place where they dwell. There is no excitement such as is generally attendant upon an expected war; but it seems the time approaches nearer that was to effect the establishing a line of division between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world—that there has been a full and corresponding increase of confidence on the part of the people in relation to the truth they had embraced; so that I can hardly see or determine, from anything that has outwardly taken place, that there is anything that has happened, except it is their progress in the truth and their advancement in knowledge.

Nobody seems to be alarmed; all seem to feel confident that the contest that is in prospect is to decide the question: it does not seem to be who will prevail; it does not seem to be asked at all who will conquer; but the matter is all settled, that Israel will prevail.

This has been written a long time ago; and we are happy if we can see it and understand it—if we can appreciate it so as to inspire within us that confidence that would be requisite to our salvation.

Now, is it because we all understand—is it because we all comprehend the truth, that we are in this position? What will be the sequel of our history? We may as well read it today as to wait for the future to reveal it. What will it be, if the confidence and quietude that we enjoy today, that pervades our souls today, is the result of our comprehension of the truth? It will be the same ever and always: the history of the future will never reveal that we have departed from the truth—that we have professed to know, to understand, to comprehend, and feel the blessings of the truth, and then have at a subsequent period of our lives departed from it.

I do not know altogether what may inspire your hearts or what may have an influence upon your minds; but I believe that I know—I feel satisfied in my own mind that I know why it is that I have no fears as to the issue of matters that we are interested in. To sum it all up and tell what it is, in the shortest possible way, would be simply to say that I cannot see any place for a failure; I cannot see any place, nor conceive of the existence of a possibility of a failure. “Why,” says one, “there is no room for a failure. The truth upon which is predicated—upon which is based the declarations of the servants of God in ancient times, that when God should set his hand to build up his kingdom, that he would build it up, that it should be established, that it should triumph over every other kingdom and stand forever, that truth is so broad, so extensive, that there is no room for a failure—there is nothing on which to hang a doubt, or on which to ground a single exception.”

I am not preaching now of what may be my fate, but I am speaking about the fate of the work we are interested in, that we are engaged in, that has brought us together, that holds us together, and that at the present moment is influencing us.

I may apostatize—I may leave. What! Could I really leave the truth? It is generally implied that if we leave anything, we get away from it; but, for my part, I do not know where to go to get away from it. I might stand still, shut up my ears, harden my heart, and say that I would not have it; but I could not get away from it.

I suppose there is no such fate for me: I hope not. But for the work of God there is nothing but victory—the triumph that has been spoken of and written about by many of the ancients.

Have we found the time when that triumph is to take place? I think we have good reason to believe that we have, if for no other reason than that we have searched for and found the place.

If Abraham went to seek a country that he knew not of, so have we been seeking a country. I do not care whether we were in the company of the pioneers who came to Salt Lake Valley first, or whether our pioneering has been in other places, preaching and calling upon the inhabitants of the earth to embrace the Gospel and trying to induce them to gather together. We have all been pioneering—we have all been exploring under the direction of our Father—for what? For a place on which to build up his kingdom upon the earth. What else have we been doing? Why, we have been doing some other things that are equally necessary as the finding of a place.

When the experience that we have gained is sufficient for the accomplishment of his work, if we have at the same time found the place at which the work could be accomplished, then two points are gained preparatory to building up his kingdom and carrying out his purposes. Without either of these, he could hardly be calculating to accomplish his work, unless he works differently from what we generally understand that he does.

When we shall in a future day look back over our travels in connection with the history of this Church, we shall not set them down as awful persecutions, as we may have regarded them in days that are past. We shall look at them as we now look at the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness between the land of Egypt, where they were held in bondage, and from which they were led to the land of Canaan, which was given to them as a possession.

Why did they not travel directly? We generally understood it was because they were rebellious; it was because they would not learn so much of the truth as was necessary to qualify them for entering into the rest of God. This prolonged their travel in the wilderness, and they traveled and traveled, and continued to travel, till there was a people that could be led—that could be controlled—that could be managed and led to possess the land, and to do the thing that was designed to be done at that time. The Lord had it in his heart to accomplish a work with the people of this dispensation in the proclamation of the Gospel—to call them to the knowledge of the truth; and then, by the revelation of his will from time to time, he taught them the things that they could believe and that they could receive, and he imparted those things that were suitable for them. The things that they could not and would not receive were withheld from their sight until other times and other circumstances surrounded them—until there was a disposition developed in the people that they would receive them; and under this kind of guidance we have traveled west, even under the direction of God; then the Devil has kicked us east, and then we have traveled west again; and finally our journeying has led us to this place—the first place that the Saints have ever occupied where the kingdom of God could be built up.

This makes me calculate that the time has come when the kingdom of God should be built up—when it should become a nation, a kingdom, a power upon the earth, whose increasing enlargement should be the diminution, the decline, the falling away of all other powers of the earth.

Well, then, should we be driven away from here, or should we be trodden down here? To admit this is to admit that this is not the kingdom and work of God. This is the work of God, and this is his kingdom; and we are here—not because the Devil would have us here, for he is very sorry that we are here; neither are we here because our enemies have desired to have us here, but because it was the design of our Father to bring us here. His own right hand has brought us here, and his Spirit has led us and dictated his people and servants until he has brought us here.

However this may appear to us, it is the Lord’s own doing. Why so? Because he could not accomplish his purposes without it. And if it is the Lord’s work, then there is no failure—then we are not to be destroyed, we are not to be driven away, we are not to be wasted anymore, we are not to be trodden down anymore by the iron heel of oppression; but we are here to gather strength, to put on power and might, and to be in the midst of the nations that our Father has designed from the beginning of his kingdom upon the earth in these last times.

What should we be driven away from here for? Has God any purpose to serve by our being annoyed—by our being again driven away? If he has, it is something that I do not know of. He has brought us here through immense labor and toil. We thought it was awfully hard when we came here: we nearly had to waste away all that we had, all that was given to us—not what we had of our own in reality, but what was given to us: we have had to lose nearly all that we had to get here, and now we are in the place where God designs we should be.

Will he build up his kingdom on the earth? Yes, he will. Well, then, we shall not be driven away. Has he found the people—the material out of which to build his kingdom? Yes, he has. We have been traveling and preaching backward and forward to prepare us for these things. Is there a people here that is capable of being governed, and not only that are capable of being governed, but capable of becoming governors?

Where did these governors come from? Why, they have been manufacturing all the time from the time that we first heard the Gospel. We have been trying to be obedient to its behests and requirements. From the time that men began to learn obedience and gain knowledge, God has been preparing and manufacturing them out of the material of which he is going to build up his kingdom.

In Nauvoo, when our enemies repealed the charter, we were better off than we were before; and I do not suppose that we have retrograded, but we have come out here and have made a Government—a State Government; and then Uncle Sam thought he would have a finger in the pie, and he made us a Territory, and we have got along very well.

I expect that the next time we are made anything, it will be the kingdom of God, and no amalgamation; and it will be made of the material that God has manufactured in the course of the training that we have had. This is what we are here for.

We have found the place and the material of which to build the kingdom; and this leads me to think that we shall not be driven away; for I can see the hand of God in our coming here; and “Why?” one may ask. Because he said, in the beginning, that this was his work—to build up his kingdom; and knowing that there must be a place to build it upon, and then seeing the Lord lead us to a place, and seeing his servants building it up through his guidance and counsel, cannot I see the hand of God in it? I can; for he told me this in the beginning.

Then is it not his hand? It is. Can you see it? Many will answer, “Yes.” Then why not be contented? This is the reason that the peace of heaven pervades the land where we dwell, and why fear is banished from our hearts.

The Spirit of truth, the Spirit of the Highest dwells in the Saints and inspires them with confidence, and victory is the song of every heart. The Saints do not sing any other song. The songs are made in prospect beforehand; but they all speak of victory—they are all songs of triumph.

Now, I do feel well: as the western man says, I reckon I do. Why do I feel so well? Because I cannot find anything to feel bad about. I have a great many things to think about; and what are they, and where are they?

If I can only maintain my relationship unbroken with the cause of God, and remain identified with it, why, then I am saved; and why? Because the kingdom of God will make me just as great as I can be, and greater than I know enough to speak of now. Why? Because I will know more then. It is all embraced in the kingdom of God.

Is not this a simple thing, that this is God’s kingdom and that he has allowed our enemies to kick us till they have kicked us to this point? And when they reached at anything else they have always been restrained; but while the Devil was kicking us to this point, the Lord was well satisfied, and he kept his hand over him and said, “Now, old fellow, do not kick too hard; these are my people: when you have kicked them so far, all well; but you must not kick any farther.”

Now the Lord has got us here, our enemies want to drive us off farther still. But now comes the declaration that meets with a hearty response—ISRAEL IS FREE!

Free from what? From labor, from toil, from watch? No, not at all. Then what are we free from? From the restraint that we have been under. Now, we are declaring boldly that we are the kingdom of God, and that in the strength of God we are determined to defend it and to defend the truth.

Now, all these things considered are among the things that make me feel well. This is the reason that I think we shall prevail—that is, in the strength of our God.

I do not feel any other way than that we are a part of the work of God, and that the decree of the Almighty has fixed it immutably and unchangeably that his kingdom shall be built up, and that as it rises in its greatness and grandeur he has fixed our exaltation and glory, if we are so happy as to maintain our relationship unchanged in harmony and beauty.

Is it so with you all? This is the way I feel; and it is this that makes this day the best day that I ever saw. This is why I rejoice; this is why I have no fears but that our cause will be triumphant; and we will triumph so long as we live with it and do not separate ourselves from it by any sin.

Brethren and sisters, this is a theme big enough to talk about a long time. There can be a great deal said about it; but I will not trespass upon the time, but conclude by saying, God bless Israel in every land and clime, that they may triumph, that God may remember our enemies, that they may not be forgotten, but that they may be remembered and have their reward in full; and if they can be taken care of without much trouble, let us be satisfied; and if the Lord requires us to take care of them, let us do as we have been doing while preaching the Gospel. This is my feeling.

May God bless you all, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.