Discourse by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Aug. 9th, 1868.

I will endeavor to speak to the people so that they can hear me. We very frequently hear complaints about the people being unable to hear. That is very annoying to me; there is no satisfaction in talking to people if they cannot hear. I talk a great deal in public and in private. I have labored for many years in preaching the gospel of the Son of God; and when I first commenced, it seemed as though I was under the necessity of speaking very loud. I could not satisfy my own feelings without talking with a loud voice. I have acquired this habit, and to talk loud and long for many years wears on a person’s constitution.

This gospel that we have embraced is worthy the attention of the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant, the noble and the ignoble. It commends itself to the feelings, understanding and conscience of every creature beneath the heavens that is endowed with intelligence. There is no system that is perfect except the gospel of the Son of God. Every art and science is incorporated in the gospel of salvation delivered to the children of men. If the inhabitants of the earth possess ingenuity, knowledge, wisdom or understanding they receive it within the purview or pale of this gospel that comes from heaven. I have said, and I still feel it, that outside the gospel of the Son of God—the plan of salvation—there is nothing but death, hell and the grave; everything else is within our religion. But when we talk about comprehending our religion, why, we might as well undertake to comprehend eternity. We have a little of it. The Lord has made manifest to the children of men a portion of it, enough to enable them to continue on, to grow, increase, expand, to add wisdom to wisdom and knowledge to knowledge, for light cleaves to light and truth to truth. The power to increase in knowledge is in our possession if we will improve the golden moments as they pass by.

We talk a great deal to the Latter-day Saints. What for? To bring them to a knowledge of the truth; to place them in a position in which they may be prepared to inherit that glory which they anticipate. And to obtain that perfection which we desire more will be required of us than merely a spiritual exercise of the mind; our outward works pertaining to our natural life, and in fact our whole souls must be devoted to God, and the upbuilding of His Kingdom. We talk to the people to bring them to the knowledge of the truth, and to bring ourselves, for we are with you, so that we may understand what we should do, how we should labor, how direct our lives here, in order that we may be perfected and prepared to enjoy life everlasting in the presence of the Father and the Son. I still feel to urge upon the Latter-day Saints the necessity of a close application of the principles of the gospel in our lives, conduct and words and all that we do; and it requires the whole man, the whole life to be devoted to improvement in order to come to knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. Herein is the fullness of perfection. It was couched in the character of our Savior; although but a scanty portion of it was made manifest to the people, in consequence of their not being able to receive it. All they were prepared to receive He gave them. All we are prepared to receive the Lord gives us; all that the nations of the earth are prepared to receive He imparts unto them.

The inhabitants of the earth do not acknowledge the Lord as they should. There are very few but who believe in a Supreme Being; but do they honor God? No, they take His name in vain. Do they believe Him to be what He is? No, they so far mystify the character of Deity that it is impossible for the people to understand it. Do they reverence His name? No. If they believe in a God, He is so far off that they never can get near Him; they know nothing about the conduct of this Being; and He is so far off in their imaginations that He knows nothing about the children of men; at least such is the feeling amongst them, and yet many of the so-called Christians say His center is everywhere and His circumference nowhere. They have mystified the affairs of salvation to that degree that the whole world of mankind have lost that reverence that is due to the Supreme Being.

The Latter-day Saints have received the Spirit of the Lord; the proof is here in the gathering and the oneness of the people. Have the Elders of Israel been to any other country but this? Yes. To preach the Gospel? Yes. Have they been to Eng– land and preached the gospel there? Yes. Have the people believed? Yes. Where is your proof? The proof is that they have left all, if they had anything, and have come up to the gathering place where the Saints are assembled. The Elders have also preached through the different nations of Europe so far as they were allowed to do so. In some countries the law would not permit them; but the Lord will yet revolutionize those nations until the door will be opened and the gospel will be preached to all. Have the people believed? A few of them. But we gather the poorest of the people, the unlearned, and a few of the learned; but generally, we gather those who are poor, who wish to be redeemed; who feel the oppression the high and the proud have made them endure; they have felt a wish to be delivered, and consequently their ears were open to receive the truth. Take those who are in the enjoyment of all the luxuries of this life, and their ears are stopped up; they cannot hear; but go to the poor, to those who are in poverty and want, and they are looking every way for deliverance, and when they hear the Elders preach their ears are open to hear and their hearts are touched with the Spirit of the Lord, and many of them have believed. These are they that we gather together.

Now, when we look around upon the Latter-day Saints, in a temporal point of view, we are proud of them. I have been in countries where the men, women and children had to labor—wearying their lives out of them to get the bread necessary to keep their lives in them. I have gone to bed many a time, and when I have turned down the bed I would find the sheet patched from end to end, so that I would wonder which was the original sheet. I have also known young ladies—I do not know that I ought to say this, but I do not say it to their disgrace, but to their praise—come home from their work on a Saturday evening, and retiring to a room, throw a blanket over their shoulders, and wash every particle of their clothing, that they might be able to go out on Sunday to attend meeting. These are they that we have baptized. Why? Because their ears were open, and the Spirit of the Lord found a way to their hearts, and they saw there was deliverance in the gospel. The rich and noble, as a general thing, have turned a deaf ear to the voice of the Elders of Israel. Now, the gospel that we have embraced comprises every glory, honor, excellency and truth there is in the heavens, on the earth or beneath the earth. Is it worthy of the attention of the poor? Yes, it is. According to the reading of this book—the Old and New Testament as well as the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants—which we regard as the foundation of our work, the Lord has chosen the poor of this world—rich in faith—and the time will come when He will give the earth to His poor for an everlasting inheritance. I speak this for the comfort of my brethren and sisters who have been poor. They have come here, and what do we see? The youth, the middle-aged and the old improving in letters, in mechanism and in the arts and sciences. We bring them here to improve them, and if the Lord will bless us sufficiently, and the people will bless themselves, we will have a nation that understands all things pertaining to the earth that it is possible for man to grasp. Will this people be praiseworthy? Yes, and honored and honorable. Will they be looked to as examples? Yes; and it is the duty of the Latter-day Saints to live their religion so that all the world can say there is a pattern for us, not only in our business and worship, but in our knowledge of things that are, things that have been and of things that are yet to come, until the knowledge of Zion shall reach the uttermost parts of the earth, and the kings and great men shall say, “Let us go up to Zion and learn wisdom.” Will they come here to learn how to govern? Yes. One of the simplest things in the world is to control a people. Is there any particular art in making this people obedient? There is just one. If you Elders of Israel can get the art of preaching the Holy Ghost into the hearts of the people, you will have an obedient people. This is the only art required. Teach the people truth, teach them correct principle; show them what is for their greatest good and don’t you think they will follow in that path? They will, just as far as it is consistent with their weaknesses and the power of darkness that is over the inhabitants of the earth—with us as with others. We have merged partially into the light, and we should be very thankful and obedient to the requirements of Heaven, that we may receive more and more.

Every art and science known and studied by the children of men is comprised within the Gospel. Where did the knowledge come from which has enabled man to accomplish such great achievements in science and mechanism within the last few years? We know that knowledge is from God, but why do they not acknowledge him? Because they are blind to their own interests, they do not see and understand things as they are. Who taught men to chain the lightning? Did man unaided and of himself discover that? No, he received the knowledge from the Supreme Being. From Him, too, has every art and science proceeded, al– though the credit is given to this individual, and that individual. But where did they get the knowledge from, have they it in and of themselves? No, they must acknowledge that, if they cannot make one spear of grass grow, nor one hair white or black without artificial aid, they are dependent upon the Supreme Being just the same as the poor and the ignorant. Where have we received the knowledge to construct the labor-saving machinery for which the present age is remarkable? From Heaven. Where have we received our knowledge of astronomy, or the power to make glasses to penetrate the immensity of space? We received it from the same Being that Moses, and those who were before him, received their knowledge from; the same Being who told Noah that the world should be drowned and its people destroyed. From Him has every astronomer, artist and mechanician that ever lived on the earth obtained his knowledge. By Him, too, has the power to receive from one another, been bestowed, and to search into the deep things pertaining to this earth and every principle connected with it.

We can receive all this in our education here; but to acquire a knowledge of these principles, time and study are required. Let a child go to school, and he commences with a, b, c, and goes on to a-b ab, and then to words of two or three syllables until he is prepared for a higher course of studies. No child can learn algebra or common arithmetic at first, but he has to go on day by day, just as you and I have to do. We have learned many things concerning the Kingdom of God upon the earth, and we can learn still more. But with all we have learned, are we prepared, Latter-day Saints, to put our trust in God implicitly? No, we are not. How do we know? By the acts of the people and by our own experience. This is in consequence of the evil and the power of Satan that is in the world through the fall. He has beguiled the inhabitants of the earth, and has thrown a mist before their eyes so that they cannot see the providences of God. Who is it can see the power by which the leaves of yonder trees grow? Can you see and understand it? No; why? Because there is a veil dropped over the eyes and minds of the children of men, so that they cannot behold the providences of God nor His handiwork in all nature. We are deprived of this knowledge; but we can begin to see and understand through receiving the Gospel. But we have still a great deal to learn.

It is said that “obedience is better than sacrifice.” It is far better. When I look at the Latter-day Saints—and when I say you, I reckon myself—(I, Brigham, am with you), where are we? What do we understand? How far have we advanced? What do we expect to receive? How are we looking at things pertaining to this world? We have received the first principles of the Gospel; and we have received the spirit of the Gospel; but do we live so as to increase in this day by day? That is the question. Do we live our religion so that we improve on all the knowledge that God has given us? Do we live up to the light that the Lord has revealed? You may answer this question. The Latter-day Saints, as a people, are a very good people, they are excellent; they have come to a oneness that is most remarkable—astonishing to ourselves, and also to others. But are we one yet? No, not exactly; we have a great deal to learn before we come to a unity of the faith and see eye to eye as the people of God have to do in the latter days. We see some things, but we do not see all that is for our best interest; if we did we would live our religion.

Now, my brethren and sisters, from the high and from the lower circles of life, find if you can on the face of the earth a gentleman or lady, that is, one who is a true gentleman or a true lady (we have many that are called gentlemen and ladies); but you find one in the strict sense of the word, that is, as I would interpret the word, and you will find a man or woman that would border very closely on an angel. Every word that they speak will be seasoned with grace: every act of their lives would be as nigh as mortals can come to angels; nothing pertaining to them low, degrading or disgraceful. You find a gentleman and you will find a man who possesses a heart full of charity, faith and love, full of good works, whose hand is always open to do good to every creature. You find a lady, and she is one who is ready to impart wisdom, knowledge, truth, and every virtuous and holy principle to her sisters and her fellow beings. These are the true lady and gentleman; but they are of a higher order than those we now call ladies and gentlemen. You may say my definition is incorrect. Be it so, it matters not to me. I have my own views with regard to these things. I look upon the Latter-day Saints as being a very good people, but very far from what they should be. “Well, we must have time to grow,” says one. Very true, we cannot learn even the “First Reader” in a day. When we commenced going to school we learned a little today, and a little more tomorrow, and a little more the next day, and so added knowledge to knowledge; and by and by you and I have to come to a unity of the faith. This is the Gospel—the plan of salvation—that we believe in. This is the doctrine we preach to the people—to purify ourselves as He is pure; to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, that we may be counted worthy to receive His blessings and be sustained by Him.

We know very well that the name “Mormon” is rudely applied to the Latter-day Saints, and we know very well what the world thinks of us; but what matters it to us? Nothing. Suppose that we had the power to take the poor and the ignorant, the low and the degraded who are trodden under foot by the great and the powerful among earth’s inhabitants, and bring them together and purify them and fill them with knowledge and understanding and make a nation of them worthy of admiration, what would you say to this? O, ye inhabitants of the earth, can you do it? The Lord can. Well it is such a people that I am looking upon; this is the people I expect to be saved with. I am proud of them. Not proud of their ignorance or meanness; not proud of their wickedness by any means. But I am proud to think that we have received the gospel and are enabled to sanctify ourselves if we are disposed to. I delight in the Latter-day Saints, because of their obedience to these principles, and not because of their rough, uncouth course of life.

Now, it is for us to perfect ourselves by these principles. We have received the gospel and have been baptized for the remission of our sins. Is there anything wrong in this? No, the Christian world profess to believe the Old and New Testaments; the Jews say they believe the Old Testament. We believe both, and that is not all, we believe in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants given by the Lord to Joseph Smith and by him to the Church. We also believe if we were destitute of the Spirit of the Lord, and our eyes were closed so that we could not see and understand things as they are by the spirit of revelation, we might say farewell to all these books, no matter how numerous. If we had all the revelation given since the days of Adam and were without the spirit of revelation to be and abide in the midst of the people, it would be impossible for us to be saved in the celestial Kingdom of God. The world look upon us as a set of fanatics for believing this; but that does not matter at all to us. We have our course before us; the path for us to tread in is marked out. What is it? It is march on, march on, ye Latter-day Saints, to the higher orders of life in this world. March on, ye Latter-day Saints, until you are prepared to receive life everlasting in the presence of the Father and the Son. What matters it what the world say? That makes no difference to us, not in the least. But I will tell you what concerns us, to order our lives in accordance with the principles of the gospel that we have embraced. Let a Christian live his religion and he is honored and thought much of by his brethren and friends and acquaintances. And even the wicked contemplate a man or woman who lives his or her religion with a feeling of reverence, and they involuntarily honor that being who honors his God. The vilest wretch that lives on the face of the earth looks with reverence on a person who is a true follower of Jesus, and cannot help it. If we respect ourselves we will shape our lives accordingly. If we do so, we shall become pure and holy. Is there anything wrong in this? No; neither is there the least wrong in the world in acknowledging the hand of God in all things. If I had the skill given me today to construct a machine by which we could pass from nation to nation in the atmosphere as they now do on terra firma on the railway, would there be any harm in acknowledging God in this? I should receive the knowledge from Him; it is not independent in and of myself. I am dependent upon Him for every breath I draw and for every blessing I receive. If you, ye nations or wise men of the earth, are not dependent upon Him, we would like to see you act independently. Let a man who thinks he has power independent of God—if there be such a man—take a grain of wheat, rye, barley, or a kernel of corn from the element God has ordained and organized for its development, and see if he can make it grow. All acknowledge that it cannot be done. Well, then, there would be no harm in acknowledging God in all things. But, here I pause a moment; I do not mean that we should acknowledge the hand of God in a man or woman doing wrong; but I will acknowledge the hand of God in sustaining the individual while he does it. No matter what wrong a human being may commit he or she is sustained by the Almighty while doing it. But the act is of the creature and not the Creator. We should acknowledge the hand of God in all things. And if we do this we will live our religion a little better than we have.

O, ye my sisters, will not you improve a little? Shall I come to our own capacity here today? Yes; then let us look a little and see what is for our advantage. How many of my brethren and sisters are there who have a mint or a bank to go to with an inexhaustible fountain of wealth? None; we are poor. We gathered poor. It is true that we are decently clad; but why not go to the fields and take the straw and make your hats and bonnets, and save that means to send for the poor Saints? Would ten thousand dollars pay for the hats and bonnets worn by this congregation today? By no means. But suppose that we say five thousand, that amount had better be used in sending for the poor than in spending it in articles the material for which can be gathered and manufactured right here. I see a very few straw hats in this congregation today with straw trimmings, made by the hands of the wearers perhaps, and can you beat them for beauty with imported articles? No, you cannot. Well, these are lessons we try to teach the people all the time. We teach men who have been in the factory all their lives how to prepare the ground, to plant potatoes, corn, squash, cucumbers, onions, and cabbage, that they may have something to eat when the dreary storms of winter overtake them. And thus we teach the people how to live. This is our business. If you do not learn to live here, how can you live hereafter? If you do not understand the things of this life, how can you understand the things pertaining to the life to come? Just as the apostle says with regard to loving one another—“If you say you love God and hate your brother you deny your own words, for how can you hate him whom you have seen and love Him whom you have not seen?” You cannot do it. We make the application here, how can we understand things a thousand years ahead if we do not understand what is here today? We take children, and teach the little girl to spin, weave, and knit her stockings; and the boys to drive team, plow, to go to the field to hoe and prepare the ground, and to sow the seed so that they may have food to eat. What next? Why, say your prayers always before going to work. Never forget that. A father—the head of the family—should never miss calling his family together and dedicating himself and them to the Lord of Hosts, asking the guid– ance and direction of His holy spirit to lead them through the day—that very day. Lead us this day, guide us this day, preserve us this day, save us from sinning against Thee or any being in heaven or on earth this day! If we do this every day, the last day we live we will be prepared to enjoy a higher glory.

There is a little matter I want to speak upon to you, my sisters. It is a subject that is very obnoxious to outsiders. They have given us the credit for industry and prudence; but we have one doctrine in our faith that to their view is erroneous, and very bad; it is painful to think of. Shall I tell you what it is sisters? “Oh,” says one, “I know what you mean, my husband has two, four, or half a dozen wives.” Well, I want to tell the sisters how to free themselves from this odium as many of them consider it. This doctrine so hateful and annoying to the feelings of many, was revealed from heaven to Joseph Smith, and obedience is required to it by the Latter-day Saints—this very principle will work out the moral salvation of the world. Do you believe it? It makes no difference whether you do or not, it is true. It is said that women rule among all nations; and if the women, not only in this congregation, Territory and government, but the world, would rise up in the spirit and might of the holy gospel and make good men of those who are bad, and show them that they will be under the necessity of marrying a wife or else not have a woman at all, they would soon come to the mark. Yes, this odious doctrine will work out the moral reformation and salvation of this generation. People generally do not see it; my sisters do not see it; and I do not know that all the elders of Israel see it. But if this course be pursued, and we make this the rule of practice, it will force all men to take a wife. Then we will be satisfied with one wife. I should have been in the beginning; the one wife system would not have disagreed with me at all. If the prophet had said to me, “Brother Brigham, you can never have but one wife at a time.” I should have said, “glory, hallelujah, that is just what I like.” But he said, “you will have to take more than one wife, and this order has to spread and increase until the inhabitants of the earth repent of their evils and men will do what is right towards the females. In this also I say glory, hallelujah.” Do men do that which is right now? No. You see travelers—young, middle-aged, or old—roaming over the world, and ask them where their families are, and the answer will generally be, “I have none.” You go to the city of New York, and among the merchants there I doubt whether there is one man in three who has a wife. Go to the doctor and ask him, “where is your wife and family?” and, “thank God I have none,” will be his reply. It is the same with the lawyer. Ask him about his wife, and his reply will be, “O bless me, I haven’t any, I say it to my praise, I am not troubled with a family.” You go to the parson, and were it not for his profession, the cloak of religion that is around him, not one in a thousand of them would have wife or children.

Do not be startled, my sisters; do not be at all afraid; just get influence enough among the daughters of Eve in the midst of this generation until you have power enough over the males to bring them to their senses so that they will act according to the rule of right, and you will see that we will be free at once, and the elders of Israel will not be under the necessity of taking so many women. But we shall continue to do it until God tells us to stop, or until we pass into sin and iniquity, which will never be.

Do you see anything very bad in this? Just ask yourselves, historians, when was monogamy introduced on to the face of the earth? When those buccaneers, who settled on the peninsula where Rome now stands, could not steal women enough to have two or three apiece, they passed a law that a man should have but one woman. And this started monogamy and the downfall of the plurality system. In the days of Jesus, Rome, having dominion over Jerusalem, they carried out the doctrine more or less. This was the rise, start and foundation of the doctrine of monogamy; and never till then was there a law passed, that we have any knowledge of, that a man should have but one wife.

Now, sisters, I want you to see to this. I advise you to have faith and good works; be fervent in spirit and virtue, and try to live so as to bring the men to the standard of right, then we shall have no trouble at all. I believe that in Massachusetts they have only 27,000 more women than men; but that is not many. There is a cause, perhaps, for this. A good many young men go into the army, or go here or there. What is done with the daughters of Eve? In many countries they stick them in the factories, into the fields, the coal mines, and into the streets—as I have seen hundreds of them—gathering manure, &c., working all day and getting a penny at night to buy a loaf of bread with. They stick some of them down into the iron works, under the ground to pack the ore, or into the building to lag off the iron. But the young men are sent to the wars. When England and the rest of the nations learn war no more, instead of passing a law in this or any other na– tion against a man having more than one wife, they will pass a law to make men do as they should in honoring the daughters of Eve and making wives of and providing for them. Will not this be a happy time? Yes, very fine. If you will produce this today, I’ll tell you what I would be willing to do. I would be willing to give up half or two-thirds of my wives, or to let the whole of them go, if it was necessary, if those who should take them would lead them to eternal salvation. And then you may have my daughters, if you will only lead them in the way they should go that they may obtain eternal life; if you will teach them the gospel, how to live, how to honor their being, honor their God and live their religion. Do this and you are welcome to them. Would I get more wives? If I had a mind to; but if I had none at all it would be all right. If I have one it is all right, and if I should have a score it would be all right.

I mean to teach, pray and plead with the people to save themselves by hearkening to the commandments of God, and to live their religion so that we may get through a world of sin, darkness, ignorance and unbelief. Man is prone to wander as the sparks are to fly upwards. The spirit is warring with the flesh continually, and the flesh against the spirit. Which will come off victorious? This will decide the destiny of all the inhabitants of the earth. If the spirit reigns triumphant; and overcomes the body and its passions, that character will receive glory; but if the passions and sin, within the flesh, overcome the spirit and subdue it, that character will be lost. That is all there is of it. The Lord has done all on His part. His grace is sufficient; He has laid the plan of salvation for us to follow. Work on the square and all will be right. God bless you. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in Mill Creek Ward meetinghouse, Sunday, July 25th, 1868.

From my earliest labors in the ministry I have taken truth as my text; but I will refer this morning to the words on one of the banners here, “Education is our motto.” This will be my text. We are here that we may learn to improve. My inquiry is, How can I do the most good to my fellow beings? What can I say to them; what can I do; how shall I walk before them; how shall I commune with them to do the greatest possible good to the human family? I am so weak that when I give instructions to my brethren and sisters it seems but a very feeble effort, when the mind is open to behold the great things of God, the riches of eternity; to behold that which is understood by angels and by those made perfect.

My first remarks will be concerning such exercises as we have seen here this morning. The Latter-day Saints have many pastimes, and they enjoy themselves in social society with one another. Yet I think, in my reflections, that we should have an increase—and we are having partially an increase—of recreation for our youth. We have very few holidays. When the 4th of July comes, we have our amusements and exercises. When the 24th of July comes, we hail it as the anniversary of a day of deliverance; a day of peace and joy to the Latter-day Saints, in finding the peaceful valleys of these mountains, where we can rest and gather the people together, and enjoy the privilege of serving God without any to molest or make us afraid. These two days with Christmas and New Year’s, are about all the holidays we have, that we notice at all. On reflection, I have come to the conclusion that it would be better if we would pay more attention to these public exercises, and direct the minds of our children by observing them, taking a course to have them avoid getting into the habit of drinking and every kind of rowdyism, and other things that are unbecoming; and in all of our amusements have objects of improvement that are worthy of pursuit. I think we are improving a little in this respect; but more of us should take an increased interest in it. We should have more of the children attend Sunday School, and the teachers should continually place objects before them that will lead them to study to improve in their manners, in their words, in their looks and in their behavior; and that will guide their minds aright. You will find we can place before them objects that will do them much good in their thoughts and reflections, that will improve their young and tender minds, and have an influence upon their future lives for good; and we can thus bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by taking a course to lead their minds.

The brethren here have caught us as they generally do. I had no thought of any person coming to meet us, nor of seeing the schools lining the road. I thank them for their good feelings to the elders of Israel. But is there any good in it? Yes. It attracts the attention of the young people—that is, I mean all un– der a hundred years old—elevates their feelings, and is calculated to induce reflections and thoughts of a life that is useful; and they will think, when are we going to have another meeting? When is brother Brigham coming too see us again; with brother Wells and brother Cannon, and others? We cannot say brother Kimball, for be has gone to reap the reward of his labors. It will have the effect of drawing them to good, and they will follow after good continually. Is there any harm in Sunday School parties? No! It is one of the most harmless kinds of enjoyment when conducted aright. If they wish to dance, let them dance; let them talk and play; but not do any wrong. They must not get angry with each other; and if any do wrong instruct them to do right. If our children are thus taught, they will be patterns of piety and their conduct will be worthy of imitation.

I would be very pleased to learn that your Bishop, brother Miller, was preparing a place for parties; with a little pond to float boats on, and other means of enjoyment, where the people could assemble to have their exercises. Get the young minds to follow after you in these things, and they will follow after you in every precept that is good. And I would like to hear of other Bishops taking steps to prepare suitable places for the same purpose.

We are gathered here from various nations of the earth; and many of us have been in conditions of society where we have been wanting in many privileges which others enjoy. The people come here and their feelings are united directly, which is a positive proof that there is something in our belief more than there is in the beliefs that are recognized in the world. They come here and try to be one immediately, and to amalga– mate their feelings. We see this, and it is encouraging; and we see our prominent men leading out and directing the minds of those from the eastern and those from the western world, and teaching them never to do a wrong, never to do evil; and, by example, to beautify themselves and their places, and everything around them. This is good, for in it we do no wrong; we do not do anything by it to injure our feelings or the feelings of others, nor to grieve our spirits; but we do that which will increase beauty and excellence among the people. In this the Lord is well pleased. For the sake of our children, for the sake of the youth of our land, I am pleased, every time I travel, to see this manifestation of respect for the elders of Israel.

We wish to improve. I will ask a question with regard to knowledge and wisdom and understanding and all the blessings of Heaven bestowed upon the people, and it is this: Who are deserving of honor and glory, who are deserving of a good name? The man and the woman who seek to know and understand the mind and will of God and to carry it out in their lives, or those who are slothful and who seek to live by what they call faith alone? I think we would decide that those who manifest by their works that they seek to do the will of the Lord are more acceptable before Him than those who live by faith alone. I believe the Latter-day Saints are the best people on the earth of whom we have any knowledge. Still, I believe that we are, in many things, very negligent, slothful and slow to obey the words of the Lord. Many seem to act upon the faith that God will sustain us instead of our trying to sustain ourselves. We are frightened at seeing the grasshoppers coming and destroying our crops. We pray to the Lord and try to exercise faith that He may remove these devouring insects. We got along very well in the first part of the season, and our crops looked beautiful. But how has it been for the last few days? I can understand your feelings by my own. A week ago yesterday I went through here on my way to Provo, and everything looked promising. Yesterday when I returned, fields were stripped, young orchards were stripped of the leaves, and the evidences of destruction were to be seen around. Some try to exercise faith and ask the Lord to remove this destructive power. I remember saying in the School of the Prophets, that I would rather the people would exercise a little more sense and save means to provide for themselves, instead of squandering it away and asking the Lord to feed them. In my reflections I have carried this matter a considerable length. I have paid attention to the counsel that has been given me. For years past it has been sounded in my ears, year after year, to lay up grain, so that we might have an abundance in the day of want. Perhaps the Lord would bring a partial famine on us; perhaps a famine would come upon our neighbors. I have been told that He might bring just such a time as we are now having. But suppose I had taken no heed to this counsel, and had not regarded the coming time, what would have been my condition today.

View the actions of the Latter-day Saints on this matter, and their neglect of the counsel given; and suppose the Lord would allow these insects to destroy our crops this season and the next, what would be the result? I can see death, misery and want on the faces of this people. But some may say, “I have faith the Lord will turn them away.” What ground have we to hope this? Have I any good reason to say to my Father in heaven, “Fight my battles,” when He has given me the sword to wield, the arm and the brain that I can fight for myself? Can I ask Him to fight my battles and sit quietly down waiting for Him to do so? I cannot. I can pray the people to hearken to wisdom, to listen to counsel; but to ask God to do for me that which I can do for myself is preposterous to my mind. Look at the Latter-day Saints. We have had our fields laden with grain for years; and if we had been so disposed, our bins might have been filled to overflowing, and with seven years’ provisions on hand we might have disregarded the ravages of these insects, and have gone to the canyon and got our lumber, procured the materials, and built up and beautified our places, instead of devoting our time to fighting and endeavoring to replace that which has been lost through their destructiveness. We might have made our fences, improved our buildings, beautified Zion, let our ground rest, and prepared for the time when these insects would have gone. But now the people are running distracted here and there. I do not wish to condemn them. I wish all the justification that can be brought to them. But I look at them as they are. They are in want and in trouble, and they are perplexed. They do not know what to do. They have been told what to do, but they did not hearken to this counsel.

I have never promised a famine to the Latter-day Saints, if we will do half right. You have never heard it drop from my lips that a famine would come upon this people. There never will, if we will only do half right, and we expect to do better than that. There is not another people on the earth whose faith and works are directed for the accom– plishment of good like the Latter-day Saints. But we do not obey counsel as we should. Yet when we look at them and at others on the face of the earth, we have reason to say we are proud of the Latter-day Saints. But are we all we should be? No. We must learn to listen to the whispering of the Holy Spirit, and the counsels of the servants of God, until we come to the unity of the faith. If we had obeyed counsel we would have had granaries today, and they would have been full of grain; and we would have had wheat and oats and barley for ourselves and for our animals, to last us for years. The people have also been counseled to take their straw and stack it up, making nice beautiful ricks of it. You may see the day your cattle will want it or perish. If you keep your straw you will be able to have your cattle to work with when you want them. Is the hay kept? No: it must be sold. A train will come in from Utah County, from Davis County, from Tooele, loaded with hay, and it must be sold, even if there is nothing—comparatively speaking—got for it. Save your hay; save your chaff; save your straw; save your wheat; save your oats; save your barley, and everything that can be saved and preserved against a day of want. We have taken our flour north, and sold it for a song, and now we see the day when our brethren are paying twelve dollars a hundred for it on the railroad, brought from the States. If we had been prudent we might have had enough to supply them, and we could have sold hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth this season. I was inquired of this spring what I would sell flour for, to be taken down with the teams that went to the terminus, and I had to say we have none to spare. But we have sent it to Mon– tana, and we have sold it for next to nothing, and now our bins are empty. Who is deserving of honor or glory from God? Those who have preserved their substance, or those who have wasted it? Those who have preserved it; for they know how to preserve those things which the Lord places in their hands. But some have had so much faith in the providences of God to feed them that they would sell their grain even if they got a mere nothing for it. I remember a time when some people almost cursed wheat, it was so plenty. Would the common laborers and mechanics take wheat for their pay? No. Would they save it? No. The Lord had given us large crops; would they build bins and store the grain away? No. But it was taken to the city and sold for anything it would bring. There was a time when my heart was pained at hearing wheat spoken of as it was; and I was afraid at seeing the manifestations of ill feeling which were exhibited by some of the brethren, principally among the mechanics, concerning grain.

We have seen one grasshopper war before this. Then we had two years of it. We are having two years now. Suppose we have good crops next year, the people will think less of this visitation than they do now; and still less the next year; until in four or five years it will be almost gone from their minds. We are capable of being perfectly independent of these insects. If we had thousands on thousands of bushels of wheat, rye, and barley, and corn we might have said to them, “you may go, we are not going to plant for you.” Then we could have plowed up the ground, put in the manure, and let the land rest, and the grasshoppers would not have destroyed the fruits of our labors which could have been directed to the beautifying of Zion and making our habitations places of loveliness.

Just as sure as the Lord lives we are going to see times when our neighbors around us will be in want. But some may say, here have ten years, twenty years, thirty years gone, and the sayings of Joseph and the Apostles have not all come to pass. If they have not all been fulfilled, they all will be fulfilled. When we saw the flaming sword unsheathed in the terrible war between the north and the south, we could see in it the fulfillment in part of the prophecies of Joseph. But when peace comes for a short time we forget all about it, like a person who comes into the Church because of seeing a miracle. If he has professed an obedience to the gospel and a belief in its principles because he saw a miracle performed, he would need another in a day or two to continue him in his belief; and he wants a repetition of miracles to keep him in the Church. Let peace continue for a few years, and the prediction of Joseph spoken of would be forgotten by all but a few. So it is with us, comparatively. Let crickets, or grasshoppers, or frosts, or anything else come and destroy our crops, and we feel it then; but just as soon as prosperity comes we forget what has happened.

Take the people and I am proud of them; but there is a feeling with them that they must not be counseled in their temporal matters. I call this a sectarian notion, for we will find yet that God is Dictator in everything. Take the case of the Children of Israel and the miracles that were wrought in their deliverance from the land of Egypt. The question arises, was it through their faith, or because of the promises which God had made to their fathers? The Lord sent Moses to Pharaoh, who wrought many miracles before him; and Pharaoh sent for his wise men, his astro– logers, soothsayers and magicians, and they wrought their miracles before Moses and Aaron. Finally, the Lord said, the Children of Israel must be brought out of Egypt; but was it because of their faith, or because of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? It was because of the promises of the Lord, and not because of the righteousness of that people, that He brought them out. They came to a place where they were hemmed in, with the Red Sea before them and the armies of the Egyptian monarch behind them, and the mountains on either side of them, and they cried out that they would be destroyed. But the Lord divided the water, and took them over in safety; and it was because of the promises He had made to their fathers. They passed through the Red Sea in safety and the Egyptians were drowned. Was it because the Egyptians were so much more wicked? I suppose not; but it was because the Lord had said, “Let the Children of Israel go free,” and they would not; and He punished the Egyptians for not letting them go; and He punished the Children of Israel by not letting them go into the promised land, for their wickedness in the wilderness. They cried against Moses because he had led them away from the fleshpots and leeks of Egypt, and the Lord said he would feed them. But was it because of their righteousness that he sent them down Manna for food? I have no evidence to believe that it was because of their righteousness. Do you think they were so very righteous that the Lord would not let their clothing grow old? It was not because of the righteousness of the Children of Israel, but because of the promises of the Lord to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for He must fulfill the promises made to His servants. He wanted at one time to destroy the whole peo– ple, and told Moses to let Him alone that He might destroy them because of their wickedness and rebellion, and He would make of him (Moses) a great nation; but Moses pleaded in their behalf, and called upon the Lord to remember His promises, and they were preserved. When Moses was on the mount they went to Aaron and inquired where Moses was, and demanded gods to go before them. And Aaron told them to bring him their earrings and their jewelry, and they did so, and he made of them a golden calf; and the people ran around it, and said these be the gods which brought us out of the land of Egypt. How much credit was due to them? Just as much as to us, for not saving our grain when we had an abundance, and, when the grasshoppers come, crying, “Lord turn them away and save us.” It is just as consistent as for a man on board a steamboat on the wide ocean to say, I will show you what faith I have, and then to jump overboard, crying, “Lord save me!” It may not seem so daring; but is it any more inconsistent than to throw away and waste the substance the Lord has given us, and when we come to want, crying to Him for what we have wasted and squandered? The Lord has been blessing us all the time, and He asks us why we have not been blessing ourselves.

Will this be instructive to you, my brethren, hereafter? A great many have taken this counsel, and they are prepared. I had my seven years’ breadstuffs on hand last year; but I have to deal it out, and I will deal it out to the last bushel, and try my faith with my brethren. But are we deserving of praise from God or man? Who are deserving of praise? The persons who take care of themselves, or the ones who always trust in the great mercies of the Lord to take care of them? It is just as consistent to expect that the Lord with supply us with fruit when we do not plant the trees; or that, when we do not plow and sow and are saved the labor of harvesting, we should cry to the Lord to save us from want, as to ask Him to save us from the consequences of our own folly, disobedience and waste. It is said, by some, that the Lord is not going to tell His servants to gather His people here to starve. That is true; but the Lord has said, “Gather the poor from the nations;” and to the people here, “Gather and save the produce I put within your reach, and prepare against a day of want.” Suppose a hundred thousand or a million of starving people were coming here, and we had only grain to last for a couple of years, with famine around; they would offer their gold and their silver and their plate and their precious things for bread to eat, and you would hand it out until all was gone. Then you could sit down and look at the riches you had got, until all would perish together with hunger. This would be so, unless the people act more wisely than they do now.

We have had peace in these mountains since we came here; and the protection of the Lord over this people has been as visible to me as when Moses caused darkness to come upon all the land of Egypt except the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel dwelt. But what credit is due to us before the Heavens and the earth, even supposing we had such faith as to get the Lord to fight our battles and do for us what we could do for ourselves? Not a particle. He requires obedience at our hands. One of the prophets has said, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams;” and it is written, and I have never heard it contradicted—it was said in the days of Jesus and His Apostles, and it has been said in this our day—that we shall be judged according to our works and not according to our faith. One of the Apostles has said, “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.” If a man heals a person who is sick, it does not prove that he keeps all the commandments of God. One man went to Jesus and said, I know you have power; my servant is sick, and if you come and touch him he will be healed. And Jesus said he had not seen such faith in Israel. And he said, “Your servant is made whole.” Was it the faith of this man who came to Jesus, or the charity and mercy of the Savior, by which the sick person was healed? Jesus saw the man’s faith, and he said I will bestow a blessing here; and in this is manifested the mercy of God. In many things are the mercies of God made manifest; and for the people to turn around and claim that it is because of their righteousness, is foolish and wrong. If these grasshoppers were all moved away it would not be because of the righteousness of the people, but through the mercies of God. It is for us to live so that we can claim the blessings of God. You recollect reading of the brother of Jared, Mahonri Moriancumer, who saw the Lord. If he had not kept the commandments of God he would not have had power to see the finger of the Lord. But he was faithful in all things, and this gave Mahonri such exceeding great faith that he had a right to the blessings he asked. If we were to keep the commandments of God, as he did, we would have the right to claim the blessings even as Mahonri had. But if we will not be obedient in all things we cannot claim them. If we are obedient in all things He will bestow upon us every blessing we desire; if we are obedient in some things and disobedient in others, He will do as He pleases.

Twelve years from now will tell whether we have been instructed today or not. If the grasshoppers come again we can then find who has grain in their bins. With regard to faith and repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, and the ordinances of the Gospel, the people are united; but when we come to the providences of God to us, then is the place for skepticism to come in and the people to differ. We are bound by our covenants to accept the word of the Lord. There is a difference of opinion as to getting the word of the Lord; but if you will read and cultivate the Spirit of God, you will understand how it is obtained. The Lord is not every– where in person; but He has His agents, speaking and acting for Him. His angels, his messengers, His Apostles and servants are appointed and authorized to act in His name. And His servants are authorized to counsel and dictate in the greatest and what might be deemed the most trifling matters, to instruct, direct and guide His Saints. The people have done well for the past year or two, in leaving off their tobacco, their whiskey, their coffee and their tea; and if they will keep on doing this, and increasing in righteousness, we are as surely on the high road to excellence, glory and eternal lives, as we are here today.

I pray the Lord that we may have His spirit to guide us to help build up the Kingdom of God. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered at Bountiful, May 17th, 1868.

I have been looking back over my own experience a little, with regard to the religion that we have embraced. I have been asking myself what proof have the Latter-day Saints that they are actually in the path that leads to everlasting life? Have the Saints any evidence that they love and serve God? I will tell you my experience in a few words. Before the gospel came to me, the world was dark and thorny; and I studied for myself to do business as a man of the world. I soon became disgusted with the world as it was, for I found that I could scarcely trust anyone. When the gospel came I found what I wanted. It filled every wish, desire and hope pertaining to this life or that which is to come. I received it and the spirit and life of it, and I have asked myself, while sitting here, what proof have I that I love God, that I delight to serve Him and build up His kingdom? It is natural to love somebody, or something or other. If you find a person who does not wish to love some object, you would call that man or woman an unnatural person. If I am asked what I love, I would answer, “I love this gospel which I have received.” “Do you love the wicked?” No. “Do you not like to converse with them?” No. I have no delight in the wicked, in their conversation or society, only to do them good. This proves to me that if I do not love God I do not love any being. If I do not love His gospel which He has revealed in the day in which we live, I do not love any principles upon the earth. If I do not love the people who are gathered out from the nations, who compose the Church and Kingdom of God on the earth, I do not love anybody. If I do not love to talk about our religion and to teach it to others, have it in my house and with me all the time, I do not love anything. If I spend a minute that is not in some way devoted to building up the Kingdom of God and promoting righteousness, I regret that minute, and wish it had been otherwise spent. This proves to me that the Spirit of the Lord is with me.

Our teaching to the brethren and sisters is for them to purify themselves. I shall not ask them to love the Lord our God with all their hearts, it is a requirement of Heaven, and you know it as well as I do. But will ask some things. Will our brethren cease using language which they should not use? This is one of the rules in the School of the Prophets. Will the Elders of Israel pray in their families? Will they pay their tithing? We can ask this, for it is an outward labor. If they do not love the Lord with all their hearts, they can pay their tithing, and pay it as an old gentleman in the east said he could do when he was paying a poor man some grain. He said the devil stepped up to him and whispered “scoop but a little,” He stood and listened, and something said to him again, “scoop out a little,” tempting him. Said he, “Mr Devil, leave my barn; if you don’t, I’ll heap every half bushel for this poor man.”

They can heap up the half bushel, and send in the butter and eggs for the Public Works, and to feed the poor a great many of whom are supported from tithing; they can perform required labor, if they do not love the Lord with all their hearts; and they can cease to take the name of the Lord in vain. If you say you get tempted to use language you should not use, I will tell you what to do. If you are in the canyon and your cattle are likely to fill you with wrath, fill your mouth with India-rubber and keep it close that the words cannot get out. Do not say a word to grieve the Spirit of God.

Cease contending with each other. Keep the Word of Wisdom. There are but few of the Elders now who use tobacco, and our sisters can do without their tea and coffee. They can keep the Word of Wisdom, for many of them do keep it. I only saw one cup of coffee last summer during my trip south, and it was for an old lady eighty years of age. She asked me if she might not take her cups of coffee; and I told her to take it, and blessed her and her coffee. We can stop the use of liquor. We can be wise in our work and not labor beyond our strength. We can cease running in debt and purchasing things that we could do without.

If the Latter-day Saints could look at things as they are, they would see that there is a grievous sin upon this people for neglecting their stock and letting them perish; turning their sheep on to the range for a few hours, and bringing them up and penning them twenty hours out of the twenty-four, until they become diseased and sickly. If the people could see as an angel sees, they would behold a great sin in neglecting the stock which the Lord has given them, for it is the Lord who gives us the increase of cattle and sheep, yet many of the people treat them as a thing of naught. I heard a man say, in 1853, that it was a curse to the people to have so much wheat. He said he could not get anything but wheat for his work. I told him if he did not see cause in this life, to repent his saying, he would yet repent it. These are all the gifts of God; and when we treat lightly His gifts, it is a sign we desire that which we should not possess.

These are things concerning which the people need to be instructed. We should take a course to preserve our lives and the lives of the animals committed to our care. We should refrain from using swine’s flesh. We should breathe the pure mountain air in our bedrooms. We should have lofty rooms, high above the ground, for though this earth is pure, compared with miasmatic places, the air that is above the ground is preferable to that close to it. We should have plenty of pure, fresh air. If children are kept in close bedrooms, they become puny and weakly. Let them sleep where they can have abundance of pure air, in well ventilated rooms, or out of doors, in the summer time, in a safe place; it will be most beneficial for their health.

In building up the Zion of God on this land we must become very different from what we are now, in many respects and particularly in financial matters. I look at myself and ask myself what have I done to become wealthy? Nothing; only to preach the gospel. Yet I have nothing but what is the Lord’s. He has only made me steward over it, to see what I will do with it. I have never walked across the streets to make a trade. I do not care anything about such things; I desire to preach the gospel and build up the Kingdom of God. True, I have considerable wealth, but it has not been my wisdom that has put it in my possession. There are many men who are so anxious for wealth, that if they cannot make a fortune in a few months, they feel they are not succeeding according to their desires, and they turn to something else. I do not do this; nor am I anxious to spend a dollar as fast as I make it. Some people feel as if a dollar would burn a hole in their pockets; and you will see a great many almost crazy to spend whatever they have. When they see wheat selling for a price far below its value, instead of putting it in a bin and keeping it, they dispose of it—throw it away, comparatively speaking. I keep it, and by this means I am now able to feed the public hands.

Years ago, Brother Kimball counseled the people to lay up two year’s provisions, and then enough for four, for six and for seven years. I have it now, and I am dealing it out. Some people have so much faith that although the grasshoppers are around in such vast numbers, they are confident of an abundant harvest, because of the movements made to gather the poor this season. They say the Lord would not inspire His servants to bring the poor from the nations that they might starve. And so believing, they will go and sell the last bushel of wheat for comparatively nothing, trusting in God to provide for their wants. My faith is not of this kind; it is reasonable. If the Lord gives good crops this season, and tells us to lay up from that abundance, I do not think He will increase His blessings upon us if we foolishly squander those He has already given us. I believe He will bless the earth for His people’s sake; and I will till it and try to get a crop from it; but if I neglect to take advantage of the goodness of the Lord, or misuse or treat lightly His mercies, I need not expect that they will be continued upon me to the same extent. Have not my sisters here, gleaned in the fields around for years past? And when they have had their gleanings thrashed out, have they not taken the grain to the stores and sold it to our enemies, instead of laying it by? And yet they will expect to be blessed continually with plenty! I have not so much faith as this. I have a reasonable faith, a sustaining faith, one that I can build my hopes upon; and I think I will not be disappointed. I labor and toil, but I do not waste my labor.

Now, you who wish to hire out with the wicked and mingle with the ungodly, does it suit you to hear the name and character of the Deity profaned, and every principle of propriety violated? If you go to the gold mines, or wherever the wicked are, you will hear the name of that Being whom you recognize and acknowledge as your Savior, blasphemed and taken in vain, and the name and character of the Almighty vilified and abused. Can you bear this? Does it suit you to have your ears saluted with such language and your spirits contaminated with such society? I would not associate with those who blaspheme the name of God, nor would I let my family associate with them. By this you may know whether you are in the path that leads to life and salvation. If you can hear the name of the Deity lightly spoken of and blasphemed, and not be shocked at it you may know that you are not in that path. Some of the young men who had been with the surveying party last year, wanted to come into my house as friends and visit my daughters, when they came home. They asked me if I had any objections. I told them I had. They asked me the reason. My reply was, I believe you have been wicked, while you have been gone. Have you not been in the habit of taking the name of the Deity in vain? They admitted they had occasionally; and I told them that was my objections to their being in my house. I do not wish my daughters to be entangled with any who do not serve God. I would rather see everyone of them sealed to Father Perkins here, who is 85 years of age, than that any of them should be sealed to a wicked man.

Can you mingle with the wicked and feel contented in their company? If you can you are on the road to destruction; you are not on the road to perfection. If you can deal, and trade, and visit, and ride, and be with the ungodly, and cannot see the difference between them and the righteous, if you are ever saved in any decent kingdom, it will be because you are totally ignorant. But if you can truthfully say, I love prayer, not swearing; I love truth, not lying; I love honesty, not dishonesty; I love God and His laws, you may be assured you are on the road to exaltation and eternal life. Let us sustain the kingdom of God; and if we do, we will sustain ourselves in truth and righteousness.

From my remarks, some may gather the idea that if a poor, miserable, corrupt, wicked person was to be found among us, who was suffering for lack of food, he should be turned out of doors. No, no; feed him, and let him go his own way; but do not let him have any influence in your families. Be kind to all as our Father in heaven is kind. He sends His rain upon the just and the unjust; and gives the sun to shine upon the evil and the good. So let our goodness extend to all the works of His hands, where we can; but do not yield to the spirit and influence of evil. Do not encourage wickedness in our midst. Do not encourage the wicked to come and live with us, to lead our brethren astray. Do not follow after vain and foolish fashions. If our ladies see a new fashion brought in by some poor, miserable, corrupt person, they adopt it; and everyone wants to pattern after the fashions that are brought here no matter how ridiculous they may be nor how wicked the person who introduces them. Many of the fashions are unbecoming and inconvenient. They do not become Saints. And the daughters of Israel should understand what fashions they should have, without borrowing from the impure and unrighteous. They should hearken to the counsels of those whom God has appointed to lead His people. We have the words of life; we are the head; and we should lead in fashions and in everything that is right and proper; and not be led by the world. We have salvation to offer to the people; and if they will not accept it, the result will be with themselves.

The Latter-day Saints should wake up and begin to think of these things. We must mark out a path for ourselves and walk in it. Just as sure as we are the Church and Kingdom of God, just so sure have we to give laws and fashions to the world, sooner or later. When we walk humbly before the Lord and observe His precepts, we can say to the world, follow us and our fashions. Then they may offer us fashions—new ones—from New York, from London, from Paris, but we will not have them. We will tell them we are capable of making our own fashions, and our own clothing, without following after anyone.

Brethren and sisters, I can say with all my heart, God bless you. I desired to come here to see you, to talk with you, to see how you felt. By coming into this house I can tell something of your spirit. You are improving. The people are improving as well as their leaders; and if they will look at their own experience, they will say concerning the subjects I have been treating on, “That is what I have been looking for and what I want.” We desire to get closer to the mark, to have closer communion with God, to be prepared for the day that is approaching, when we will have to go and build up the Center Stake of Zion, where the order of Enoch, as is recorded in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, will be established.

May the Lord bless you. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, at Bountiful, May 17th, 1868.

There is a large congregation of people before me who profess to be Latter-day Saints, though they are few in number when compared with the people at large. But those who are here, are here because of our religion. It is very seldom that you find a person in our midst, who is one of our citizens, who has come here with any other object than to serve God, be numbered with His Saints, help to build up Zion and establish peace and righteousness upon the earth. We look upon each other as though we ought to be Saints indeed; but while we are looking at our brethren and sisters we are very apt to behold their faults instead of their virtues. We are all liable to err; we are subject to weaknesses and liable to go astray; to do that which we should not do, and leave undone that we should do. This seems to be interwoven with the nature of all mankind through the fall. Still, we are here as Latter-day Saints; we have assembled ourselves together to become one; to become the people of God, the children of Zion, the children of light. We are here for the express purpose of separating ourselves from the world and establishing that order of government that we read of in the Holy Scriptures; and we desire to see the glory of Zion upon the earth that has been spoken of by the Prophets of God.

The mass of the people in Christendom are taught to believe in the Bible, and they are taught to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer and Savior of the world. This is the tradition of our fathers. This has been taught to us. And the Christian world have sought to understand enough with regard to the plan of salvation to prepare them to enjoy the happiness and bliss of a world where righteousness reigns triumphant. A portion of the Christian world say they are preparing for the Millennium and the Second Advent of the Savior; but their lives and conduct do not agree with their professions. They are taught to believe the sayings of Jesus and the Apostles and Prophets, sufficient to die by, and that they may be prepared to enjoy heaven hereafter; but they have no idea of making a heaven here on earth, of building up the Kingdom of God, that Jesus can come and receive his own. Our traditions have been to try and get through this world having religion enough and belief enough in Christ so that we could leave it and go where we could enjoy heavenly bliss forever. The Christian world have very limited ideas with regard to the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth. We as Latter-day Saints have confessed before Heaven, before the heavenly hosts, and before the inhabitants of the earth, that we really believe the Scriptures as they are given to us, according to the best understanding and knowledge that we have of the translation, and the spirit and meaning of the Old and New Testaments.

We have confessed before angels and men, and have acknowledged by our acts that we believe most assuredly that Jesus has called upon us as his disciples—those who will receive the truth, obey His commandments, observe His precepts and honor His laws, to come out from among the wicked, to separate ourselves from sinners and from sin. If we have not confessed this by our acts as well as by our faith, then we are mistaken concerning the gathering of ourselves together. But we have confessed it, and we do believe it, and it is for us to live according to that which we acknowledge. We acknowledge the covenant under which we live; we believe it, and are honest in our belief; and we will honor that covenant by obedience to the laws of God. If we do not, our words and our actions contradict each other. By our acts, by our coming together, by our leaving our homes, our friends and our birthplaces that were dear to us according to the customs and belief of the world, we have declared our desire to serve the Lord. We have left the graves of our fathers—as our natives here would say, who lay great stress on birthplaces as well as many civilized nations; many have left fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters; and some have left husbands and some have left wives and children: what for? Because they believed in the words of Jesus and His Apostles, as well as in the Prophets and in the testimony of the Prophet Joseph and the Elders who have been sent unto them. This people have confessed this, and have shown to the world that they are honest in their belief; and that they are willing to carry out in their lives the spirit and meaning of this faith. Is not this the situation of the Latter-day Saints? It is. This is our profession before the Heavens and all the inhabitants of the earth. Yet when we examine the feelings, views, wishes, desires and aspirations of this people, we see them wandering after almost everything but that which they should possess. With all these professions, and our willingness to forsake fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, wives and children, houses and homes, and the comforts of life for the gospel’s sake, we are yet far from aspiring to the holiness and the purity and perfection of Latter-day Saints. That people should forsake everything on the earth that would naturally be dear to them, of a worldly nature, for righteousness’ sake, and then fall into a deeper vortex of folly and sin than they were in before, is astonishing.

My mission to the people is to teach them with regard to their everyday lives. I presume there are many here who have heard me say, years and years ago, that I cared very little about what will take place after the millennium. Elders may preach long discourses concerning what took place in the days of Adam, what occurred before the creation, and what will take place thousands of years from now, talking of things which have occurred or that will occur yet, of which they are ignorant, feeding the people on wind; but that is not my method of teaching. My desire is to teach the people what they should do now, and let the millennium take care of itself. To teach them to serve God and to build up His Kingdom is my mission. I have taught faith, repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost. These principles you were taught in foreign lands. You are teaching them to your children. There is scarcely a child in Israel but is looking forward with anxiety to the time when he or she will be baptized. These things we understand alike. We have been baptized and have had hands laid upon us for the reception of the Holy Ghost. We have been taught to exercise faith, and to enjoy the gifts of the gospel. What has to be taught now? How to live. Have they to be taught to send for the Elders when they are sick, and that the prayer of faith will heal them? They understand these things. We are to be taught with regard to our everyday life in a temporal point of view.

Some may think they have the privilege of going to the gold mines or doing as they please, without being instructed concerning their temporal duties; that no person has a right to interfere with their temporal matters. Yet we have been performing labors year after year from the beginning, of various kinds, that the people have not seemed to think have had anything to do with temporal matters. I commenced such labors in the beginning of my career in the ministry. When the people believed and received the gospel, I commenced my temporal labors. They were baptized, which is a temporal work. By the laying on of hands—another temporal labor—they received the Holy Ghost. When they received that Spirit they saw they were to be gathered out from among the wicked. They saw the judgments of God were to be poured out upon the ungodly. This they saw in the vision of their minds. They saw the Saints were to be gathered out, understanding this by the Spirit which they had received. What had to be taught to them then? To gather up their little substance; if they had a farm or possessions, to sell them; and gather up with their families and friends and substance, to the land of Zion. And where is the land of Zion? It is wherever the finger of the Lord has pointed out for His people to gather to. That is the place to go to. I recollect a lady asking me in Canada, in 1832 or ’33, how large Jackson County was; and when I said 30 miles square, said she, “Suppose the whole world would embrace your doctrine, how would they get into Jackson County?” My reply was that, “Jackson County, in that case, would cover the whole world. Zion will expand as far as the necessity of the case requires it. You need not fear but there will be room for you, if you believe and gather with the Saints.”

We commenced teaching the people the doctrine of Jesus, and then we commenced to build up the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth. We commenced this years ago. Have we been successful? In part, we have. A few have been gathered together, but our work is not accomplished. The Lord never could teach His people while they were among the wicked how to live by themselves, how to unite their efforts and their whole power for the establishment of His Kingdom. This kingdom is not of the world, says Jesus. It is different from any other kingdom that is now upon the earth; and while the people of it are mixed with the people of other nations and kingdoms, the Lord could never teach them how to establish His Kingdom. He must get them away from the wicked; gather them out; bring them into a place He has reserved for them to gather together, where He can teach them of His laws.

As I said once to my brethren in the school of the Prophets—I have not asked you, I dare not ask you to fulfil almost the first requirement of the Kingdom of Heaven, almost the simplest principle, and one of the first things that should be observed. I have not asked the people yet to perform this great labor, I will say it is a great labor, and if I were to refer it to you, you would say the same. You may ask what it is? It is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. Now, is this not almost one of the first requirements that God has made of His people? and I have not yet required it of the people. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and then speak evil of thy neighbor? No, no! Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and speak that which is not true? No, oh, no! Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and take that which is not thy own? No, no, no! Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and seek after the riches of the world and forsake your religion? No! Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and take His name in vain, curse and swear? No, never! If the love of God was really in the hearts of all who call themselves Latter-day Saints, there would be no more swearing, no more lying, no more deceiving, no more speaking evil of one another, no more running after the ungodly nor dealing with the enemies of Zion, no more running after the gold mines; nothing would be sought after only to build up the Kingdom of God. This we have not yet asked. But we do ask some things. Let us forsake those sins that are so grievous, and let us try to do right before the Heavens and with each other. Look at the Elders of Israel today; how many of them are gone to hunt gold. Hundreds of them are running off to Cheyenne to get work on the railroad. Where are their crops, their flocks and their families? All left, that they may get a little wealth.

We have been crying to the people for years and years to cease their trading and trying to speculate with the enemies of this people. We have said to them, “Store up those things that the Lord gives to us, these are years of plenty, these are the days when the abundance of the blessings of Heaven are upon the soil we occupy; treasure up your wheat or our traders will take our flour and carry it to our enemies.” But our elders will go and borrow money of strangers for the sake of speculating. Is this a fact? I do not know how it is here in Bountiful, but it is so in other places. Bountiful is a good and suggestive name; is it an appropriate one? Have you here an abundance of flour? If so, I will call upon you for some for the Public Works. There is nothing, nor has there been for a long time, to supply the public hands, only what I furnish out of my private storehouse. If you have an abundance of beeves and flour and butter and eggs, and other things, will you furnish something for the Public Works? But if you are as they are in many other places, many of you have not got breadstuffs to last you one week. If one-half have breadstuffs to last them till harvest, it is more than they have in other places. Yet we have asked the people to save their wheat against such a year as last year or this year. Here are the devouring insects ready to take everything that we have. These are things the people have got to be taught to observe. There are certain rules in life and certain principles to be observed by this people. They must cease trading with those who would destroy us. To be called out from the wicked, and then take a course to call the wicked to us, how inconsistent it is! If the Lord were to say, “I will let the wicked drive you again, and I will call you to another place, where there is no one to disturb you;” how long would it be until the course taken by many would call the wicked in among us again, to seek to destroy us? The Latter-day Saints must stop this course, or they will bring evil upon themselves, and we will have to leave. These are the things we have to learn. We have the privilege of choosing now. It is in our hands, it is within our power, whether we will stay in these mountains and build up the Zion of our God, or make the wicked and ungodly fat by our labor and give them our possessions. This many are doing, by running in debt to our enemies, and pursuing a course that is wrong. If they do not cease it they will have cause to weep and mourn.

All Latter-day Saints enter the new and everlasting covenant when they enter this Church. They covenant to cease sustaining, upholding and cherishing the kingdom of the devil and the kingdoms of this world. They enter into the new and everlasting covenant to sustain the Kingdom of God and no other kingdom. They take a vow of the most solemn kind, before the heavens and earth, and that, too, upon the validity of their own salvation, that they will sustain truth and righteousness instead of wickedness and falsehood, and build up the Kingdom of God, instead of the kingdoms of this world. When we came here to these valleys, who were here to trouble us? Nobody; but we have fed those who would destroy us, opened our houses and farms to them, to speculate and trade and traffic and get gain, and what do we make by it?

Now, some of my brethren may ask, “Brother Brigham, do you expect to dictate me where I shall sow my wheat, and when I shall sow it, and in similar matters?” I have said and will say again, if Brother Brigham had time to be in every house he would teach them how to keep house. How many sisters set up their stockings by guess work, and do not know the number of the yarn and the number of the needles to use? In this matter I would instruct many of the sisters, if they would not take umbrage at me for doing so. The sisters ought to know about housekeeping and the brethren who farm about farming, but they need to be taught. Learn to be neat and cleanly in all that you do. Do you ask me if I am going to dictate you in such matters? If I am not to dictate you, you are not to be saved in the kingdom I calculate to be saved in. If I know something that you do not understand it is my duty to teach you; and if you know something that I do not know, it is your duty to communicate your knowledge to me, till we become perfect by increasing in knowledge. Brethren, we have many things yet to learn. Many of the brethren south are ruined by running in debt; men of handsome property, which will go for comparatively nothing because of their vain imaginations.

Ye Latter-day Saints, learn to sustain yourselves, produce everything you need to eat, drink or wear; and if you cannot obtain all you wish for today, learn to do without that which you cannot purchase and pay for; and bring your minds into subjection that you must and will live within your means. When we, as a people, can come to understand that we can live by ourselves, then we can live of ourselves, without any outside world. We did live so when we first came here. Were there any stores to go to? Were there places to go to where money could be hired? Did we live? Yes. Were we healthy? Yes. Much healthier, as a people, than we are now. Did we grow and increase? Yes; and as soon as we had time to till the earth and reap a crop, we produced wheat and corn and potatoes. We turned our cattle on to the range to make our beef. We had plenty of wheat. We began to make our clothing here. We drove in sheep and we took care of the wool, and made it into cloth. I brought a carding machine with me. It was the only one in the Territory for years, and it carded up a great deal of wool. We made up this wool into cloth and wore it. When the gold came, then merchants came and the spirit of speculation came. Then men ran to the gold mines to get money; and then was the rush to the stores. Says the husband “I must have a suit of broadcloth and a fine pair of boots;” while the wife and daughters said they must have nice bonnets and dresses; and this has been continued until we have involved ourselves.

Are you going to be dictated in these matters? Yes, or you will sooner or later leave the Kingdom of God and go somewhere else. Is it hard to say this to the people? Is it infringing upon their rights? They have the privilege to choose the good or to choose the evil. It is as manly and as praiseworthy for an individual to make the choice to do good, work righteousness and love and serve God—it is more noble, than to choose the downward road. One or the other will be the choice of every individual. Do not trifle with evil, or you will be overcome by it before you know. Our business is to build up the Zion of God on the earth. Do you think you will do it and go hand in hand with the wicked? No, never. I know you may say, and say truly, according to the parable spoken by Jesus to his disciples, when the bridegroom was coming, the cry was, “Go ye out to meet him,” but while he tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And when they awoke with the cry, “the bridegroom is here,” there were foolish virgins among them who had no oil in their lamps. He did not say that they would be among the ungodly. It is among those who are the bride, the Lamb’s wife, that the foolish are to be found. But he never has instructed us to call on the ungodly, and those who would mob us, to make foolish virgins. Some may quote the parable of the wheat and the tares and say they must grow together. Let me tell you, the tares will be in the field, and many will think they are wheat, until harvest comes; but at no time has the Lord said, bring the wicked and ungodly among my people to scourge them; for they are capable of bringing upon themselves all the evil necessary to perfect the good. The Lord bless you: Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, May 10th, 1868.

The gospel which we preach is the gospel of life and salvation. The Church which we represent is the Church and Kingdom of God, and possesses the only faith by which the children of men can be brought back into the presence of our Father and God. The Lord has set his hands to restore all things as in the beginning, and by the administration of His Holy Priesthood, save all who can be saved, cleanse from the world the consequences of the fall and give it to the hands of His Saints. I am a witness of these things. How far short we may come of being what we should be, or of improving as fast as we should, matters not; this is the Kingdom of God, this is the way of life and salvation, and all who hearken to and receive it in their faith, and live it in their lives, will have the privilege of returning to their Father and their God; and none else will come into His presence. It is true that the spirits of all people will return to God who gave them, both Saint and sinner, but as to their staying there and becoming permanent settlers in His immediate presence is another question.

The practical part of the lives of the Saints in our day, and in former days on this earth or on other earths, is another part of the great subject of salvation. The faith of the people as a general thing is correct; but the lives of many of the Latter-day Saints are far from being what they should be. To be Latter-day Saints men and women must be strictly honest; they must observe that code of moral religion which is taught in the world and which is as good as can be taught. There are numbers of the human family who profess the religions of men who live the moral code acknowledged among them as strictly as men and women can do.

When we talk of the true Church of Christ we speak of a system of theology, the principles of which will bear upon every motive and act of mankind. If there is a fault in the people, it will make it manifest; if there is a weakness, it will be made apparent, for the Lord takes this course that His children may exhibit what is in them. In the latter days He will reveal the secrets of the hearts of the children of men. He is now doing this by breaking up the people here and there. He is leading them through circumstances to try them to the uttermost. If we are not tried in all things already, there is plenty of time yet for us to be so tried, even as Abraham was. Be patient, my brethren and sisters, for we shall all have the privilege of being tried to the uttermost if we are worthy. How many trials Abra– ham had, and how severe they were we have not been fully informed. A portion of his life has been committed to paper, and handed down to us, which we can read at our leisure. Whether he was tried as we are tried, and in as many ways as the Latter-day Saints are tried, I do no know. There is no question but that he was tried sufficiently to prove before his Father and God that he was worthy of the blessings he obtained—that he was worthy of the priesthood and the keys thereof—that he was worthy to receive the articles of truth, to dispense salvation to his father’s house and to his friends and neighbors, and to all who would hearken to his counsels.

The Latter-day Saints are a very peculiar people, and they are led in a peculiar way. We are brought into circumstances so as to be a stumbling block to the nations, through the failings and weaknesses of the Latter-day Saints. Jesus was a stumbling block to the nation of the Jews, and to the generation in which he lived, and, to all that knew him, and how singular it is that Jesus Christ, at this late day, and at such a distance from the theater of his operations, should have attained such celebrity and fame; even his disciples are not only canonized, but almost deified, and looked upon as though they were gods come down to dwell with men. Every circumstance connected with the Savior’s life is looked upon as being divine. Christendom now acknowledge that Jesus was the Son of God; they look upon him as God manifested in the flesh according to the New Testament; yet the generation in which He lived did not see these tokens of divinity which this generation recognize. To them he was “a root out of dry ground”—“a stumbling block,” “a rock of offense.” So with the Latter-day Saints. They are a stumbling block to this generation. The world see all their weaknesses and faults, and see no divinity in the work in which they are engaged. Yet this is not to be wondered at, inasmuch as the world could not see it in Jesus when he dwelt in mortality. We are looked upon as a low, degraded, ignorant set of fanatics. This is the opinion of the great majority of the learned and refined world. Others say that our people are the dupes of a few. We do not claim to be very wise, but we do know that that portion of mankind called Christians in our day, who profess to be followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, are grossly ignorant of His character, and of the means and way of Salvation which He offers to the world. The Latter-day Saints, as a people, may not be so far advanced in the knowledge of many of the sciences, as their neighbors; but they are learning how to take care of themselves, which is one of the greatest arts known to man. When the most learned and scientific among men scrutinize their own lives and experience, they are under the necessity of acknowledging that they are faulty, weak, ignorant; they are “strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”

Instead of considering that there is nothing known and understood, only as we know and understand things naturally, I take the other side of the question, and believe positively that there is nothing known except by the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, whether in theology, science, or art. The world receive information and light on great principles of science and knowledge in the arts, to subserve the hidden purposes of the Almighty, but they are ignorant of the source from whence it comes to them. They seek not to know God, whom to know is life everlasting. They seek not to know the source of their own existence, and of all light and truth. They are not willing to acknowledge His hand in anything; and for this the God of Heaven is displeased with them, and His anger is kindled against them. They have every evidence that can be asked that Joseph Smith was a prophet sent from God, yet they cannot acknowledge it; while at the same time, with the scriptures in their hands, they can but acknowledge the supremacy of the doctrine we preach over the dogmas of the age, and in the growth of this community in the time of a constant stream of abuse and persecution, gathering the poor from all nations, they must acknowledge the superior wisdom and power displayed, that cannot be attributed to man. The wisdom which God has given them teaches them better. It teaches them that a secret something, an invisible agency is evidently at work behind the curtain. What mortal has the power to call people from the ends of the earth? While Jesus Christ was in the flesh He did not manifest his power. How much power did He manifest over the people of the world in His day? Did He send His disciples to the nations and call His followers together from the ends of the earth by thousands? He did not. There is no doubt but that He had the power to call the people together; but he did not manifest it. The people saw no exhibition of this power when he was among them. But He is doing it now, and if it had been the time to do it in His day it could have been done by the power of the heavens through Him, as it is now done by the same power through Joseph Smith and his brethren. God is now displaying His power in a marvelous degree, whispering to the inmost souls of the children of men in foreign lands with a still, small voice, “flee to the mountains, for the day of the Lord is upon the wicked nations of Babylon;” and the cry: “come out other, my people” has gone throughout the world. Do we improve as fast as we should? We do not improve as fast as we might; but I am happy to know that we improve, and we can improve more if we please. Compare the progress of the Saints in the days of the Savior and His disciples, with the progress of the Saints in these days.

When a “Mormon” Elder offers evidence of this great work to unbelievers, they tell him that he is a party concerned, and his evidence cannot be taken with regard to Joseph Smith’s mission. I ask the Christian world where are your witnesses that Jesus is the Christ? Who are those who testified of His mission, and how many are there? Eight persons testified of Him, and their testimony is recorded, and they were his disciples and parties concerned; yet at this day all the Christian world is ready to receive their testimony. I testify that this work of God in which we are engaged has been commenced to gather the house of Israel and establish Zion in the last days, and has more outward and weighty evidence to prove that it is of God than there was in the days of Jesus to prove that he was the Christ. When the Book of Mormon came forth it was testified to by twelve witnesses, and who can dispute their testimony? No living person on the earth can do it; and besides the testimony of these twelve witnesses, hundreds and thousands have received a witness to themselves from the Heavens, and who can dispute their testimony? No living person on the earth can do it. This infidel world inquires, “where do you get your testimony?” We answer, we get it from the Heavens. Were we to ask them where they get the knowledge they possess, they reply, “We do not know; it came to us; we know not its source.” We have testimony that the Bible is true, that the prophecies contained in it are true, that Jesus is the son of God, and came to redeem the world. Have the so-called Christian world this kind of testimony? They have not. All the testimony they can boast of is the testimony of eight men who lived nearly two thousand years ago. The infidel world cannot receive their testimony, because they were parties concerned.

We are asked if signs follow the believer in our day as in days of old. We answer, they do. The blind see, the lame leap, the deaf hear, the gift of prophecy is manifest, also the gift of healing, the gift of revelation, the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues. Jesus said that these signs should follow them that believe. His Church and Kingdom always have these signs which follow the believer in all ages when the true Church is in existence. Do they follow any but believers? They do not. The gift and power of the Holy Ghost, as enjoyed by the ancient saints, and its various manifestations, are not received in the faith of modern Christian sects. They say that the gift and power of the Holy Ghost have ceased; that the canon of Scripture is full; that there is no more new revelation, no more prophecy, no more inspired visions, no more administrations of angels as in days of old, no more voice of God from the heavens, no more inspired prophets and apostles, who seal on earth and it is sealed in heaven; from whence then have they testimony that Jesus is the Christ, and that God lives? The very book which they believe to be inspired, and which they offer to the heathen and the infidel as the strongest evidence they possess for the divinity of their religion declares positively that signs shall follow the believer, and this very important declaration and promise they discard altogether. We say that signs do in our day follow the believer, and here is the witness and testimony that Jesus is the Christ.

If we speak of ourselves our testimony is nothing, but if we speak by the power of God that is within us, the same Spirit bears witness that we are the true followers of the Lord Jesus, and convinceth the world of sin and of a judgment to come. The Spirit of the Almighty is abroad among the people, and all who will listen to the truth will be convinced by the spirit of truth, and they will flow together from distant lands, and as the salt of the earth is gathered out the nations will break to pieces; and are they not at this time breaking to pieces? The honest in heart are gathering out by thousands and tens of thousands from the nations of Babylon. They are leaving their fathers, and mothers, and husbands, and wives, and children, and friends, and associations, at the call of the gospel preached by the Elders of this Church. What power, but the power of God, could stir up the world and enlighten the soul and better the condition of multitudes, teaching them to make the wilderness blossom as the rose and the desert places to be inhabited?

After the Latter-day Saints are gathered together, I repeat, that we do not improve as fast as we should. This Word of Wisdom which has been supposed to have become stale, and not in force, is like all the counsels of God, in force as much today as it ever was. There is life, everlasting life in it—the life which now is and the life which is to come. We have had this Word of Wisdom thirty-five years last February, and the whole people have not yet learned to observe it after the true spirit and meaning of it. There is within a few years past a great improvement in this, so much so that I very much doubt whether a tobacco spittle could be found upon the floor of this tabernacle after this congregation is dismissed. Tobacco is not good to receive into the human system; hot drinks are not good. We will use cold drinks to allay thirst and warm drinks for medicine. Flesh should be used sparingly, in famine and in cold. The people are beginning to listen to these things. The Spirit of the Lord is urging the people to cease from everything that is evil, and to reform in their lives; for unless the spirit urged the people to do right, we might as well talk to the sides of this house. We are urged by the spirit to refrain from articles which tend to death, to preserve this life, which is the most precious life given to mortal beings preparatory to an immortal life. It is our business to prepare to live here to do good. Instead of crying to the people prepare to die, our cry is prepare to live forevermore. These mortal houses will drop off sometime, and when they are cleansed and purified, sanctified and glorified, we shall inherit them again forever and ever. Let all the Saints pursue a course to live. Let those who fight against God’s Kingdom fall asleep; and let those who build it up live and prosper until their work in the flesh is done. We say to worldly-wise men, acknowledge the hand of God in your greatness and wisdom and in all the blessings which you receive, for you receive them all from him.

Are we improving as a people? We are. I have said, and say today, that according to the age of the people we have improved as fast as the church of Enoch. I trust we improve faster, for we have not as much time as they had. In some of the first revelations which were given to this Church the order of Enoch was given for a pattern to this people; and Enoch patterned after the heavens. The object of the School of the Prophets is to train ourselves until we can receive the order of Enoch in all its fullness. In the commencement of this Church the Latter-day Saints could not receive it, and they were driven from city to city, as the Lord said they should be through the mouth of His servant Joseph, until they should be willing to receive this order.

There is no evil in doing good, no wrong in doing right. It is the evil that people do which renders them obnoxious to the heavens, hateful to each other, and unworthy of their being upon the earth. Let the people be righteous, full of love, faith and good works, loving and serving God with all their hearts, and they are happy, and they strive to make everybody around them happy. From henceforth the wicked will become more wicked, and their wickedness will be made more manifest, and the corruptions which now lurk in darkness will stalk abroad, and confidence and safety will vanish from among men, until the good-meaning people among all nations will be willing to flee to any place to find peace and safety. Let us be obedient to the Man we serve. We believe in a one Man power, and that Man is God our Father, who lives in the Heavens. In being united with Him we can see the beauty of the order of heaven.

The written word which we have, namely, the Old and New Testament, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants all agree in testifying that Jesus is the Christ, but no man can know this without the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy. Flesh and blood did not reveal that fact to Peter, but the Father who is in heaven. By this power do we known that Christ lives and is the Savior of the world, and has commenced His work in the last days, to gather His people, redeem and build up Zion, gather the remnants of Israel, bring the Gentiles into His covenant who will receive the gospel, restore the Jews to their land, and establish the New and Everlasting covenant, which He established with the fathers and ratified to the children. We are in this work; and we are called to be faithful and to sanctify ourselves as a people and prepare for the coming of the Son of Man. May God help us to do so. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, afternoon, April 8, 1868.

President Heber C. Kimball has exhorted the bishops to gather around them the young men and teach them the privileges which they enjoy, and try to lead them in the right way. Bishops, I wish you to hearken to this piece of good advice. I will give each of the young men in Israel, who have arrived at an age to marry, a mission to go straightway and get married to a good sister, fence a city lot, lay out a garden and orchard and make a home, and especially do not forget to plant a proper proportion of mulberry trees. This is the mission that I give to all the young men in Israel. And I say to you, sisters, if you do not know how to milk a cow, you can soon learn. If you do not know how to feed the cows, you can learn. If you do not know how to feed the chickens, get them and learn how, and if your husband takes you to live in ever so small and humble a cottage, make it neat and nice and clean, and set out flowers around the doors, and let the husband plant fruit trees and shade trees, and let wives help their husbands that they may be encouraged to take hold of more important business that will create an income sufficient to sustain their wives, and by economy and care become wealthy in a short time, and have your carriage to ride in. What a satisfaction it will be to you to know that what you possess is the result of your industry and economy. “It was not given to us by grandfather, or by father, or by mother, or any relation; but we have got these comforts by our industry, saving, and the blessings of the Lord.” By this means our young men and maidens will gain for themselves credit, respect, and a name in Israel worthy of the admiration of all good persons. How much better is this course than the opposite, to spend precious time to no profit, always being in a state of dependence. Were the Lord to speak of such conduct, he would use terms to show that He is not well pleased with it.

I have a short sermon for my sisters. I wish you, under the direction of your bishops and wise men, to establish your relief societies, and organize yourselves under the direction of the brethren, and establish yourselves for doing business, gathering up your little amounts of means that would otherwise go to waste, and put them to usury, and make more of them, and thus keep gathering in. Let this be commenced forthwith. Ask your husbands to furnish you some straw for hats and bonnets, and when you get it put more than three straws over your head, and make a hat that will shade you from the scorching sun. I have a great desire to live and see the prosperity of this people, and one thing among the rest, I would like to see the time when our sisters will take more pains to beautify their children. When your children arise in the morning instead of sending them out of doors to wash in cold, hard water, with a little soft soap, and wiping them as though you would tear the skin off them, creating roughness and darkness of skin, take a piece of soft flannel, and wipe the faces of your children smooth and nice, dry them with a soft cloth; and instead of giving them pork for their breakfast, give them good wholesome bread and sweet milk, baked potatoes, and also buttermilk if they like it, and a little fruit, and I would have no objections to their eating a little rice. Rice is an excellent food for children, and I wish some of the brethren would cultivate it in these valleys. Upland rice will flourish in this country. Train up your children to be beautiful and fair, instead of neglecting them until they are sunburned and become like the natives of our mountains. Let the sisters take care of themselves, and make themselves beautiful, and if any of you are so superstitious and ignorant as to say that this is pride, I can say that you are not informed as to the pride which is sinful before the Lord, you are also ignorant as to the excellency of the heavens, and of the beauty which dwells in the society of the Gods. Were you to see an angel, you would see a beautiful and lovely creature. Make yourselves like angels in goodness and beauty. Let the mothers in Israel make their sons and daughters healthy and beautiful, by cleanliness and a proper diet. Whether you have much or little clothing for your children, it can be kept clean and healthy, and be made to fit their persons neatly. Make your children lovely and fair that you may delight in them. Cease to send out your children to herd sheep with their skins exposed to the hot sun, until their hands and faces appear as though they lived in an ash heap. I call upon my sisters to lead out in these things; and create your own fashions, and make your clothing to please yourselves, independent of outside influences; and make your hats and bonnets to shade you. I wish you, sisters, to listen to these counsels, and place yourselves in a condition to administer to the poor. Get your husbands to provide you with a little of this and a little of that of which you can make something by adding your own labor. I do not mean that you shall apply to them for five dollars and ten dollars to spend for that which is of no profit, but manufacture something that will be useful, as well as beautiful and comely.

You ought to enter into the cultivation of silk. Our bench lands are well adapted to the growth of the mulberry tree, the leaves of which produce the natural food for the silkworm. There is no better land nor climate in the world than we have for this branch of business. We can make ourselves independently rich at this business alone, if it is properly pursued. There ought to be a plot of land in each ward devoted to the cultivation of silk, and a cocoonery built in the center of it, and in the season thereof let the children of the wards who have nothing to do, and aged people, gather the leaves and feed the worms. The work is light and interesting, while the sales of wound silk, for which there is always a market to be found, will do much towards feeding and clothing poor persons that would otherwise be entirely dependent. If the worms are well taken care of, the season of feeding only lasts from thirty-five to forty days. If I cannot succeed in getting the sisters with their children to attend to this business, I shall be under the necessity of sending to China for Chinamen to come here and raise silk for us, which I do not wish to do. To pay people the wages they want here would prevent us from raising silk profitably. We look forward to the period when the price of labor here will be brought to a reasonable and judicious standard.

Now, sisters, go to forthwith and get you an acre of land, and get the Bishops and the brethren to fence it, and prepare it for the reception of the trees, and go and help them; but, be sure to wear a wide brimmed hat while doing it, so as not to get tanned with the sun and the wind. Go to and raise silk. You can do it, and those who cannot set themselves to work we will set them to work gathering straw, and making straw hats and straw bonnets; we will set others to gathering willows, and others to making baskets; we will set others to gathering flags and rushes, and to making mats, and bottoming chairs, and making carpets. I pray you in Christ’s stead to let gold hunting alone, and pray the Lord to cover it up in our region of country that it cannot be found. Those among us who are anxious to find rich gold deposits, are equally anxious to destroy themselves, and are no wiser than our little children are in handling sharp-edged tools. They would not only destroy themselves, but all around them if they had the power to do it. Instead of hunting gold, let every man go to work at raising wheat, oats, barley, corn, and vegetables; and fruit in abundance, that there may be plenty in the land. Raise sheep, and produce the finest quality of wool in large quantities. By the migratory system of feeding sheep in this country they will be healthy, and produce large clips of wool. I hope, by the blessings of the Lord, to demonstrate this the present season. In these pursuits are the true sources of wealth, and we have as much capital in these mountains to begin with as any people in the world, according to the number of our community. Real capital consists in knowledge and physical strength. If we know how to apply our labor, it will produce for us everything we can ask for; it will bring to us the food and the clothing we want, and every facility we need for comfort, for refinement, for excellence, for beauty, and for adornment. It will bring to us the wealth of the world, the gold and the silver, although gold and silver are not real wealth. They are useful as a medium of exchange, as foundation upon which to base a currency, and to use as ornaments and household vessels; and so gold should be regarded until there is enough of it to pave our streets. O, ye Elders of Israel who are greedy for gold, instead of wasting your time in search of it, gather around you the comforts of life, with which the elements are loaded, and make yourselves rich in all the elegancies and conveniences by means of economy and industry. I wish the sisters to lead out in the fashions. It is very little difference what fashion you produce. I would just as soon see you wear hats with wide brims as not, if you have that fashion that will give comfort and convenience and produce health and longevity. We wish to promote the longevity of the people. Tell your husbands to get you a heifer calf or two and some chickens, and you will feed them, and take care of them, instead of feeding pigs, and if your husbands have springs on their land, get them to clean them out and dam them up a little, and introduce the spawn of the best fish we have in these mountains, and collect all the information that has been printed, and which comes within your reach on the subject of raising fish. And raise your potatoes and parsnips and carrots for feeding them with, adding a little corn meal, or a little oat meal. We can raise fish here, and the cost will be one fourth less per pound than other meats. You may think that fowls are injurious to the garden; but they are not. They will pick up grubs and cut worms and other destructive insects, and the good they do in this respect will far overbalance any trifling injury they may do to young plants. They will keep your gardens clean of these pests, and fatten, giving you plenty of eggs to eat. Take care of them, and get a little patch of lucerne planted to give to your young heifer, and rear her until she gives you her increase. This is for you young women who want to get husbands. Tell the young men that you will sustain yourselves, and teach them how to sustain themselves if they do not know how, if they will only come and marry you. Now, girls, court up the boys, it is leap year. Give them to understand in some way that it is all right. You are ready, and you want to help them to make a good home, to form a nucleus around which to gather the blessings and comforts of life, a place to rally to. While you are on the move and unsettled you can get nothing that is permanent. Tell the boys what to do, and you sisters of experience, ye mothers in Israel, go to and get up your societies, and teach these girls what to do, and how to get the boys to come and marry them. The neglect and lazy habits which our boys are falling into are a disgrace to us, to say nothing about the sin of such conduct. They produce nothing, and consider themselves unable to take care of a family, and they will not marry. This conduct of theirs leaves our young women without partners; they want somebody to look to, and something that they can do to advantage and bless themselves, and have a home to go to. Young men, fit you up a little log cabin, if it is not more than ten feet square, and then get you a bird to put in your little cage. You can then work all day with satisfaction to yourself, considering that you have a home to go to, and a loving heart to welcome you. You will then have something to encourage you to labor and gather around you the comforts of life, and a place to gather them to. Strive to make your little home attractive. Use lime freely, and let your houses nestle beneath the cool shades of trees, and be made fragrant with perfumes of flowers.

These are practical teachings; they are things which this people must be taught, for if we do not learn to take care of ourselves and save ourselves who will do it for us? Will the Gentiles help us, and care for us? Will they do us good? No. And I tell you further, Elders of Israel, that you do not know the day of your visitation, neither do you understand the signs of the times, for if you did you would be awake to these things. Every organization of our government, the best government in the world, is crumbling to pieces. Those who have it in their hands are the ones who are destroying it. How long will it be before the words of the prophet Joseph will be fulfilled? He said if the Constitution of the United States were saved at all it must be done by this people. It will not be many years before these words come to pass. How long will it be before they will be coming here for bread, for the bread of life, and for the bread which sustains the body? Do you know this? You do not. This community live as it were from hand to mouth. They must learn to lay up food. Notwithstanding all that has been said to the people on this subject, not one man to thirty has bread sufficient to last him one year. As our mechanics are paid, they might have laid up their hundreds if not their thousands a year. Brethren, learn. You have learned a good deal it is true; but learn more; learn to sustain yourselves; lay up grain and flour, and save it against a day of scarcity. Sisters, do not ask your husbands to sell the last bushel of grain you have to buy something for you out of the stores, but aid your husbands in storing it up against a day of want, and always have a year or two’s provision on hand. A great abundance of fruit can be dried. There are but few families in this city who do not have the privilege of drying and laying up fruit. Yet the majority of families in this community, instead of using fruit that was dried last fall but one, are using fruit dried last year when the grasshoppers were here. A year’s supply should be kept ahead, so that families would not be compelled to eat fruit that had been injured by grasshoppers and other insects. We should accumulate all kinds of nutritive substances, and preserve them from worms, which can easily be done. If we do not take care of ourselves, we shall have a very poor chance to be taken care of. If we will hearken to the counsel that is given to us we shall know how to sustain ourselves in every particular. Mothers in Israel, sisters, ask your husbands to take care of the sheep they have got, and not willfully waste them; but multiply them and bring our wool to the factories to be manufactured, or trade it for yarn and cloth. The woolen mills which we now have in the country will work up a great deal of wool if they can get it. Who is there in our community that raises flax? Is there any attention paid to this culture? I think not, but it is, “Husband, sell your wheat, sell your oats to buy me the linen I want.” We shall in the future have flax machines here to make the finest of linen; and we can make the cotton and silk in abundance. I would urge the brethren of the southern country to plant cotton sufficient to supply the wants of the factories that are now in the country, and let us continue our labors until we can manufacture everything we want. All this is embraced in our religion, every good word and work, all things temporal, and all things spiritual, things in heaven, things on earth, and things that are under the earth are circumscribed by our religion. We are in the fastnesses of the mountains, and if we do these things, and delight in doing right, our feet will be made fast and immovable like the bases of these everlasting hills. We ought not to desire anything only on righteous principles, and if we want right, let us then deal it out to others, being kind and full of love and charity to all. My brethren and sisters, I have occupied considerable time; but I have not spoken one tenth of what I wish to say to you. By the authority that the Lord has granted to me, I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, April 6, 1868.

The items of instruction which have been laid before us by Elders George A. Smith and George Q. Cannon are very important to us, they are subjects which we have dwelt upon for years. It is generally known among us that we commenced some years ago to raise cotton in the southern portion of our Territory, and it is also known that machinery to manufacture it has been introduced into this country. All this has been done to encourage the people to become self-sustaining. I am ready to acknowledge that the Latter-day Saints are the best people, and the most willing people to do right that I know anything about. But when we take into particular and close consideration their acts, and compare them with the teaching they are constantly receiving, we think and say they are very far from taking all the counsel given them of the Lord through His servants. But were they to be counseled, for instance, to go to the gold mines, many of them would obey with alacrity. If they were to be counseled to chew or smoke tobacco, many would lift up both hands for this, and shout for joy? If the sisters many of them, were counseled to continue the use of tea and coffee they would sit up all night to bless you. When we are counseled to do that which plea– ses us then are we willing to obey counsel. Yet when I consider the pit from whence we have been taken, and the rock from whence we have been hewn, I can say, praise to the Latter-day Saints. Again, when we consider the immensity of knowledge and wisdom and understanding pertaining to the things of this life, pertaining to the learning of this world, pertaining to that which is within our reach, and ready for the use and profit of the people, and particularly with regard to taking care of ourselves, and then consider our shortcomings, and slothfulness, we may look upon ourselves with shamefacedness because of the smallness of our attainments in the midst of so many great advantages.

A thorough reformation is needed in regard to our eating and drinking, and on this point I will freely express myself, and shall be glad if the people will hear, believe and obey. If the people were willing to receive the true knowledge from heaven in regard to their diet they would cease eating swine’s flesh. I know this as well as Moses knew it, and without putting it in a code of commandments. When I tell you that it is the will of the Lord to cease eating swine’s flesh, very likely someone will tell you that it is the will of the Lord to stop eating beef and mutton, and another that it is the will of the Lord to stop eating fowl and fish until the minds of the people become bewildered, so that they know not how to decide between right and wrong, truth and error. The beef fed upon our mountain grasses is as healthy food as we need at present. Beef, so fattened, is as good as wild meat, and is quite different in its nature from stall-fed meat. But we can eat fish; and I ask the people of this community, Who hinders you from raising fowls for their eggs? Who hinders you from cultivating fruit of every variety that will flourish in the different parts of this Territory? There has not been a day through the whole winter that I have not had fresh peaches, and plenty of apples and strawberries. Who hinders any person in this community from having these different kinds of food in their families? Fish is as healthy a food as we can eat, if we except vegetables and fruit, and with them will become a very wholesome diet. What hinders us from surrounding ourselves with an abundance of those various articles of food which will promote health and produce longevity? If it is anything, it is our own neglect; or, in other words, which will answer my purpose better, the want of knowing how.

We cannot say there are loafers on our streets; still, there are persons in our community who seem to have no other aim in existence, than to pass away their time to no purpose or use to themselves or the community. They have nothing to do, and think that they cannot apply themselves to anything that will benefit themselves and their families, when they might with great propriety be engaged in laying out a garden, fencing and planting it, and laying a foundation to make themselves and their families comfortable. It is true we have taken a great share of this people from manufacturing districts, where the great masses of the people know nothing about cultivating the earth; but they can learn it soon, if they will, after they get here. Let your minds be at home, and let your attention be directed to that which the Lord has given you for honor and glory to yourself, instead of being like the fool which Solomon wrote about, whose eyes are in the ends of the earth. Consider that you are at home, and strive to make your homes happy, comfortable and delightful; let the spirit which you enjoy yourself abound therein.

What is the reason that our brethren do not progress faster in their improvements? In a great measure it is for the want of leaders. But this is not altogether so. Generally it is for lack of judgment and wisdom, tact and talent, taste, industry and prudence in our Bishops. As it has been said, as with the priest so with the people. This is the case in a great measure; and we can say, as is the Bishop so are the members of his ward. It is the duty of the Bishops to take a course to make their lives, characters, doings and sayings fit examples in all things to the people of their wards. Some of our Bishops have made no improvements for eighteen years. I have asked the Bishops to sow a little rye, to make straw for hats and bonnets. A few have done so. I have asked them to do the same thing this spring, that the sisters of their wards may have straw to manufacture. If the Bishops have not time to do this, or have not the ground, get some of the brethren to do it who have time and ground, and let there be an acre of rye sown to each ward, and then ask the sisters to gather it in the proper season. Some say that wheat straw is as good as rye, if properly prepared. Gather the straw, and make your bonnets and hats, and wear them when you come to this tabernacle; and make hats for your husbands and sons to wear, and for your brothers and your sisters, your daughters and your mothers, and let us see all the sisters and all our brethren and all our children wearing hats and bonnets of material produced and manufactured by ourselves. I have been pleading for this for years and years.

This is leap year; let the ladies take the lead in this and every other species of home industry at which they can be employed. We have asked the sisters to organize themselves into Relief Societies; I again ask the sisters in every ward of the Territory to do so, and get women of good understanding to be your leaders, and then get counsel from men of understanding; and let your fashions proceed from yourselves, and become acquainted with those noble traits of character which belong to your sex. Ever since I knew that my mother was a woman I have loved the sex, and delight in their chastity. The man who abuses, or tries to bring dishonor upon the female sex is a fool, and does not know that his mother and his sisters were women. Women are more ready to do and love the right than men are; and if they could have a little guidance, and were encouraged to carry out the instincts of their nature, they would effect a revolution for good in any community a great deal quicker than men can accomplish it. Men have been placed on the earth to bear rule and to lead in every good work, and if they would do their duty today in our own government, and then throughout the world, they would stop whining about the “Mormons” marrying so many wives, and the ladies would have somebody to protect them and they would not need to flee to the “Mormon” Elders for protection. But outside of this community they are destroying the sex, ruining all they can, and then they boast of their villainy. Shall I say that the women are shortsighted? I will say they are weak; I will say that it is in their nature to confide in and look to the sterner sex for guidance, and thus they are the more liable to be led astray and ruined. It is the decree of the Almighty upon them to lean upon man as their superior, and he has abused his privilege as their natural protector and covered them with abuse and dishonor.

I wish the whole people of the United States could hear me now, I would say to them, let every man in the land over eighteen years of age take a wife, and then go to work with your hands and cultivate the earth, or labor at some mechanical business, or some honest trade to provide an honest living for yourselves and those who depend upon you for their subsistence; observing temperance, and loving truth and virtue; then would the women be cared for, be nourished, honored and blest, becoming honorable mothers of a race of men and women farther advanced in physical and mental perfection than their fathers. This would create a revolution in our country, and would produce results that would be of incalculable good. If they would do this, the Elders of this Church would not be under the necessity of taking so many wives. Will they do this? No, they will not; and there are many who will continue to ruin every virtuous woman they can, buying the virtue of woman with money and deception, and thus, the lords of creation proceed from one conquest to another, boasting of their victories, leaving ruin, tears and death in their pathway; and what have they conquered? A poor, weak, confiding, loving wo– man. And what have they broken and crushed and destroyed? One of the fairest gems of all God’s creation. O man! For shame. If the men of the city of New York alone had done for the last twenty years as the men of this community have done, from two to four hundred thousand females from sixteen years of age and upwards, whose dishonor and ruin are mercifully covered in the grave, would now be in life and health, moving in the circles of happy homes, prayed for, respected, loved and honored.

Now, ladies, go to and organize yourselves into industrial societies, and get your husbands to produce you some straw, and commence bonnet and hat making. If every ward would commence and continue this and other industrial pursuits, it would not be long before the females of the wards of our Territory would have stores in their wards, and means sufficient to send and get the articles which they need, that cannot yet be manufactured here and which they may want to distribute.

It is an old saying that a woman can throw out of the window with a spoon as fast as a man can throw into the door with a shovel; but a good housekeeper will be saving and economical, and teach her children to be good housekeepers, and how to take care of everything that is put in their charge. I do not wish to go into detail here; I see too much; I know too much of the waste and neglect of our females to feel satisfied with them. Is this any more so with the female portion of our community than among the males? No, not at all; but the neglect, the idleness, the waste, and the extravagance of men in our community are ridiculous. They are constantly taught better; they know better; yet, in many instances, the same reckless waste is indulged in by the whole family. If we will learn to be wise and careful, we shall devote all our time in that way that will be of the greatest advantage to us and to our common cause, continually bettering our condition, and become more and more competent to do good.

I have tried continually to get this people to pursue a course that will make them self-sustaining, taking care of their poor—the lame, the halt and the blind, lifting the ignorant from where they have no opportunity of observing the ways of the world, and of understanding the common knowledge possessed among the children of men, bringing them together from the four quarters of the world, and making of them an intelligent, thrifty and self-sustaining people. This is a work that is worthy the attention of the Saints. We have gathered thousands from many nations. By the aid of the Almighty we have raised them out of penury and miserable dependence, and have taught them how to become wealthy in possessions, useful to themselves and their neighbors, good citizens, and, I trust, faithful Saints. We are still continuing our labors in gathering the poor from foreign lands, and the people are doing marvels in contributing their means for this purpose; and it is still coming, and we hope to be able to still enlarge our operations for the deliverance of the poor and downtrodden Saints of all nations. We can continue to receive and send means until July.

Now, sisters, will you commence to pay attention to the raising of silk? There are numbers of sisters in our community who could pay attention to this industry, and teach the children to gather the mulberry leaves and to feed the worms. I wish all those sisters whose hands are not tied with large families to enter into this business with heart and hand in their different wards. Plant the mulberry tree, and raise silk every year, also silkworm eggs. By pursuing this business faithfully, year by year, it will bring a yearly revenue to each ward of thousands of dollars, making the people more and more able to perform works of benevolence and mercy, and to make themselves more and more comfortable in their living.

The Kingdom of God is upward and onward, and will so continue until its power and influence extend to the relief of the honest of all nations. It is for us to look to the welfare of the Kingdom of God; for it alone will sustain us, build us up and save us now and hereafter, and prepare us to enjoy a blessed eternity. May God bless you. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, March 29th, 1868.

I am thankful for the privilege of again meeting with the Saints in this city, for the privilege of speaking to them, and of hearing others speak; and, in fact, I am happy in this life, which is a very excellent one, answering the purpose for which it has been ordained—a state of existence wherein to prepare for a better kingdom and a better life. We are now in a day of trial to prove ourselves worthy or unworthy of the life which is to come. We have reason to be thankful that the Lord has given unto us this opportunity and privilege of receiving truth and acting upon it for our own good, the privilege of increasing in knowledge and in wisdom, in understanding and in all things pertaining to this life and to that which is to come. I often think that we are dull scholars, slow to comprehend things as they are, slow to believe, and slow to act in the right. We often act without wisdom, and often speak without consideration, causing grief and sorrow to our hearts. But we are here in this life to learn; we are in a great school, and if we are diligent and faithful, and fervent in our studies, then we have hope of being prepared to enter into an existence wherein we shall receive more than we can receive in this state—where we can adopt in our lives principles of exaltation and progres– sion faster than we can here. Let us apply our minds to wisdom in this life.

The Latter-day Saints who dwell in these valleys have left their all to gather with the Saints, and for the express purpose of preparing for the coming of the Son of Man. When we consider this, and then consider how we spend our time—the precious time allotted to us in this life—to me it is a matter of astonishment. Men and women for slight causes make shipwreck of faith, lose the spirit of the Gospel, losing the object for which they left their homes and their friends. We are all searching for happiness; we hope for it, we think we live for it, it is our aim in this life. But do we live so as to enjoy the happiness we so much desire? There is only one way for Latter-day Saints to be happy, which is simply to live their religion, or in other words believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ in every part, obeying the gospel of liberty with full purpose of heart, which sets us free indeed. If we will, as a community, obey the law of God, and comply with the ordinances of salvation, then we may expect to find the happiness we so much desire, but if we do not pursue this course we cannot enjoy the unalloyed happiness which is to be found in the Gospel. To profess to be a Saint, and not enjoy the spirit of it, tries every fiber of the heart, and is one of the most painful experiences that man can suffer. Let not the Latter-day Saints deceive themselves, let them not pursue a course that will bring sorrow to their hearts instead of joy and peace. Let them not flatter themselves that they will receive salvation in the kingdom of God while living in the neglect of their duties. Unless we live our religion and sanctify ourselves by the law of God, we flatter ourselves in vain that we shall be made instrumental in the hands of God in preparing the way for the coming of the Son of Man, for the redemption of Zion according to the words of the prophets, for the redemption of the earth, for the gathering of the children of Israel to the lands of their forefathers, for the ushering in of the fullness of the Gentiles and the reign of universal peace. These are serious matters with me, and should be looked upon as such by all the people.

It is true that we are weak, feeble, frail, and prone to wander from the paths of righteousness. We are made subject to vanity, still it is our duty to bring into subjection to the law of Christ all the powers of our natures. If we thus subdue the wicked man that is within us, sanctifying the Lord God in our hearts, we may then begin to enjoy the glorious hope of joining the throng that will be gathered with the sanctified, and of being prepared for the coming of the Son of Man, when it will be said—“Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.” Now, will we deceive ourselves and be found among the foolish virgins, with no oil in our vessels; and when the wheat and the tares are separated, shall I be found a tare or a wheat? Let us ask ourselves the question, am I a wheat or a tare? The proof as to whether we are tares or wheat may be seen in our lives, as it is written—“For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Again, “not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” This is the proof—keep the commandments, observe the ordinances, and preserve the institutions of Christ’s Church inviolate, doing all things that are required of us, as unto the Lord, sanctifying ourselves before Him, and, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” By pursuing this course no person who is a true follower of Christ will be left without a witness, for “if any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.” I am satisfied that no man can live faithfully according to the requirements of heaven without having the testimony of the Spirit that they are born of God; but if they do not live so, they have no such assurance, for the Lord is under no obligation to give them the witness of the Spirit, but if they live as He requires them He will fulfill unto them His promise. He is held to this according to His own word to His children that He would send unto them the spirit of promise, even the Holy Ghost, which will show them things to come.

When I speak to the Saints I include myself. I profess to be a Saint with the rest of my brethren and sisters, and my public and private life is the proof whether I am truly a Saint or not. This is not all, but the spirit which I possess and communicate to the people is another proof, and the spirit which you possess and communicate to your neighbors is the proof by which you are known, as it is with myself. If we walk in obedience to the covenants which we have made with God and one another, we have the assurance that we shall walk no more in darkness, but in the light of life—in the light of the countenance of our heavenly Father. Then we can bear witness that we are born of God, and testify of Jesus as being the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth; and we then can strengthen our brethren, and are prepared to speak the truth to a wicked world and call upon them to repent, and forsake their sins, return unto the Lord, seek salvation, and make their peace with God before it is too late.

A great many good people, who possess much of the spirit of the Lord, are naturally given to doubting, having so little self-reliance that they sometimes doubt whether they are Saints in truth or not. These often doubt when they should not. So long as they are walking humbly before God, keeping His commandments, and observing His ordinances, feeling willing to give all for Christ, and do everything that will promote His kingdom, they need never doubt, for the Spirit will testify to them whether they are of God or not. There are some who are always fearful, trembling, doubting, wavering, and at the same time doing everything they can for the promotion of righteousness. Yet they are in doubts whether they are doing the best possible good, and they fear and fail here and there, and will doubt their own experience and the witness of the Spirit to them.

As we are now partaking of the emblems of the body and blood of the Savior, I will refer to this ordinance of the house of God, and ask the Latter-day Saints to call to mind their own feelings on this subject, as a testimony regarding their faith and assurance. Do you delight to partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper? Would you assemble yourselves together here, Sabbath after Sabbath, for the express purpose of partaking of the broken bread, and of this water that has been prepared, as a witness to God, our Father, that we have received the Gospel of His Son, that we do delight in His words, and in keeping His commandments and requirements, thus testifying to our Heavenly Father, and to His Son Jesus Christ, that we are the disciples of Jesus? Would you leave your homes in the distant parts of the city to bear this witness and attend a meeting to observe this ordinance? The great majority of this people would do this Sabbath after Sabbath, month after month, and year after year, if they were left entirely to their own choice, without the interference of bishops and teachers, while a few would consider it not convenient to attend meeting, because the witness of the Spirit is not in them. Again, do we delight to call upon the Father in the name of Jesus—is it our joy and happiness to do so? Do we believe that He will hear our prayers, and that we shall receive benefit from our petitions to Him in the name of Jesus? Do we rely upon Him, and are we acquainted with His character in the least degree? Have we any knowledge of Him? Let us answer these questions in our own minds, that we may ascertain whether we do delight to bow down before Him to ask for the things which we need, and seek unto Him for His Spirit to guide us, and preserve us from all danger, that we may not wander into by and forbidden paths and fall out by the way, but be kept constantly in the narrow path which leads to life everlasting. Is it our pleasure to do good to our fellow creatures, by traveling far away from our homes and friends to preach the gospel to a perishing world? This applies to the Elders of Israel, and also to the mothers and daughters and sons of those Elders. Do they delight to part with their husbands that they may go and call upon the nations to repent of their sins? Is it a joy to them to bear the burdens of a family in the absence of their husbands, preserving everything they have left? Is it a pleasure for the Elders to travel among the nations without purse or scrip, traveling from people to people, and from neighborhood to neighborhood, submitting to the finger of scorn and the abuse of the wicked and ungodly?

I will here say, however, that I have been treated kindly when traveling among strangers to preach this gospel. I do not know that I ever asked for a meal of victuals without obtaining it. Still, I have seen enough from the experience of others to know the real feelings, and to understand the desires of the ungodly concerning the Elders of Israel. They do not desire them any good.

If you can answer these questions in the affirmative, it is a testimony to you that you delight in the things of God, that you delight in building up His kingdom, that you delight in the Zion of the Lord as established in latter days. The answer of every faithful heart to these questions is—Yes, I delight in these things, and these are so many evidences that they are of God. Do we delight to feed the poor and clothe the naked? We do. I am happy in my reflections, it is a source of gratification to contemplate facts as they are, and I can say of a truth that I have done more, probably a hundred times over, for my enemies in feeding, clothing, and lodging them, and doing them good than they all ever did for me. Has a minister of religion ever passed through this country and been refused the privilege of speaking in any of our places of worship? No. Can the vilest of the vile enter into a house belonging to a Latter-day Saint and complain of suffering for food, and be turned away unsupplied? It is no matter whether they are Christian, Pagan, or Jew, they can tarry overnight and be made as comfortable as the family can make them, and they can depart in peace and safety. Can the Elders of Israel say this of the world? They cannot.

Whether it is a credit to me or not, that is with the Lord, but He has given me the ability that whenever I have wished to receive favors from those who knew me not I have obtained them. I know it is the custom of many Elders to say, “I am a ‘Mormon’ Elder; will you keep me overnight?” and he is at once spurned from the doors of the stranger. Whether it is a credit to me or not, I never told them I was a “Mormon” Elder until I got what I wanted. I have thus stopped at many a house, and had the privilege of introducing the principles of our religion, and they have exclaimed, “Well, if this is Mormonism, my house shall be your home as long as you stay in this neighborhood,” when, perhaps, if I had said, “I am a ‘Mormon’ Elder” at the first they would have refused me their hospitality. I can say to the world they used me pretty well, and I have no fault to find with them in this respect. I have been abused sometimes by priests, but on such occasions I have ever been ready to defend the cause of righteousness and preach the gospel to all. The Elders of Israel have received more kindness from the infidel portions of mankind where they have traveled, than from those who profess Christianity.

Thousands of the Elders of Israel who are now occupying these valleys are now willing, if called upon, to leave their families and homes to go and preach the Gospel in all the world, and be abused, and cast out and suffer poverty and want for the Gospel’s sake. Is not this a witness that you are right before God? It is. You are willing to feed and clothe the needy, and send means out of your scanty supplies to foreign lands to gather the poor Saints from those old countries; and it is marvelous in my eyes what the people have done within a few months back. About the 5th of February last we found that we could only raise about from eight to nine thousand dollars to send to Europe for the poor. Elders Hiram B. Clawson and Wm. C. Staines started for New York on the 17th of the month. Last Conference I had faith that the Lord would favor us and multiply means. When we came to send away the means we had, we were able to send 25,000 dols. with the brethren. This means was contributed in small amounts; but it is marvelous how it came in. We have exercised faith in this matter, and now we are able to send 25,000 dols. more, and we have not touched a bushel of wheat or a hundred of flour nor an animal that has been turned in, and the means keep coming in, and it comes more and more, and they will continue to give until the emigration is over. This is a witness to the people that they are right before high Heaven in these things, that the Elders are right in going to preach, that their wives and mothers and daughters are right in preserving their means and property from wasting in the absence of their natural guardians. They are right if they delight in coming to meeting to partake of the sacrament, and to bow down before the Lord and worship Him. They are right in feeding the poor and in paying their tithing.

I will here say to the Latter-day Saints, if you will feed the poor with a willing heart and ready hand neither you nor your children will ever be found begging bread. In these things the people are right; they are right in establishing Female Relief Societies, that the hearts of the widow and the orphan may be made glad by the blessings which are so abundantly and so freely poured out upon them. And, inasmuch as we have embraced the fullness of the Gospel with honest hearts, the Lord has sworn by Himself that He will save us if we will continue to be obedient to His will. It is our privilege to seek unto Him and obtain His Spirit to witness unto us continually regarding our labors and works, that we may always know whether we are in the line of our duty or not.

This is the gospel; this is the plan of salvation; this is the Kingdom of God; this is the Zion that has been spoken and written of by all the Prophets since the world began. This is the work of Zion which the Lord has promised to bring forth. We are right when we pray for our neighbors, for our brethren and friends, and for our enemies. We are right when we are striving to become of one heart and of one mind. We are right when we are humble before the Lord, when we are as willing to forgive as we are to be forgiven. We are right in educating our children, and while we strive to be educated in every useful branch of an English education, let us also be learned in every moral and physical attainment; let us learn how to take care of and preserve ourselves and friends, how to plant, how to gather, how to build up, and how to beautify.

The Saints in these mountains are a stalwart, athletic people. They have a great capital of bone, muscle, and sinew on hand. When this is not employed in the establishment and maintenance of various industries, in prudent, economical labor, the employed doing justice to the employer, working to do good for their own benefit and the benefit of the Kingdom of God, gathering around them in abundance the comforts of life, the great capital which God has given to us as individuals and as a people is wasted. This reminds me of what I said to the people of Provo. They naturally might have expected that they were going to be made more prosperous as a city by the money which we should take there. I told them that we brought nothing but knowledge to direct them in their labors and to teach them how to employ their time. This is the greatest wealth we possess—to know how to rightly direct our labors, spending every hour advantageously for the benefit of our wives and children and neighbors. This is right and commendable; it is required by Him whom we say we serve, and it is the only true way to fill honestly the mission we have here upon earth. We should not only learn the principles of education known to mankind, but we should reach out further than this, learning to live so that our minds will gather in information from the heavens and the earth until we can incorporate in our faith and understanding all knowledge which is useful and practicable in our present condition and that will lead to life eternal.

Ye wise men of the world, ye men who profess to know how to guide the destinies of great nations, ye kings and potentates, ye emperors and rulers, who of you could take a people as poor and as ignorant in the affairs of this world as the Latter-day Saints were when they were scattered abroad among the nations, and gather them together, organize them politically and religiously, and show them how to become healthy, wealthy, and wise like this people? Statesmen and rulers can lay waste and destroy, but who of them can build up, enrich, and save the nation? They are not to be found. They give no evidence of possessing the capacity, for the proof of the ability of men to rule and manage is their works. I told them at Provo I would teach them how to get rich, in wasting no time, and wisely disposing of all ability which God has given them to do good.

I have not spoken of the wrong, and I wish never to have an occasion to do so, that I may never have occasion to find fault with Israel again. It is the good I delight to dwell upon and promote and encourage. I delight to see the inhabitants of Zion increase in good works, in faith and faithfulness, and let sin pass behind, while they go on valiant and strong in the service of God. If we will hearken to counsel we shall be the best people in the world; we shall be as a bright light set upon a hill that cannot be hid, or like a candle upon a candlestick. We declare it to all the inhabitants of the earth from the valleys in the tops of these mountains that we are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—not a church but the church—and we have the doctrine of life and salvation for all the honest-in-heart in all the world. Who else has got it? Is it to be found in the creeds of Christendom? It is not. We have the living oracles of the Lord Almighty to lead us day by day. In consideration of these things we should be exemplary in all our actions. We may do great works for the good of the poor, we may give all our goods to feed them, and our bodies to be burned for the work of God, yet if we trifle with the sacred name of the Lord, and with our own salvation, it will profit us nothing, and we shall be found wanting, with no oil in our vessels in the great day of the Lord.

High Councilors, do you have any trials before you? “Yes.” Have the brethren complained of each other? “Yes.” Are their feelings alienated one from the other? Is there a party spirit manifested in the Council? “Sometimes.” Do the brethren go off satisfied with the decisions of the Council? Bishops, do you have any trials? Are the feelings of the brethren in your Wards alienated? “Yes.” What should they do in such cases? They should follow the rules laid down, and be reconciled to their brethren forthwith. I think that it can be shown that the great majority of difficulties between brethren, arises from misunderstandings rather than from malice and a wicked heart, and instead of talking the matter over with each other in a saint-like spirit, they will contend with each other until a real fault is created, and they have brought a sin upon themselves. “Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.” When we have done good ninety-nine times and then do an evil, how common it is, my brethren and sisters, to look at that one evil all the day long and never think of the good. Before we judge each other we should look at the design of the heart, and if it is evil, then chasten that individual, and take a course to bring him back again to righteousness.

I want you to learn all you possibly can, and teach your neighbors, giving them all the information you can. When I see a brother or a sister refuse to impart knowledge, I know there is something wrong in the heart of that person. I am here to do good, and to teach my brethren and sisters to sanctify themselves, to get their food, to build cities and make farms, to teach them to accumulate knowledge, and then dispense it to all.

I hope to see the time when we shall have a reformation in the orthography of the English language, among this people, for it is greatly needed. Such a reformation would be a great benefit, and would make the acquirement of an education much easier than at present. I say to fathers and mothers, never say a word that you would not be willing your son and daughter should say, or commit an act you would not sanction in your son or daughter, and so walk before your children that they may be prepared by your example to walk in the ways of life everlasting, and they will not depart from them; and if they, notwithstanding your example, should become froward in their feelings, and unruly, they will soon see the folly of their ways and turn to their parents and acknowledge their faults and again wish to be feasted at their father’s table. Parents should never drive their children, but lead them along, giving them knowledge as their minds are prepared to receive it. Solomon has written, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” I do not think that these words of Solomon will justify the ruling of children with an iron hand. Chastening may be necessary betimes, but parents should govern their children by faith rather than by the rod, leading them kindly by good example into all truth and holiness.

Our children who are born in the Priesthood are legal heirs, and entitled to the revelations of the Lord, and as the Lord lives, his angels have charge over them, though they may be left to themselves occasionally. We should learn our own nature, and live worthy of our being. When Jesus Christ was left to himself, in His darkest hour, he faltered not, but overcame. He was ordained to this work. If we should ever be left to ourselves, and the Spirit withdrawn from us, it will be to try the strength of our integrity and faithfulness, to see whether we will walk in His ways even in a dark and cloudy hour. At times our children may not be in possession of a good spirit, but if the parent continues to possess the good spirit, the children will have the bad spirit but a short time. Parents who are Latter-day Saints are the ruling power; they are the kings and queens. Rule in righteousness, and in the fear and love of God, and your children will follow you. May God bless you. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Old Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, February 16th, 1868.

I am thankful that I have the privilege of meeting with you; I am thankful for the blessings of this day, and that I live in this age of the world. The beginning of this dispensation of the fullness of times may well be compared to the commencement of a temple, the material of which it is to be built being still scattered, unshaped and unpolished, in a state of nature. I am thankful that the way is being prepared, and that we have the privilege of erecting a spiritual and moral superstructure—a temple of God. I am happy to be a member of this community; it is my joy, my delight to perform the little services which God has given me ability to do for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the children of men, for the establishment of the kingdom of God upon the earth, and for the bringing forth of His laws.

We have been gathered to the valleys of these mountains for the express purpose of purifying ourselves, that we may become polished stones in the temple of God, for it is written, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.” Christ is represented as a living stone, chosen of God and precious, and the Apostle represents the Saints “as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” We “are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the Saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth into an holy temple in the Lord.” Then my brethren, “what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” We are here for the purpose of establishing the kingdom of God on the earth. To be prepared for this work it has been necessary to gather us out from the nations and countries of the world, for if we had remained in those lands we could not have received the ordinances of the Holy Priesthood of the Son of God, which are necessary for the perfection of the Saints preparatory to His coming.

The great work of the gathering in the last days was plainly seen by the ancient Prophets and Apostles, and the glory of Zion was portrayed to them by the Spirit; but the sufferings and labors and toils and travels of the Saints to bring about the grand results which they saw they have not particularly described, for very likely the minutiae were not revealed to them; still they plainly saw by the spirit of revelation that the Saints would be gathered in the last days to be perfected and sanctified to become the bride, the Lamb’s wife. I suppose that the visions of the Lord and the revelation of His Spirit given to His faithful people in former times, relating to the Zion of the last days, were much the same as they are when given to His people in our days. When we first receive the Spirit of the Gospel we receive great joy therein, great peace, and great satisfaction to our minds; and we are carried away in the Spirit to behold the beauties of Zion, and to contemplate the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Our brethren and sisters far away among the nations, when they received the gospel, and the spirit of revelation came upon them, delighted to contemplate the gathering of the Saints, it was a matter of joy to them to dream about it and think about it when they would awake from their slumbers. They would reflect upon it through the day, and talk about it in their prayer meetings, and in their prayer circles at home, the subject of gathering to Zion was constantly before them if they lived so as to enjoy the spirit of their religion. This spirit caused their hearts constantly to rejoice; it was not the journey across the sea and across the plains that gave them joy, but it was the contemplation of Zion in its beauty and glory, for they could not see the troubles and disappointments, perplexities and vexations they would have to pass through in gathering to Zion, nor did they think of the hardships they would have to endure after they were gathered. So the ancients viewed the glory of Zion in the last days.

We cannot now administer the further ordinances of God in the fullest sense of the word legally unto the people, neither shall we be able to do so until we have a temple built for that purpose. Some may consider that I am notifying our common foe in saying this, but it is true, notwithstanding, and our common foe knows it. We must be situated in local circumstances wherein we can efficiently administer in those ordinances of the house of God that cannot be administered to a people while they are scattered abroad among the nations of the wicked. The Apostle John no doubt saw in vision, by the spirit of revelation, Zion in her beauty and perfection, and that Zion would have to be built up by the gathering of God’s people out of Babylon. Under the influence of the same spirit the Psalmist exclaims—“Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.” “He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. Gather my Saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” The High Priest Caiaphas, under the influence of the same spirit of prophecy, foretold that Jesus should die for the nation; “and,” as John says, “not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” The gathering previously foretold is now being accomplished, and wherever the children of men are, if there are individuals among them who would delight to be disciples of the Lord Jesus, forsake sin and sinful company and practices, they are called upon to gather out from the wicked and assemble themselves together at some place designated by the finger of the Almighty. This work the Lord commenced over thirty years ago, and it is still progressing; the call is still to His people among the nations of the earth—Gather out of her my people, be not partakers of her sins lest ye receive of her plagues. When the righteous are thus gathered they will then be prepared for the coming of the Messiah.

It was remarked by Elder Woodruff that he did not think it would be a hundred years before the Savior will come. It is no matter about when he will come; I do not think the Father has yet been pleased to reveal it to any man upon the earth, and I do not known that He has revealed it to the angels. He had not done so in the days of the Savior, and I do not think that He has yet revealed it. Whether He comes today, tomorrow, this week, next week, this year, or next year, it matters not; we should be prepared for His coming, and this should satisfy us. It is our duty to make a close application of the requirements of heaven to our lives, and qualify ourselves to accomplish the work which the Lord has committed into our hands. How can we perform this work? Can we do it by every man turning to his own way, and by following the vain imaginations of his own heart? No, we will all decide at once that we never can perform this labor without being guided and directed by the Lord himself, through the means which it pleases Him to use to bring about the perfecting of His people, to prepare them for the glory which is to follow. I would not question the truth of the statement that the people ordered their lives before the Lord and their neighbors while they were scattered among the nations more perfectly than they do here in many instances, for there they had nothing to try them only the com– mon enemy, and the finger of scorn pointed at them by unbelievers, which made them cling closer to their God; they had not the trials to undergo which the Saints have here. If it is necessary for us to be tried in all things, then weep not, mourn not because we are tried, neither let us object to the Lord directing our course in that path wherein the trials necessary for our perfection lie. If it is in sailing across the sea in ships, in being sick and cast down, in witnessing the sorrow of our dear friends, in receiving temptations and trials to which we have before been strangers; if it is in crossing the country from the United States to this place, by railroad or by ox team, no matter how, the Lord leads His people in this way expressly to give them trials which they have not passed through before, and which it is necessary they should have. While it is necessary that we should be tempted and tried, it is not necessary that we should give way to temptation.

The Latter-day Saints are often drawn into circumstances that are most peculiar, and sometimes very trying, yet there exists no other people on the earth who enjoy the privileges and the freedom that we do. Our laws are often trampled upon with impunity, and the offender goes free. The members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints often commit sins that if they were to commit in the world would cut them off from the church antichrist, yet we retain them as members of the Church of Christ in mercy, and in consideration of the weaknesses of poor human nature, and they pass along unscathed, receiving the fellowship of their faithful brethren and sisters with the hope that they will reform and learn to live their religion more faithfully.

It is absolutely necessary that the Saints should receive the further ordinances of the house of God before this short existence shall come to a close, that they may be prepared and fully able to pass all the sentinels leading into the celestial kingdom and into the presence of God. Our brethren and sisters who are scattered abroad must be gathered to be tried, and then to be blessed with a preparation for a glorious reward. This people will be tried more or less while they remain in the flesh; they may even be called as Abraham of old was to offer up that which is the most dear to them of all earthly objects for the Gospel’s sake. Some have already forsaken all and followed Christ; they have left their children, their husbands, their wives, their brothers and sisters and dear friends, some hoping again to see them, and many never expecting to see them again in this life. We shall be tried in all things, and the Lord is now disposed to try us by calling upon us to be of one heart and of one mind, to submit to be guided and dictated, governed and controlled by Him through the constituted authorities of His kingdom. We should not consider this a trial above what we can bear.

Is the wife tried because her husband wishes to dictate her and give her good and wholesome advice? Is somebody tried because his bishop wishes to control him for his good? Your bishop is very likely doing the best he can to advise the members of his ward for their best good. Does he advise you to do wrong? All the members of that ward who are full of faith and the power of God will be of one heart and mind with their bishop, and will go with him in all things, and while union continues in the Lord, He will cause every move they make to culminate for the greatest good to that people and the cause of truth. If a bishop counsels the people of his ward to swear shall they swear? No. If he counsels them to steal shall they steal? No. If he counsels them to lie and bear false witness shall they do these wrongs? No. If he teaches them to break the Sabbath shall they break the Sabbath? No. If a bishop or any other officer in this Church shall counsel the people to violate any of the laws of God, and to sustain and build up the kingdoms of this world, I will justify them, and the Lord will justify them in refusing to obey that counsel. But if they counsel you to do right, which they do, take their counsel. Instead of supporting antichrist we have agreed to give our time, our talent, our substance, our all, for the building up of the kingdom of God.

Do right, and you will be tried all you wish to bear, and if you overcome, being made perfect through suffering, your reward will be eternal life in the kingdom of God. Do wrong, and continue in doing wrong, and you will have trials more than you can bear, and be damned at last. When we receive chastisement let us not be discouraged, but be more faithful, enduring temptation, hardship, and perplexity, trusting in God, and walking in the light of His countenance day by day and hour by hour. By pursuing this course our life will be a cheerful and happy one even in the midst of severe trials. We have now some little trial to endure, but not much. We are part of a great nation; it has been one of the happiest and best nations that has ever existed with regard to liberty, the greatness of its institutions, and the land which it occupies. The Lord says—Let my servants and handmaidens be sealed, and let their children be sealed. This great and happy government under which we have lived so long says we shall not perform the ordinance of sealing. This may be a small trial to us for the moment. We shall see who will conquer—whether God will have His way in making manifest His purposes and having them fulfilled, or whether the wicked will have their way. They have had it, and have succeeded many times in overcoming the Saints and destroying them to that degree, causing them to apostatize, and putting them to death, that the Priesthood was taken from the children of men; but this is the last dispensation, and we shall see whether they succeed in this kind of proceeding now as they have formerly done.

The Lord has revealed His will for His servants to take more wives than one. Our government says that a man shall not have but one wife, though he may have as many mistresses as he pleases; he may ruin and destroy as many of the daughters of Eve as he pleases; but he is forbidden to acknowledge but one as his wife. The government says you shall only have one wife; the Lord says take unto yourselves wives; and Saints obey the Lord, and we shall see who will come off victorious. The ordinance of sealing must be performed here man to man, and woman to man, and children to parents, etc., until the chain of generation is made perfect in the sealing ordinances back to father Adam; hence, we have been commanded to gather ourselves together, to come out from Babylon, and sanctify ourselves, and build up the Zion of our God, by building cities and temples, redeeming countries from the solitude of nature, until the earth is sanctified and prepared for the residence of God and angels.

Our enemies say we shall not do this, and here will be a trial, as it has been for a long time past. One of the first objections that was urged against Joseph Smith was that he was a money digger; and now the digging of gold is considered an honorable and praiseworthy employment. They are hunting for gold all over the country, doing the very thing which they condemned in him. The next fault they found with Joseph and the Saints was that they were stirring up the slaves to rebellion against their masters; and this was published abroad. Have they not done, and are they not now doing, the very thing for which they falsely blamed the Saints? The next accusation was that the Saints took more wives than one. Whether they will make one grand sweep of it in the future, and all conclude to take more wives, I cannot say. I wish they might; I do not, however, wish this for any private benefit it will be to me or to God’s people, but that they may make women honorable wives whom they now destroy, and conduct themselves more like human beings who bear the image of God than they now do before Him. It is for their own sakes that I wish this, and for the sake of the unfortunate females whom they outrage. I would like you to behold your little darling sisters and daughters here throwing themselves in the way of the Gentiles. Any Mormon brother or father who can suffer this to go on without reproof or advice must be ignorant of the consequences. The Lord says to the sons of Israel, take the daughters of Israel to wife, and make them honorable, and let them multiply and replenish the earth, and fill up the measure of their creation, that their names may be had in honorable remembrance to the latest generation on earth and in eternity. Supposing that the Latter-day Saints had possessed the city of New York for the last twenty years, as they have these valleys of Utah, and the young women of that city from sixteen years of age to twenty-one had been in the hands of Mormon Elders as wives, how many would have now been living and honorable mothers of a bright, intelligent, and vigorous race of men and women, that have met an untimely grave, husbandless, childless, friendless, disgraced, and forgotten? Under such circumstances there would have been now living in honor, according to moderate calculation, from two to four hundred thousand females, whose filthy and corrupted remains are now mingling with the dust of that sinful city.

This is a waste of life. Who will be answerable to God in the day of judgment for such acts? The voice of the Lord is gather out from her, my people, that ye partake not of her sins nor of her plagues, and build temples to My name, and seal up My sons and daughters to eternal life, to prepare them for My coming, for “the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion; and also the Lord shall have power over His Saints, and shall reign in their midst, and shall come down in judgment upon Idumea, or the world.” For, behold, the days are coming in which they shall say—“Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the paps that never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” Devouring flames have already taken hold of the dry tree, and the hand of God in judgment is beginning to be felt by this nation, and soon will be upon all nations under heaven. Who will acknowledge the hand of God in the sufferings, travails, and deliverance of this people from the hands of their persecutors, and His handiwork in sustaining them in the wilderness, through sorrow, affliction, poverty, and wretchedness? All the faithful Saints will do it; but how few outsiders, as we call them, will stop to pray to God in the name of Jesus to know if this work is true; they pass it by as a thing of nought, as unworthy of their attention; they are so absorbed in the affairs of this world that the preparation for the next scarcely enters into their thoughts, and many of this class are honorable men.

I rejoice when I contemplate the work of the last days, and survey the Saints in their possessions in Utah. I have but one text which I desire to keep before them—it is to forsake their sins and become united as one man in the purpose of all their temporal acts, that their labors may all center in the building up and sustaining of God’s kingdom instead of building up the kingdoms of this world.

For their consolation I will say to my brethren and sisters that we have had a very happy time on our short visit in the south, and I think I never experienced greater peace, sweeter peace, than I have done on our short visit to Provo a week ago. We left the city a week ago last Friday, and returned again to this city on the Tuesday following. We had a most excellent meeting at American Fork, and everybody and everything seemed to cry peace on earth and good will to men. When we returned home we found rumors that there had been difficulty in Provo, and some of the brethren had been killed. Br. Heber C. Kimball, in conversing upon this subject in the School of the Prophets, remarked that the brethren voted that we should go to Provo and that the angels of the Lord should accompany us, but he did not expect that they would all go with us and leave you without any. There are good Saints in Provo, and they want to be better Saints; they may have committed errors, but when you arrive at the truth of the matter, they wish to be Saints. We are all called to be Saints, to be filled with the purity of God, and with the power of the Holy Spirit of the Lord Jesus—the spirit of revelation—we are called from darkness into light, from error to truth, from the power of Satan to the living God, we are called from the kingdoms of darkness to the kingdom of God and light, and, by and by, we shall be chosen because we are worthy, and it will be said to us: “You have lived the life of a Saint, now you are chosen to be an heir of the celestial kingdom of our Father and God.” Let us not forget, my brethren and sisters, the gathering of the Saints for sanctification and preparation to inherit all things. Let us live closer to our duty, that we may be sanctified and be prepared to dwell together in the celestial kingdom, which may God grant. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered at Provo, Saturday, February 8th, 1868.

I am happy in the privilege of meeting with you. We have come here to lay before you matters pertaining to the building up of the kingdom of God upon the earth. The remarks which you have just heard from Brother George A. Smith are to the point. As far as I am acquainted with the inhabitants of Provo I think they are as good a people as those who dwell in Salt Lake City or in any other settlement in Utah Territory. I think much of Provo; it is a very favored locality. We have established a school of the prophets in Salt Lake City. It is written in a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, August, 1833—“Be hold, I say unto you, concerning the school in Zion, I, the Lord, am well pleased that there should be a school in Zion.” And when speaking of the President of that school, it is written—“And I will bless him with a multitude of blessings, in expounding all scriptures and mysteries to the edification of the school and of the Church in Zion.”

When the school of the prophets was inaugurated one of the first revelations given by the Lord to His servant Joseph was the Word of Wisdom. The members of that school were but a few at first, and the prophet commenced to teach them in doctrine to prepare them to go out into the world to preach the gospel unto all people, and gather the elect from the four quarters of the earth, as the prophets anciently have spoken. While this instruction prepared the Elders to administer in word and doctrine, it did not supply the teachings necessary to govern their private or temporal lives; it did not say whether they should be mer– chants, farmers, mechanics, or money changers. The prophet began to instruct them how to live that they might be the better prepared to perform the great work they were called to accomplish. I think I am as well acquainted with the circumstances which led to the giving of the Word of Wisdom as any man in the Church, although I was not present at the time to witness them. The first school of the prophets was held in a small room situated over the Prophet Joseph’s kitchen, in a house which belonged to Bishop Whitney, and which was attached to his store, which store probably might be about fifteen feet square. In the rear of this building was a kitchen, probably ten by fourteen feet, containing rooms and pantries. Over this kitchen was situated the room in which the Prophet received revelations and in which he instructed his brethren. The brethren came to that place for hundreds of miles to attend school in a little room probably no larger than eleven by fourteen. When they assembled together in this room after breakfast, the first they did was to light their pipes, and, while smoking, talk about the great things of the kingdom, and spit all over the room, and as soon as the pipe was out of their mouths a large chew of tobacco would then be taken. Often when the Prophet entered the room to give the school instructions he would find himself in a cloud of tobacco smoke. This, and the complaints of his wife at having to clean so filthy a floor, made the Prophet think upon the matter, and he inquired of the Lord relating to the conduct of the Elders in using tobacco, and the revelation known as the Word of Wisdom was the result of his inquiry. You know what it is, and can read it at your leisure.

So we see that almost the very first teachings the first Elders of this Church received were as to what to eat, what to drink, and how to order their natural lives, that they might be united temporally as well as spiritually. This is the great purpose which God has in view in sending to the world, by His servants, the gospel of life and salvation. It will teach us how to deal, how to act in all things, and how to live with each other to become one in the Lord. There is no question but that the waste places of Zion will be built up, that temples of God will be reared, and the Elders of Israel will enter into them and perform ordinances for the redemption of their dead friends back to Adam; but do you know the method of operation by which this will be brought about? Do you understand the workings of this great machinery of salvation to accomplish the great end for which we are looking? With all of our experience we have but a very scanty or partial knowledge of this great work. We say that we will enter into this business or that business to suit our own tastes and notions, without thinking whether our proceedings will advance the kingdom of God or not, and when strangers come into our midst we are too apt to strengthen their hands, to destroy the very Zion which we are trying to build up. It may be that those who do this are not aware of the evil which they commit in taking this course; for while we encourage and strengthen those who are not of us, at the same time we firmly believe that scripture of the revelator respecting the separation of the Saints from the wicked—“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying: Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

We have met in these valleys of the mountains with an eye to the perfection of the Latter-day Saints as individuals or as a community, that instead of every man turning to his own way, all should be willing to be controlled by the God of heaven. We have established a school in Salt Lake City for the instruction of the Elders of Israel in the doctrines which are contained in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Book of Doctrine and Covenants, etc., and that is also the place where questions may be asked, and instructions given touching all doctrines and principles that may be entertained by them. That is also the place where correction may be given and explanations be made upon all matters which pertain to the temporal and spiritual lives of the Saints. It is about two months since that school was established.

There have been petitions presented to the Legislature and much said concerning the division of this county. While cogitating upon this matter in our class, it came to me very forcibly to make a proposition for a few men to go to Provo and comfort the hearts of the brethren here, to show them the necessity of becoming one, of laying aside all individual bickerings, of overlooking and forgiving the weakness of one another, and of uniting our faith together to make this one of the most beautiful and lovely cities of Zion. Why not do this, brethren? I believe I made the motion myself before the class for President B. Young and President H. C. Kimball to go to Provo and make homes there, and live there a portion of the time; others were also named to do the same. If the brethren of the city of Provo are willing for us to dictate and guide them, and make our homes with them, we will try to do them good, and teach them the ways of life and salvation, and show them how to overcome the darkness so natural to the human mind, and give them extended ideas on the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth.

I have been informed by your presiding Bishop that this day was set apart for the people to make nominations for their municipal election. At the meeting for this purpose the people will have an opportunity of expressing their views and of making their nominations. If we would live according to the laws of God, be contented to live according to the rules and regulations of the Holy Priesthood, we should have but little use for probate courts, district courts, or supreme courts in our Territory; their existence here would only be in a name and form, for the people would live above the laws of man. We should have very little use for anything else in the shape of Government but the Priesthood, which is after the order of the Son of God. The Jews and Gentiles have of late brought some of their difficulties before the High Council in Salt Lake City for adjudication, in preference to going before the District Court; and the High Council, I believe, has invariably given satisfaction when such cases have been brought before it. This is a step in the right direction—to settle all matters without having recourse to law, which would do away with the necessity of employing and paying lawyers, court fees, etc. If we could ever see the time when we will live according to the laws of the Lord as given to us, and never suffer ourselves to transgress the wholesome, just, and righteous principles and rules which they inculcate for our guidance, we could live within ourselves, sustain ourselves, and make ourselves rich—rich in the knowledge of God and in the possession of this life. If we could learn to sustain one another and the interests of the kingdom of God, we would advance in the wealth of this world much faster than to sustain those who have no interest whatever with us. I would delight much to see a people who would actually live the principles of the Holy Gospel in every respect. But we are careless and thoughtless; we are not ignorant of the fact that we are continually making ourselves poorer by our unwise proceedings. This is grievous to behold. If every man in this Church would consent to be guided by the dictations of the Holy Priesthood in all their business transactions, dealing honestly with one another, giving to every man his due, instead of making a few rich and a great many poor, we would all become rich together, and have every convenience and appliance which is calculated to give comfort and happiness to man. We have got now about ten thousand dollars for the gathering of the poor, and a number of cattle of various kinds and ages, which we shall sell as soon as possible for money. If we had the money which the people have squandered by their injudicious trading, and by wrongly applied labor, we should have means sufficient to gather every poor Saint in the old world.

I can see the foolishness of the Elders of Israel in wandering here and there with their produce to make gain, and trying to undersell each other; they have always lost by this proceeding, whereas if they had stayed at home they would have made money. Every man who has property and means should live so as to obtain wisdom to know how to use them in the best possible way to produce the greatest amount of good for himself, for his family, and for the kingdom of God; but instead of taking this course it does appear that the great majority of the Elders of Israel are crazy to run here and there to get rid of what they possess at any price. What for? Do they do this to build up the Kingdom of God? “Have you built a good house?” “No.” “What have you got?” “Folly, folly, weakness, and poverty.” When we can get the people to stay at home, and observe the law of God, we have the things of God for them, and the things of the world too as soon as they are prepared to receive them and make a good use of them. It grieves me to see the people take such special pains to make themselves foolish and miserable. I am speaking of the community, and it is the one man, the one woman, and the one child multiplied that makes the great nation or people. Let us learn wisdom and govern ourselves accordingly.

We shall hold meeting among you today and tomorrow, and I hope the people of Provo will be benefited by our visit, and I pray that they will apply their hearts to understand, receive, and treasure up, and bring forth truth to the glory of God. Amen.