Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, October 18, 1857.

I purpose to have read to you this morning some of the communications that have passed between our enemies and ourselves, for the people are anxious to know the feeling of the two parties; they are very anxious to learn the news. I am perfectly willing that they should know all, for my feelings and yours are very different from those of the world. You are aware that among the nations the soldiers are never permitted to know anything about the plans of the officers: statesmen withhold from their constituents every policy they possibly can, and the statement of one of them is verily true pertaining to their use of the English language—that is, to secrete ideas instead of revealing them. Men study to talk a great deal, when at the same time they know but very little, and often even strive to conceal the little they do know. Among its other capabilities, the English language is better adapted than any other in existence to the using of thousands of words without conveying an idea.

If the Government of the United States have sent soldiers to this Territory, I do not know it; for I have had no official notice of such a circumstance, and you will perceive that I treat them accordingly. If they are sent by Government, they are sent expressly to destroy this people; and if they are not sent by the Government, they have come expressly to destroy this people; therefore I shall treat them, as I have informed the officer in command, the same as though they were an avowed mob—not as I would those who have heretofore mobbed us, but as parties who have come to mob us now.

I have informed Colonel Alexander that had his command been the men who have heretofore mobbed us, and the lying scribblers and the wicked rabble, who have all the day long been trying to incite mobs against us, they never would have seen the South Pass.

You will perceive from the communications which brother John T. Caine will read, the feelings of the two parties—myself representing the Latter-day Saints, and Colonel Alexander representing the officers of what he states to be a portion of the United States army. Whether it is or not, I have no business to know, and shall not know, until I am officially notified.

Brother Caine will now read the principal letters in the order best adapted to your comprehending their purport.

[Brother Caine read an unofficial letter from President Brigham Young to Colonel Alexander, dated Oct. 14; one from Lieut. General Wells to President Young, dated Oct. 15; one from Colonel Alexander to Governor Young, dated Oct. 12; and one from Governor Young to Colonel Alexander, dated Oct. 16.]

There are a good many here who have not witnessed the scenes of persecution that some of us have. I was asking father Morley, this morning, whether he thought the enemy could now ride into our cornfields and through our gardens and shoot down our cattle, and plunder and burn our houses, as they did in Missouri.

When the mob in Missouri commenced burning our habitations, we frequently sent to the Governor, petitioning him to stop mobbings; but, instead of doing that, he rendered them assistance, by ordering about 3,500 men to go and lay waste the city of Far West, and destroy men, women, and children. Those orders General Clark had, though at their close the Governor said to him, “I shall leave it discretionary with you whether you kill all the Mormons or not.” We saw them coming, and some thought they were sent to disperse the mob, in answer to our petition; but the mob were expecting them and seemed to understand the movement.

The first act that I saw General Clark’s army perform was to throw down about half a mile of fence that opened into a six hundred acre field of corn. The mob mingled with the army, and they rode and drove their animals into and through that cornfield. At night, they took the rails and burned them for firewood, and let their horses run loose in the field. That I saw and knew; hence I was just asking father Morley whether he thought our enemies could now ride into the cornfields of the “Mormons.” He said that he thought they could not. This blessing makes me say, Hallelujah to God.

It is pretty hard for us to come here with nothing; and we have come as near coming here with nothing as the Lord did to creating the heavens and the earth out of nothing; and I have frequently thought a little higher. I do not think that he was under the necessity of borrowing; but I was. I believe that the Lord has material enough to build all he wants; but I had almost nothing. Some of us worked in the Temple in Nauvoo until about five days before we left, which gave us but little opportunity for outfitting, though many were crossing the river before that time.

If I remembered rightly, I then owned one span of horses and a buggy that brother Daniel Spencer gave me. I traded for wagons, other things that I needed, and for an old horse. I then had three horses and three wagons. I bought, and borrowed, and traded, and got the brethren to help me out; and a good many others borrowed on my credit. Suffice it to say, we left our houses and lands and thousands and thousands of bushels of grain.

This year has made me think of the season that we were obliged to leave Nauvoo. That was one of the most productive seasons ever known in the State of Illinois. It has been asked me by some of the brethren, “Do you think we shall have to leave our fine crops? The earth seems to be loaded as well as it was in Nauvoo.” We have not got to leave; we shall not be obliged to leave our crops and our houses to our enemies: we can sustain ourselves. It makes me rejoice that we are now in a situation that, if this people will live as they should live, they will no more have to be driven as we have been hitherto. Should we ever be obliged to leave our houses, the decree of my heart is that there shall naught be left for our enemies but the ashes of all that will burn. [The congregation responded, “Amen.“] They shall not have my house nor my furniture, as they have had hitherto.

That privilege gives me joy and comfort; and I will now say to those who are not acquainted with such scenes (for many of you are not), that if you see the time that you are obliged to lay waste and leave your homes, you will say, right in the time, and afterwards, that you never felt so well in your lives; for the Spirit and power of God will rest upon you in proportion to the necessity of the case. I know that those who have been in our past troubles—those who have been in the midst of death and destitution can bear testimony that they never enjoyed so much of the Spirit of the Lord at any other time in their lives. I do not know that anybody complained in Nauvoo, except brother Kimball; and he was only sorry that the war closed so soon, for we had our eyes upon a good many of those infernal scoundrels, and we wanted to sod them.

We have sought for peace all the day long; and I have sought for peace with the army now on our borders, and have warned them that we all most firmly believe that they are sent here solely with a view to destroy this people, though they may be ignorant of that fact. And though we may believe that they are sent by the Government of the United States, yet I, as Governor of this Territory, have no business to know any such thing until I am notified by proper authority at Washington. I have a right to treat them as a mob, just as though they had been raised and officered in Missouri and sent here expressly to destroy this people. We have been very merciful and very lenient to them. As I informed them in my unofficial letter, had they been those mobocrats who mobbed us in Missouri, they never would have seen the South Pass. We had plenty of boys on hand, and the mode of warfare they would have met with they are not acquainted with.

I would just as soon tell them as to tell you my mode of warfare. As the Lord God lives, we will waste our enemies by millions, if they send them here to destroy us, and not a man of us be hurt. That is the method I intend to pursue. Do you want to know what is going to be done with the enemies now on our borders? If they come here, I will tell you what will be done. As soon as they start to come into our settlements, let sleep depart from their eyes and slumber from their eyelids until they sleep in death, for they have been warned and forewarned that we will not tamely submit to being destroyed. Men shall be secreted here and there and shall waste away our enemies, in the name of Israel’s God.

I have thought that perhaps the Lord designs to furnish us a little clothing and ammunition; and if he does, he will permit our enemies to try to come in here; but if he sees that that would be an injury to us, he will turn them another way.

I intend to publish the communications between the army and myself; for I wish the whole United States to understand it.

Colonel Alexander complains of our mode of warfare. They have two or more field batteries of artillery with them, and they want us to form a line of battle in an open plain and give them a fair chance to shoot us. I did not tell the Colonel what I thought; but if he had a spark of sense, he must be a fool to think that we will ever do any such thing. I am going to observe the old maxim—

“He that fights and runs away Lives to fight another day.”

Should our enemies venture upon violent measures, I design to so manage affairs that none of our boys will be killed; and in my answer to the Colonel, I have told him pretty plainly what we shall do under certain contingencies.

Did he not granny it off admirably about the prisoners, when he wrote, “I need not assure you that not a hair of their heads will be hurt?” He dare not hurt them, neither has he the first particle of reason for hurting them. He has released and sent in the younger brother with an express, under the alleged consideration of his having a wife and three children entirely dependent upon him. I wonder that the Colonel had not a young officer to send with him.

The boys report their order of march to be the 10th Infantry in front, the baggage in the center, the 5th Infantry in the rear, and several flanking companies traveling through the brush as best they can. Don’t you think they would look well coming from the United States in that way? That is the way in which they were traveling at our last advices, and it was said that their picket guard declared they would not watch.

If the soldiers knew the facts in the case as do their officers, they would probably nearly all leave the army; but the officers keep the soldiers in the dark. The last report is that the officers had been telling the men that I had written a very favorable letter to Colonel Alexander, and that they were intending to come in.

When I think, Are they in your houses? Are they in your fields? I can answer, No: they are in the mountains; they are in the cold and snow; and if they continue, as those officers appear to intend to, upon the side of despotism and mobocracy, they justly ought to be served as we would serve all mobocrats. But we are here and we are free, as brother Kimball has said—just as free, in one sense, as we ever shall be. We need not think that we are always going to be unmolested by the efforts of mobs, until wickedness is swept from this earth. If we live, we shall see the nations of the earth arrayed against this people; for that time must come, in fulfillment of prophecy. Tell about war commencing! Bitter and relentless war was waged against Joseph Smith before he had received the plates of the Book of Mormon; and from that time till now the wicked have only fallen back at times to gain strength and learn how to attack the kingdom of God.

Colonel Alexander preached to me a little, stating in his letter, “I warn you that the bloodshed in this contest will be upon your head.” But that warning gave me no thought. But if the blood of those soldiers is shed, it will be upon the heads of their officers.

What they will do I neither know nor care; for it will be just as the Lord God wills it. If he sees that we need their substance, he will turn things to that end; and if he designs them to be wiped out, he will either cause them to undertake to come here or will overrule some other plan to accomplish that end.

Another year I am going to prepare for the worst, and I want you to prepare to cache our grain and lay waste this Territory; for I am determined, if driven to that extremity, that our enemies shall find nothing but heaps of ashes and ruins. We will be so prepared that in a few days all can be consumed. I shall request the Bishops to see that the people in their wards are provided with two or three years’ provisions. There is already enough raised in many places this season to supply the people from two to three years, and I wish them to take care of it; though I expect that in all probability we will raise a great many crops before our enemies again attempt to come here to disturb us; and I expect that we are fully able to defend ourselves, and that our enemies will not be able to come within a hundred miles of us. I know that ten men, such as I could name and select, could stop them before they got to Laramie. And if we had seen fit to have sent such men this season, they alone could very easily have so stopped our enemies that they never would have got through the Black Hills. I count five such men equal to twenty-five thousand, and believe that two of them could put ten thousand to flight. I believe we are now where that could be done. I will take five or ten such as I can name; and if two can put ten thousand to flight, I am sure that ten are perfectly able to do it.

Who has sought for war? Have we? No. We have preached the Gospel to Saints and strangers, when strangers would come and tarry long enough to hear it. We do not want to stand here and talk about war. There is nothing so repugnant to my feelings as to injure or destroy. But what is upon us? Nothing, only another manifestation of the opposition of the Devil to the kingdom of God. War has been declared against the Saints over twenty-seven years, and our enemies have only fallen back so as to gain strength and pretexts for making another attack. Will that spirit increase? If it does, and we love our religion, let me tell you that we will increase faster than our enemies will. This Territory and people are perfectly able to defend themselves, with the help of our God. They are perfectly able to set apart men of the right stripe and maintain a standing army that can keep off the armies of our enemies. And if the world combine against us, so we are but one, then all will go on well and work together for our good.

Our enemies, in the last treaty they made with us, should have stipulated that we should have gone only a short distance, so that we would not be out of their reach. They had better have made that stipulation; but they did not have wisdom, or they would have stopped us from going so far away. They drove us away from their society and allowed us to travel so far over the sage plains, that it is impossible for an army to bring provisions enough to last them here.

I have been told that the first artillery company, upon its arrival at La– ramie, loaded up all the grain they could haul to feed their mule teams; and when they reached the Devil’s Gate they sent forward after their grain from their freight trains, and then they had not enough to last them to Ham’s Fork. It is impossible for them to load up teams with sufficient forage to last them to Green River; and the more men they send the more there are to eat up what the mule and ox-trains haul; and the consequence is that the more men they send the worse it is all the time.

If they undertake to send fifty thousand men to Utah, I will venture to say that they cannot raise so large a company in the United States but what would cut each other’s throats before they traveled a thousand miles across the Plains, to say nothing about any other persons molesting them. They would be cursing, damning, and howling all the way. I know that the comparatively few scattered here and there over the country and in the mountains can spoil their march before they could get here.

If the Lord sees that we need to be afflicted, he can apply the rod. I do not say this to urge you to your duty; for if you will not live your religion for the blessings that God bestows upon it, you will not live it anyhow; and the man who will not live his religion ought to be damned. Never serve God because you are afraid of hell; but live your religion, because it is calculated to give you eternal life. It points to that existence that never ends, while the other course leads to destruction, to dissolution, where they will be destroyed from the earth and from the eternities, and return back to the native elements.

What blessing can be bestowed upon man equal to that of eternal life? The greatest blessing that can be bestowed is that of eternal existence—to place mortal beings where they can endure forever—where they are free from sorrow and pain, and possessed of keys, thrones, and dominions—where they can be perfectly swallowed up in happiness and bliss. What greater gift can be bestowed upon beings? None. Therefore, if we will not live up to our religion, according to our ability, we ought to be damned.

We have the privilege of honoring the stations we are in; we have the privilege, in the Lord’s hands, of preparing for exaltation. We are compared to the making of pottery upon the wheel; but the Lord never intended to show in that comparison that we were helpless beings and had no agency. Clay has so little intelligence that it is often so full of lumps that it will mar; but it is not to blame for that: but the Lord says, “You, intelligent Israel, are to blame, if you do not obey my voice; and if you are disobedient, I will serve you as the potter serves the clay that has very little intelligence. You, Israel, are capable of choosing, you are capable of refusing, you are capable of performing, you are capable of hearing counsel from my mouth and of carrying out those principles that I tell you; but the clay upon the wheel has no such intelligence; and if you do not obey my voice, it will prove that you are not worthy of intelligence, any more than the clay upon the potter’s wheel: consequently, the intelligence that you are endowed with will be taken from you, and you will have to go into the mill and be ground over again.”

I wish the people to hasten and gather together and secure all that they have raised in the fields; and when this little skirmish is over, I am going to instruct the people to begin to prepare for going into the mountains, also to raise their grain another year, and to secure that which we now have by putting it where our enemies cannot find it.

You want to know where you can go. I know of places enough where I can hide this people and a thousand times more, and our enemies may hunt till doomsday and not be able to find us.

I do not know but we shall call upon the sisters to go into the fields and raise potatoes while their husbands go out to war; and if they can do that, then perhaps we will see whether they can go into the fields and raise wheat while their husbands are defending Zion. In such an operation we shall call for volunteers; we shall have no compulsion about it. So soon as I learn that a woman would sooner go to the enemy’s camp, just so soon I will send her; and you may mark it. I shall not warrant such a one safe, only until she reaches the enemy’s camp. I told a man yesterday—one that I understood wanted to go away, “If that is your feeling and faith, I want you immediately conveyed to those troops.” I want to forthwith send to our enemies every man and every woman that does not wish to do right, but wishes to join them in their crusade against this people. You may enquire why I take that course. I answer, So as to send them to hell as quickly as possible.

That reminds me of a circumstance that transpired here some years ago. A man from Boston, on his way to the gold diggings, stopped a few days in this city and heard me preach. Soon afterwards I met him in the street, and he asked me if I knew where hell was. I told him I thought that he was on the road to that very place; and when he crossed over the Sierra Nevada mountains into the gold diggings in California, if he discovered that he had not found hell, to come back and let me know. As I have not since heard from him, I presume he found it, which I now think a person will who goes East as well as West.

The President of the United States, his Cabinet, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the priests of the various religious sects and their followers have joined in a crusade to waste away the last vestige of truth and righteousness from this earth, and especially from this part of it. Yes, they have joined together; and we have to maintain truth and righteousness, virtue and holiness, or they will be driven from the earth. With us, it is the kingdom of God, or nothing; and we will maintain it, or die in trying—though we shall not die in trying. It is comforting to many to be assured that we shall not die in trying, but we shall live in trying. We will maintain the kingdom of God, living; and if we do not maintain it, we shall be found dying not only a temporal, but also an eternal death. Then take a course to live.

Read the history of the world from the time that Cain killed Abel to this day, and see whether you can find an instance when, in a mountain country, fifty resolute, united men have been overcome by five hundred. If brother Joseph Smith had taken a company and come to this country, as he intended to do, he could have been living here now, in spite of earth and hell. Yes, he could have done this, if he could have brought only fifty men with him; for, with them, he could have defied the whole world; and you know that he would have had thousands of the upright gathered with him before now; though, if he had been here with only fifty good men, he could have bid defiance to all his enemies.

Did their enemies ever overcome the small band of Waldenses in the mountains in Piedmont? No. They slaughtered army after army sent against them and maintained their position, notwithstanding to reach them was only like sending an army here from San Pete, or from here to San Pete. They were within easy reach of their enemies.

Would Scotland ever have been so far overcome by England as to unite with that power, if her chiefs had not indulged in petty feuds with each other? No, it never would. But the chiefs were like our Indians: some were in favor of this one, and others of that one being crowned chief; and by contending with each other they lost the advantage of their position, or to this day Scotland might have been an independent nation, even though surrounded by water on all sides except the one joining England.

I instance those examples to show you that, if you will give me the right kind of men, I will take a few hundred of them and be at the defiance of the armies of the world; and that, too, upon natural principles. If God is for us, that of course makes us still stronger; but if he is against us, let us not strive to do anything in opposition to his will: let righteousness triumph. But I know that we are right.

When I used to be preaching in the world, priests would come to me and enquire about my doctrine. I would tell them my principles—every principle that I could get plainly before them that would be for their good; and after giving them my doctrine, I would ask, What do you Methodists believe? They would tell me. I would reply, I know all about that. Next would come the Baptists, and I knew all about them. Then came along the Presbyterians, and I would say, I know all about your doctrine. And I would have the Quakers and the Shakers; and when I talked to them, I knew all they believed. I understood the whole concern, and my religion embraced all the truth they all had and a great deal more. I could put on paper all the knowledge of salvation that all the religious sects possess, and put that paper into a snuff box, and never miss the room it occupied. I would say, I know how much truth you have embraced; you have bounds to your religion, but I have no bounds to mine: the faith I have embraced is broad as eternity.

I would say, Brother Methodist, have you a truth? If you have, let us hear it: that is the Bible; that is my doctrine: I believe it. “I read in the Bible that the Savior was crucified,” say the Methodists. I reply, I have embraced that in my faith: that is true; and every particle of truth that you believe I have incorporated in my faith; therefore you perceive that you must take the stand that you will defend error and falsehood, or there is no chance for a discussion or contention; for I believe all the truth that you believe. Now, all the truth I have I want you to embrace, and then go ahead; and then there is no chance for an argument.

We wish for all the truth and all the righteousness we can get hold of; and every heart that loves this religion, called “Mormonism,” exclaims, from the center and circumference of his soul and feelings, “Let the Lord be God.” Without that, all will be worthless; with that is everything. Without that we are nothing; we cannot endure; and all our prospects are blasted and scattered to the four winds. In reality, we are nothing, only what the Lord makes us. In a short time, if the Lord is for us, all will be right.

Take things upon natural principles, and I will organize this community so as to be prepared for any and every emergency. And the truth compels me to say, about our enemies, that all hell are crying to come here; and I must either say, Come in here and practice your principles of death and destruction, or I must say, I will contend against you, though I have prayed most fervently for the Lord to keep that event off. But the Lord says, “Will you be for me, or will you take upon you their cause?” I will say, “We will be for the Lord; for he is the God we serve.”

We are free. There is no yoke upon us now, and we will never put it on again. [The congregation responded, “Amen.“] That is the way for every man and woman to feel. When it is necessary, and the Lord calls me to do so, I would just as soon preach about war as anything else, or go and fight a battle as to do anything else.

You hear a great many people talk about a virtuous life. If you could know what an honorable, manly, upright, virtuous life is, you might reduce it to this—Learn the will of the Lord and do it; for he has the keys of life and death, and his mandates should be obeyed, and that is eternal life.

I pray God to bless you all the time; and I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ! Let us be of one heart and mind; and do you not see that the Lord is going to make us of one heart and mind, or we will be suffered to be scourged?

In Missouri most of the brethren signed what they called “a deed of trust.” The brethren were forced to sign away their houses, lands, and property; for they were going to make us bear the expense of the war. When the brethren had done this, they would kick up their heels; and old Judge Camron saw it, and swore, and ripped out an oath and said, “They are whipped, but they are not conquered.” One fellow said, “I will swear we can make them consecrate: old Joe has been trying, but he could not do it.” I suppose a few have urged it upon the brethren to consecrate. But do you not see that we are coming to where the Lord will make us consecrate?

God bless you! Amen.

Observations by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Wednesday Afternoon, October 7, 1857.

I rise to bear my testimony with the rest of the brethren who have spoken. Several who have lately returned from foreign missions have addressed you during this Conference. As has been observed here, we are all missionaries; and when our mission will be ended I am not able to say. I expect that in all probability our bodies will have to rest for a time, by-and-by: when they fall back to their mother earth, they will have a rest. But as for the mission being at an end with a faithful person, I do not know anything about its closing merely because the body has been laid in the grave. In this Church I have always felt myself to be a missionary, and I always desire to be ready and willing to bear my testimony to the truth. That has been about the amount of my preaching for the last twenty-six years. As for sermonizing, I have but seldom attempted it, but I have borne my testimony of the truth to the people.

I had only traveled a short time to testify to the people, before I learned this one fact, that you might prove doctrine from the Bible till doomsday, and it would merely convince a people, but would not convert them. You might read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and prove every iota that you advance, and that alone would have no converting influence upon the people. Nothing short of a testimony by the power of the Holy Ghost would bring light and know– ledge to them—bring them in their hearts to repentance. Nothing short of that would ever do. You have frequently heard me say that I would rather hear an Elder, either here or in the world, speak only five words accompanied by the power of God, and they would do more good than to hear long sermons without the Spirit. That is true, and we know it.

My testimony is that this is the kingdom of God on the earth. The people that sit before me, in connection with the many thousands that are upon the earth, are the people of God. If we have become so taught that the Lord sees that we shall be capable of managing, governing, and controlling the kingdom of God upon the earth in a more perfect manner than it has been heretofore, you may rest assured that this people are bound to victory. Just as fast as we are capable of rightly dispensing the principles of power, of light, of knowledge, of intelligence, of wealth, of heaven, and of earth, just so fast will they be bestowed upon this people. Could we in wisdom ask to have things bestowed upon us, if they would be to our injury? Every honest heart would at once say, “No.” One of the Elders observed that he prayed the Lord not to reveal too much to him, lest it should prove a stumblingblock and cause him to deny the faith. Pray that the Lord will reveal nothing to this people for their injury, and that he will only reveal that which will be for their good.

Brother Lorenzo Snow, while he was speaking in the forenoon upon the principle of self-government—victory over every besetting sin, spoke of the inward work required to be done, as every person in his experience knows that the spirit wars against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit. So far as our spirits by the power of God, by the Holy Ghost—by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, are assisted to overcome every seed of iniquity and sin within us, we may expect to gain the victory over our evil passions; and in that proportion this people will gain victory in a national capacity. That is as true logic as ever was introduced in this world. This people might have been independent—might have been a kingdom, had they been capable of receiving, disposing, and controlling that kingdom to the Divine acceptance of our Father in heaven. As brother Amasa said, the Lord has a school upon the earth, and we are his scholars; and the Devil also has a school attended by a great number of scholars. While we have been learning how to sustain the kingdom of God upon the earth, the Devil and his pupils have been learning how to sustain the kingdom of darkness. From the very nature of the two kingdoms upon one planet, the crisis must come when there will be a literal open warfare, just as much as there now is a warfare within us against evil; and if we, as individuals and as a community, have gained the victory over our passions to such a degree that our Father knows that we are capable of actually sustaining the kingdom of God upon the earth, just so true we shall be a kingdom by ourselves. If we are not yet capable of maintaining and rightly managing that kingdom, it will not at present be given to us in the fulness thereof; but the time will come when it will be given and established in its perfect organization on the earth.

A great many—yes, the most of this people have kept up a spiritual warfare until they have become almost masters of their passions; yet we still see some of them who do sin. Brother Rich has said that they sin ignorantly; but I say that some sin knowingly, and others sin that would know better if they had stopped to reflect. And you will see men and women commit acts which make them appear as though every particle of thought of the honor and true dignity of humanity had left them. Keep your spirits in subjection to the principles of truth and life, and do not let evil spirits control you.

How often you hear men and women confess their sins and say, “I committed this, that, and the other wrong.” Why do they want the evil within and around them? Why do they suffer their spirits to be subject to evil influences, and their tabernacles thereby be disgraced by the commission of wicked acts? What would you give to have such acts obliterated, if there was a price set upon them and you could pay it with property? Can you keep your spirits in subjection to righteous principles all the time? Yes; but many do not.

Keep your spirits under the sole control of good spirits, and they will make your tabernacles honorable in the presence of God, angels, and men. If you will always keep your spirits in right subjection, you will be watching all the time, and never suffer yourselves to commit an act that you will be sorry for, and if you can see that in all your life, you are clear. Do not do anything that you will be sorry for.

You may take the Quorums in this Church—the First Presidency, the Twelve, the Presidents of the High Priests, the High Councilors, and the Presidents of the Seventies; and a person may go to each of those Quorums for counsel upon any subject, and he will invariably receive the same counsel. Why is this the case? Because they are all actuated by the same Spirit. Do you know why some men give counsel different one from another? Because they undertake to give counsel without the Spirit of the Lord to dictate them. But, when the Spirit dictates, then each one knows what to do, and their counsel will be the same. Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, all the Patriarchs and Prophets, Jesus and the Apostles, and every man that has ever written the word of the Lord, have written the same doctrine upon the same subject; and you never can find that Prophets and Apostles clashed in their doctrines in ancient days; neither will they now, if all would at all times be led by the Spirit of salvation. If men will so act as to order their lives aright and continually keep the commandments of God, they will be able to administer the blessings of the kingdom of God.

There is no clash in the principles revealed in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants; and there would be no clash between any of the doctrines taught by Joseph the Prophet and by the brethren now, if all would live in a way to be governed by the Spirit of the Lord. All do not live so as to have the Spirit of the Lord with them all the time, and the result is that some get out of the way.

We want a people that will be pure and holy; and I wish that the principle that brother Lorenzo Snow spoke of this morning could be understood and practiced by all, you would then gain your spiritual conquest. If we have not gained that, we must labor until we do. And although we cannot tell the result of all the affairs that are in motion, yet we know that the kingdom of God will prosper, that his name will be revered, that the spirits of darkness will have to give way to the kingdom of God, and that “Mormonism” will triumph, and that no power can hinder it.

But there are still many things for us to learn pertaining to our salvation.

The great stumblingblock in the midst of the people is, that their minds are not yet wholly weaned from the evil habits and practices of the world. With some, the end of strife and covetousness has not yet come. You can yet see one brother take another by the throat, figuratively speaking, and say, “Pay me what thou owest.” You may see another come up and say, “I owe you, but you need not ask me for the pay, for I will not pay you.” Which is the worst? If there is any difference, the one who refuses to pay is the meanest.

If a man is so mean as to say to you, “I owe you, but I shall not pay you,” it is best to say to him, “All right—I can live without it.”

The Lord will rule; and if we continue steadfast to the kingdom of God, it will save us; but if we do not, we shall be left off, and the old ship Zion will sail right ahead and safely carry her passengers into port. If the people could understand, they would be able to discern that we must gain that spiritual victory I have already spoken about, before we can have the privilege of proclaiming the building up of the people of God in the mountains.

We have a nation here in the mountains that will be a kingdom by-and-by, and be governed by pure laws and principles. What do you call yourselves? some may ask. Here are the people that constitute the kingdom of God. It may be sometime before that kingdom is fully developed, but the time will come when the kingdom of God will reign free and independent.

There will be a kingdom on the earth that will be controlled upon the same basis, in part, as that of the Government of the United States; and it will govern and protect in their rights the various classes of men, irrespective of their different modes of worship; for the law must go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and the Lord Jesus will govern every nation and kingdom upon the earth.

A great many have thought that every person will then be in the Church, but that will not be the case. There will then be as great a variety in religious belief as there is now; one will believe one thing, and another will believe something different, while the Devil rules among men.

Will the kingdom of Jesus triumph? It will; and the legislators of that kingdom are in this congregation and will remain, and the laws of that kingdom will be made in accordance with the revelations from Jesus Christ.

Many have thought that all will believe in the revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ when the kingdom of God is fully established; but they will not; and if those characters were in heaven, they might believe, but would not obey the revelations of Jesus Christ. There are multitudes in this Church who have not yet learned these truths; and there are multitudes in the world who would not know Jesus, were he to pass before their eyes, and would not understand what he meant, if he were to speak to them. Such will be the case in the millennium.

The kingdom of God will grow out of this Church, and the time appears to have been hastened faster than we anticipated. This is the best time we ever saw. We are happy, and we make a heaven of every place to which we go, which is the reason we are happy. How long it will be before the kingdom of God sends forth its laws, I do not know. Brother Erastus Snow remarked that no one can foretell all the events that may arise from our present difficulties; but I can tell you a part. God will reign and will bring forth victory to the humble and faithful; that I know, and so do you.

I have never found any fault with the Lord for not bringing victory sooner; for I know that if our enemies intend to try to come here by way of Emigration Canyon, we shall be ready to meet them; and if they intend to come round by the Malad, we shall be ready to meet them; and if they undertake to come by Fort Hall, we shall also be ready to meet them. If they thought that we were or would be asleep, they might undertake to come here.

I recollect a dream that my father had. He dreamed that he was traveling, and that during his journey he came to a tremendous mountain of snow and saw that his pathway was hedged up. But someone said, “Take one more step.” My father replied, “But that will be the last.” However, he took that step, and then his guide said, “Do you not, see that there is room for you to take another?” When he had taken another, his guide told him to take still another in advance; and there was a passage all the way through. So it will be with us. The Lord will not reveal all that we at times wish him to. If a schoolmaster were to undertake to teach a little child algebra, you would call him foolish, would you not? Just so with our Father: he reveals to us as we are prepared to receive, and I hope to continue to learn. There is no cessation, in time nor in eternity, to the progress and increase of the righteous. If we will but put away every selfish feeling, we can come in possession of all the blessings that are in store for us.

Some of the speakers have been exhorting you to let your prayers ascend in behalf of the brethren who are in the mountains; but your prayers cannot prevail if there is disunion among you.

The teachings given us from Sabbath to Sabbath must be learned and lived before we can enjoy the kingdom of God in its fulness.

I am thankful that I do not hear, of late, since the Spirit has been generally diffused among the people, “O Lord, give revelation through brother Brigham.” I wish to fulfil what we have received before I ask for more. I said to brother Joseph, the spring before he was killed, “You are laying out work for twenty years.” He replied, “You have as yet scarcely began to work; but I will set you enough to last you during your lives, for I am going to rest.” All I can do or ask now is to do the work, so that it will be right and acceptable to him when he comes here again. And that is not all; for you have or should have the candle of the Lord continually burning within you. Then I ask you if you still need revelation? You will say, “Yes, just as much as we need a candle to enable us to see to walk in our streets at noonday.” A person that is filled with the Spirit knows just as much as he has occasion to know; for the Spirit of our God is a Spirit of revelation.

The time has arrived when we have either to be trodden under foot by our enemies and die, or to defend ourselves and our rights; and which will it be? Every man and woman feel their hearts fail them when they think of submitting to the oppression and unlawful abominations practiced by our enemies, and sought by them to be introduced into our society; and we will not submit to such wicked and unlawful treatment, whether it comes from United States or united hell, for the terms are synonymous as the Government is now conducted. I tell you and I tell our enemies that we are here, and we intend to stay here. [The congregation responded, “Amen.”] They have a job on hand, if they persist in their efforts to deprive American citizens of their rights. I told Captain Van Vliet that I did not care how many troops they sent. “Why,” said he, “The United States, with an overflowing treasury, can send out ten, twenty, or fifty thousand troops.” I replied, “I do not care anything about that.” The Captain then asked whether I had counted the cost; and I said, “Yes, for this people. I have; but I cannot estimate it for the United States; for if they actually persist in their present tyrannical course, before they get through they will want to let the job to subcontractors.” They do not know the Captain of the armies of Israel; and although they profess to believe in him, they do not realize that he is about to hold a controversy with them for their iniquity.

Their belief reminds me what brother Joseph B. Nobles once told a Methodist priest, after hearing him describe his god, that the god they worshipped was the “Mormons’” Devil—a being without a body, whereas our God has a body, parts, and passions. The Devil was cursed and sent down from heaven. He has no body of his own; therefore he is constantly endeavoring to obtain possession of the tabernacles belonging to others. Some have grumbled because I believe our God to be so near to us as Father Adam. There are many who know that doctrine to be true. Where was Michael in the creation of this earth? Did he have a mission to the earth? He did. Where was he? In the Grand Council, and performed the mission assigned him there. Now, if it should happen that we have to pay tribute to Father Adam, what a humiliating circumstance it would be! Just wait till you pass Joseph Smith; and after Joseph lets you pass him, you will find Peter; and after you pass the Apostles and many of the Prophets, you will find Abraham, and he will say, “I have the keys, and except you do thus and so, you cannot pass;” and after a while you come to Jesus; and when you at length meet Father Adam, how strange it will appear to your present notions. If we can pass Joseph and have him say, “Here; you have been faithful, good boys; I hold the keys of this dispensation; I will let you pass;” then we shall be very glad to see the white locks of Father Adam. But those are ideas which do not concern us at present, although it is written in the Bible—“This is eternal life, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”

What is the nature and beauty of Joseph’s mission? You know that I am one of his Apostles. When I first heard him preach, he brought heaven and earth together; and all the priests of the day could not tell me anything correct about heaven, hell, God, angels, or devils: they were as blind as Egyptian darkness. When I saw Joseph Smith, he took heaven, figuratively speaking, and brought it down to earth; and he took the earth, brought it up, and opened up, in plainness and simplicity, the things of God; and that is the beauty of his mission. I had a testimony, long before that, that he was a Prophet of the Lord, and that was consoling. Did not Joseph do the same to your understandings? Would he not take the Scriptures and make them so plain and simple that everybody could understand? Every person says, “Yes, it is admirable; it unites the heavens and the earth together;” and as for time, it is nothing, only to learn us how to live in eternity.

I will prophesy a little, and I will say that my word shall be as true as any word ever spoken from the heavens. If this people, called Latter-day Saints, will live to the truth, the thread of oppression which is cut will never be united again, and we shall have the privilege of saying, “Here is the kingdom of God, and here are the people that God owns and blesses,” and we shall reign triumphantly forever and ever. But if you do not live your religion, that period may be postponed a little longer. You know that cases sometimes rest in court for want of witnesses and documents. But if we live our religion, from this afternoon, this is the kingdom of God, and we are free and will live in it; at any rate, the kingdom will prosper.

I feel to bless this people, and they are a God-blessed people. Look at them, and see the difference from their condition a few years ago! Brethren who have been on missions, can you see any difference in this people from the time you went away until your return? [Voices: “Yes.“] You can see men and women who are sixty or seventy years of age looking young and handsome; but let them apostatize, and they will become grayhaired, wrinkled, and black, just like the Devil.

If we will stand up as men and women of God, the yoke shall never be placed upon our necks again; and all hell cannot overthrow us, even with the United States to help them. It is not pleasant to the natural feelings to be obliged to talk in this manner about fellowcitizens with whom we have been reared; but when they act like the Devil, it is impossible for us to bow to their unjust and illegal mandates without becoming as corrupt as they are. It is an honor to resist the wicked; and my name will be had in honor, and so will Joseph Smith’s, and so will your names, for not bowing to their iniquitous doings.

We are the happiest people when we have what are called trials; for then the Spirit of God is more abun– dantly bestowed upon the faithful. If the Lord requires it, I would as soon consume all I have and go into the mountains with my family as to do a good many other things. The women and children might suffer a little; but, as I told you the other day, we are upon the backbone of the continent, and we intend to enjoy that freedom which is our right. If our enemies will behave themselves, all right; and if they do not, they may take what follows. We could have used up those now in our borders, and have taken their trains; but we do not wish to hurt one of them: but let them undertake to come in here, and they must abide the consequences. And in reality, instead of their speaking against my character, they ought to send in presents for having lived till now.

The question now is, Shall we close Conference today? I know that many of you have much work to do. I do not know how soon you will be needed in the mountains. I deem it most prudent for all to go to their work and to be always prepared with five days’ rations; and then, when the word comes, you are ready for the mountains, and the women and children will be safe here.

If you now wish to close this Conference, all right; and if you want to continue it another day, you are at liberty to do so; and I am willing to do as I have a mind. The last missionary who spoke said that a captain could not please everybody; but I have tried to first please my Father in heaven, and have not cared so particularly about the will of the people. I have said, “Father, let me know your will, and I will do it.” And there is not a person in this congregation but will do my will, if he will do the will of his Father in heaven. If all would do so, they would be free from those little nasty sins that some are occasionally guilty of and that I am ashamed of.

If you say, “Adjourn this Conference now,” all right. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered at the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Tuesday Morning, October 6, 1857.

Quite a goodly number have assembled to our Conference to transact business in a Church capacity. We shall first present and attend to the business, and then to such instructions, teachings, exhortations, &c., as may come before the Conference.

I think there are quite a number of brethren present who have lately returned from their fields of labor. We would like to have them come to the stand, and we will give them the privilege of occupying a portion of the time. I think brother Jacob Hoffheins has not been on the stand since his return; and I see several others who have not.

We shall first present the autho– rities of the Church to the Conference this morning, though such has not been our general practice. I believe the brethren are pretty much in readiness, and have all got their guns ready for shooting. We will first attend to the business, so that if it is necessary to repair to the canyons we can do so.

I do not know how long we shall hold this Conference, and therefore no one needs to ask me. There is a time for all things; and I never saw a better time than now to secure potatoes and other crops, and thus do our preaching in the season thereof and digging potatoes in the season thereof. And I could almost wish that our Conference would be dismissed this morning, and all hands go and secure the potatoes, squashes, corn, &c.

We have heretofore spent a great deal of time in Conferences unmolested, and we shall again have a great deal of time to spend in this capacity undisturbed. We must have what is good for us—that which puts us in mind and brings to us principles that are free. Should we live in peace, year after year, how long would it be before we were glued to the world? Our affections would be so fastened to the things of the world that it would be hard for us to spend a little time in Conference; it would be hard to go on missions; it would be contrary to our feelings to attend to anything but our own individual concerns to make ourselves rich.

It seems to be necessary for the Lord to bring this people into circumstances to show them that the things of this world are mere nothingness in their present state—are but a shadow. They are today, and tomorrow they are not. This shows to us that all things pertaining to this world are subject to change, and such changes as we cannot control. We find that kings are raised up and emperors placed in power, and then they are hurled down. We see men who are popular, wealthy, and rich become poor. History and our own experience prove all this, and that riches take the wings of the morning and fly away. Today we are rich—tomorrow we are poor. Next week we may be rich, and the week after poor again. It is the Lord that gives and the Lord that takes away; and it is a blessing that we have the privilege of this experience in our present condition.

Look at ourselves—run over our own experience, and we shall discover that ourselves, our neighbors, our friends, our acquaintances, and all people do not always know when they are happy. In other words, if you could crowd an individual or a community into heaven without experience, it would be no enjoyment to them. They must know the opposite: they must know how to contrast, in order to prize and appreciate the comfort and happiness, the joy and the bliss they are actually in possession of. Can you realize this? How many there are who will exclaim, “If I had but known it, I was happy in such a situation! How happy I might have been, if I had only known that I was happy.”

You will see individuals who are easy and comfortable, that would like to change their situations; and when they change, they find that they have changed for the worse. They then turn round and say, “How happy I could have been, if I had known how to appreciate my own happiness! I had nothing to annoy me; I was in comfortable circumstances; I enjoyed good health, and had all that I could ask for to make life desirable; but I did not know at the time that I enjoyed one of the comforts of life.”

Is that the experience of any of you? I know that it is of a great many of you. Then learn to be happy when you have the privilege. For many years we have had the privilege of living in peace and making ourselves comfortable in these valleys of the mountains; and do you recollect that but a short time ago it seemed as though almost everyone had wandered his own way? The people had almost forgotten and lost sight of the principles of truth and righteousness, of the religion that we have embraced; and the whole plan of salvation. They had almost lost sight of the redemption of the nations of the earth, and each one had turned to his own way. Can you recollect that situation of the people?

We have reason to be thankful that we have forsaken backslidings and returned to the Lord in a great measure; but we are still far from being as we should be, taking every individual, though the great majority of the people are doing the best, or about as well as they know how. This I believe with all my heart; and they feel very anxious to live so that they can enjoy more and more of the knowledge of God: they are very anxious to know how to obtain more of the revelations of Jesus Christ; and some are fearful that the people are not doing right, and that they do not live up to their privileges.

Some of the brethren were conversing in my office the other day, and I discovered that a part of them had a great anxiety for us to know more of godliness, and had a feeling that this people must do better—must more strictly refrain from evil and walk more humbly before their God. I said to them, “Brethren, I will take you for an example, with myself; and I tell you, for one, that I do not know how to do any better than I do; and if the Lord wants me to do any better, he must let me know it; for I cannot do any better of myself. Can you say the same?” They said they could. So it is with the people: the most of them are doing the best they know how. There are a few who sin, and a few who will do wrong—do things that they ought to be ashamed of. They are scarce: but there is once in a while one of that class in this community; and we expect that there will be, just so long as the wheat and the tares grow together. There is once in a while one that we would like to be rid of—would love to have leave us and this community.

It is astonishing that any should prefer to act wickedly, and yet there is a reason for all this. We expect it—at least I do: I look for it. I do not look for anything else but that there will be tares in the field until the time of burning. I will just say, for your consolation and mine, that I think the field is now pretty well weeded out, though the roots are here, and they will spring up occasionally, and once in a while things are done that are disgraceful. Some will do things that the Devil would be ashamed of and would not think of doing. But I am thankful that there are but few of that class here; and I pray that the evils may be lessened and that the people may be purified before the Lord.

It is truth—it is God’s truth—it is eternal truth, if people did but know it, that it is much better to be honest, to live here uprightly, and forsake and shun evil, than it is to be dishonest. It is the easiest path in the world to be honest—to be upright before God; and when people learn this, they will practice it. If they could only believe this, it does appear to me that they will forsake every evil practice, every evil thought, and banish them from their minds, and try to practice virtue and truth, and to live in that way that they will overcome every evil disposition, and live so that they can control their reflections, and that their reflections will tend to virtue, truth, and holiness; for this is our privilege, until we become pure in our hearts, and find that the prin– ciples of righteousness dwell within us. Then, as it was said by the Savior to his disciples, He will be in us a fountain of living water, springing up into everlasting life.

That is the principle—the fountain that Jesus our elder brother dwells in; and we can have the same privilege of overcoming sin in ourselves until we have no desire to do anything but right—no desire only to build up His kingdom upon the earth, and have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus to be in us a fountain of living water. Let us do so, and thereby be prepared for every emergency that shall come upon us.

Let us secure our crops. I feel to exhort the brethren to secure their crops so as to be ready, if our enemies come upon us, to defend ourselves. Let us obey our officers, not loving the world nor the things of the world above our duties. The Lord will prepare the way and provide all things necessary for us; and if we suffer a little, it is good for us. If we suffer for food, for raiment, it gives us an experience that we will know how to appreciate the comforts of life when we have them in our possession.

We will attend to the business of the Conference first, and then dismiss until afternoon.

[After putting the motion for himself to be sustained as “Prophet, Seer, and Revelator,” the President remarked—]

I will say that I never dictated the latter part of that sentence. I make this remark, because those words in that connection always made me feel as though I am called more than I am deserving of. I am Brigham Young, an Apostle of Joseph Smith, and also of Jesus Christ. If I have been profitable to this people, I am glad of it. The brethren call me so; and if it be so, I am glad.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday, October 4, 1857.

I will say a few words before the congregation is dismissed.

As but few can be in our offices to learn the news that is brought in, I will say that on the 2nd, Friday last, a messenger arrived with intelligence that the soldiers were going up Ham’s Fork.

Previous to that I had sent by Lieutenant-General Wells a copy of the Proclamation proclaiming martial law, and ordering the troops not to come here. They treated it as I presumed they would. They say that they are sent by the President, are subject to superior officers, and intend to abide their instructions; and I expect that they will, until some other power checks their progress.

The brethren are well, and the spirit of peace and contentment rests upon them. They are doing their duties—living to and serving their God.

Keep the “‘Mormon’ creed,” and especially just now in regard to the remarks made by brother Spencer. Some may think they will have to deviate in attending to digging their neighbors’ potatoes; but this is now the very business for the brethren to do. This is now their duty, and what the brethren ought to do.

I do not know that anybody’s heart burns, except it is to get a little nearer to our enemies and for the troops to undertake to come in here. Well, we are in the hands of the Lord our God, and he will overrule things just as he pleases.

Many want to know what the result will be; and they want the Lord to give them revelation. Get revelation, if you can. I have told you before, and I can tell you now, that the result will be that “Mormonism” will be higher and greater in power and influence than ever it was before. Our enemies will sink, while we will increase in power and strength, and enjoy an influence that we never enjoyed before; and the Lord will have his own way in bringing about these things. I know that all will be made right; and an allwise, overruling Providence will bring us off victorious. He has led us to victory and peace, and has given us power and influence that we can sustain ourselves; and I believe that it is the calculation of all to sustain themselves against all that can come to annoy, destroy, desolate, and drive the Saints of God. God will fight our battles; and he will do it just as he pleases.

You know that it is one peculiarity of our faith and religion never to ask the Lord to do a thing without being willing to help him all that we are able; and then the Lord will do the rest.

The main object I had in coming to meeting this morning was to let you know that my health is better. Last Sabbath I did not think it prudent to come out; but I am at my post, and God is at the helm.

Let us walk in the precepts of our Savior—those that he has marked out for us, and God will bless us; and I bless you, my brethren and sisters, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I mean to save my brethren and sisters, God being my helper. God bless you! Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, September 20, 1857.

Brother Heber wants to know whether he has said anything wrong. So far as I am concerned, and so far as the truth is concerned, he has not. He is very careless in the use of language; but I do not so much care how he or any of the brethren express their ideas, when their hearts are right before God.

When we have only the one desire to promote the kingdom of God on the earth, the people will be right.

Brother Heber is very full of comparisons; and I will liken brother Heber’s language to the conduct of some of this people. He talks just as ideas happen to come into his mind; and some of the people act just as it happens at the moment, not thinking what they do. And yet their desire is to do right; and the greatest faults that most of them see in each other arise through weakness and ignorance, and not through an evil design. They desire to do right, just as brother Heber desires to talk as straight as a line; but he has so long been in the habit of making his own dictionary and using his words out of it, that it would be difficult for him to change his style now.

No matter what the outward appearance is—if I can know of a truth that the hearts of the people are fully set to do the will of their Father in heaven, though they may falter and do a great many things through the weaknesses of human nature, yet, they will be saved. You will hear among such persons observations that appear very much out of the way; but, at the same time, they will say that “it does seem that when I would try to do good, and to do my best, evil will come before me.”

If there is an outward appearance of mistakes or evils, we ought to have the Spirit of the Lord to look at the designs of the actors, and know whether they act from impure or sinister motives. If their motives are pure—no matter whether their outward appearance is particularly precise, their acts will be discerned by the Spirit of the Lord, and will be appreciated for what they were intended. If people act from pure motives, though their outward movements may not always be so pleasant as our traditions would prefer, yet God will make those acts result in the best good to the people.

I wish the people to know that they have to come to the position that, in their feelings and affections, the kingdom of God must be all in all to us. If we are not in that position, you will find that we will be scourged and afflicted until we are. With us it must be the kingdom of God all the time: it must be that or nothing. The time has come in which that must be the common feeling with the Saints.

As to the world’s being in fellowship with us, it never was and it never can be. We cut off the Gentiles just before we left Nauvoo; and they have cut us off from their fellowship. The thread is cut that has hitherto connected us; and now we have to act for ourselves and build up the kingdom of God on the earth, which we will do, by the help of the Lord; for he has decreed that his kingdom shall take the ascendancy over all other kingdoms under heaven.

It was observed by brother Spencer that the time had come for this work to be making far more rapid strides than it has hitherto done. You will find that it has not been by any act of our own that this thread has been cut; but we will now have to sustain ourselves, or we will go under. We have not desired it—we have not naturally wished for this crisis to come; but inasmuch as it has come, if the people, in the strength of Israel’s God, sustain themselves, they will be sustained.

If we are united, we are independent of the powers of hell and of the world, which terms are synonymous with me. We are now free and easy; and if we succumb to the wicked, our hearts sink within us and we sicken and die; but when my feelings are decided that we will defend ourselves against all who come here to destroy us or to oppose the establishment of truth on the earth, I feel perfectly free and light as the air. Does brother Spencer feel so? I presume that he does, and also that every Saint feels as free as the mountain breezes.

I am free and easy, and I am not concerned about having too much rest; though, when my feelings are at rest, and I have not an hundred tons weight upon my shoulders, a feeling comes over me like this—“Are you not becoming slothful?” As soon as I have a good sound reflection upon the matter, I feel to thank God that he will let me rest at times, and not always require me to bear a burden like carrying a hundred tons.

Be faithful; and if you are attentive to your duties, God will take care of the rest.

We talk of enjoying, multiplying, and increasing in the things of God. All that we can do is to prepare to receive anything that God may see fit to give. I do not know but that I am just as well prepared to receive revelations this morning as I shall be millions of years hence. I do not know but that I shall be prepared to do the will of God, according to my capacity, as well today or tomorrow as I shall be when I have spent millions of years in his presence.

You hear people in the sectarian world talk about preparing to die; but the religion that we have embraced teaches us to prepare to live. If we were now going to exchange this world for another, I do not know but that we are as well prepared as we shall be in years to come. I have felt that I never should be better prepared to receive the glory of the spirit world than I am now, according to my present capacity. While brother Heber was talking about our travels in 1834, I remember that brother Joseph said the camp should be cursed. We had some wicked men in the company, and Joseph discerned the spirits of those men, and said that the camp should be cursed and that they should feel the heavy hand of the Lord. Brother Heber came to me and said, “I do not know that I could have done any better, even though it had been to save my natural life;” and he did do well and continued to do so. And I will say that I do not know that I can do any better than I am doing.

You and I may be ready to fight: we may be ready to plant seed, and, if called upon, to cache grain in the mountains, and to do whatever the Lord may require at our hands. Let us do whatever may be required. If we are called upon to take our women and children into the mountains, let us do that; if to burn, let us be on hand to burn; if to build more, let us do that; and whatever we are required to do, let us do.

We called up a Bishop, the other night, to go on an express; and when he came to my office, I said to him, “Brother Thomas, are you ready?” He replied, “Yes.” Though he did not know what was wanted of him, yet he was ready. He asked, “When do you want me?” I replied, “Early tomorrow morning” (now, yesterday morning); and he was there at the time—which is the way that men should feel and act.

The main object of my present remarks has been to have the people know whether they are taught right—to have them know whether they are receiving the word of the Lord from this stand—to have them know whether they are led right.

As to being afflicted, never fear that: only fear that you are not living as well as you might, and then there is no danger. You know how you have been led, and I can say that you try to walk in the path that leads to improvement and purity and to never do a known evil. When you know that an evil is before you, pass it by, and do that which tends to good, and all will be right.

If you are not led right, or if you are afraid that you are not going to be led right, just find out a better way; for that is your privilege, if you are not already led right. And if you will live so as to know God better than any other man, or find someone that knows God better, and of whom you can learn more of God—a man that knows better how to dictate the affairs of the Church, all will be right.

I wish that every man would live so that he could have communion with angels—so that Jesus would come to visit him. I wish I could see this people in such a position; but there is yet too much sin in our midst: our traditions cling to us so strongly, that we cannot yet break through into that liberty; but we will see the day, if faithful, in which we can converse with angels. There are persons in this congregation that will converse with angels just as freely as we converse with each other.

Be faithful, and God will not only fight for us, but he will also lead us to victory. What has been said today is true. You know that brother Heber almost always testifies to the truth of what he says; but I do not care whether you think that what I say is true or not, for that does not concern me. You may judge of the truth you hear today and of that which you will hear in times to come; for we shall be judges of ourselves as well as of our enemies, and we shall also judge angels. God bless you! Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, September 13, 1857.

I would like very well to hear some of the rest of the brethren speak, if I had entirely got over being angry and had patience to sit and hear. I think, however, that I shall be able to calm and control my feelings, though I do not expect to become entirely settled until the affairs around me are settled.

It is a pretty bold stand for this people to take, to say that they will not be controlled by the corrupt administrators of our General Government. We will be controlled by them, if they will be controlled by the Constitution and laws; but they will not. Many of them do not care any more about the Constitution and the laws that they make than they do about the laws of another nation. That class trample the rights of the people under their feet, while there are also many who would like to honor them. All we have ever asked for is our constitutional rights. We wish the laws of our Government honored, and we have ever honored them; but they are trampled under foot by administrators.

There cannot be a more damnable, dastardly order issued than was issued by the Administration to this people while they were in an Indian country, in 1846. Before we left Nauvoo, not less than two United States’ senators came to receive a pledge from us that we would leave the United States; and then, while we were doing our best to leave their borders, the poor, low, degraded curses sent a requisition for five hundred of our men to go and fight their battles! That was President Polk; and he is now weltering in hell with old Zachary Taylor, where the present administrators will soon be, if they do not repent.

Liars have reported that this people have committed treason; and upon their lies, the President has ordered out troops to aid in officering this Territory: and if those officers are like many who have previously been sent here (and we have reason to believe that they are, or they would not come when they know they are not wanted), they are poor, miserable blacklegs, broken-down political hacks, robbers, and whoremongers—men that are not fit for civilized society; so they must dragoon them upon us for officers. I feel that I won’t bear such cursed treatment, and that is enough to say; for we are just as free as the mountain air.

I do not lift my voice against the great and glorious Government guaranteed to every citizen by our Constitution, but against those corrupt administrators who trample the Constitution and just laws under their feet. They care no more about them than they do about the Government of France; but they walk them under their feet with impunity. And the most of the characters they have sent here as officers cared no more about the laws of our country and of this Territory than they did about the laws of China, but walked them under their feet with all the recklessness of despots.

I do not want to be angry, nor to have my feelings wrought up; but I cannot keep quiet under the continued outrageous tyranny of the wicked.

I have said that if the brethren will have faith, the Lord will fight our battles, and we will have the privilege of living here in peace. I have counted the cost to this people of a collision with our enemies; but I cannot begin to count the cost it will be to them.

I have told you that if this people will live their religion, all will be well; and I have told you that if there is any man or woman that is not willing to destroy anything and everything of their property that would be of use to an enemy, if left, I wanted them to go out of the Territory; and I again say so today; for when the time comes to burn and lay waste our improvements, if any man undertakes to shield his, he will be sheared down; for “judgment will be laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” Now the fainthearted can go in peace; but should that time come, they must not interfere. Before I will suffer what I have in times gone by, there shall not be one building, nor one foot of lumber, nor a stick, nor a tree, nor a particle of grass and hay, that will burn, left in reach of our enemies. I am sworn, if driven to extremity, to utterly lay waste, in the name of Israel’s God.

I know that the Saints, both the brethren and sisters, pray that our enemies may not come here; for their entrance is designed by our Government to be the prelude to the introduction of abominations and death. And you cannot talk to a brother, or even to a sister, but that she will tell you that, if she consents in her feelings to have our enemies come here, she feels uncomfortable, and her heart sinks within her. If I consent in my feelings to have them come here, my heart sinks within too, my buoyant spirits are gone, and I have no comfort; for I know the hellish designs concealed under the present movement. But we are free, and every man says, “Stand by the kingdom.” When this is the case, every man is like a troop; they are like lions.

Admit of corrupt administrators sending troops here, and what would be the result? All hell would follow after. I naturally dislike to have any trouble, and would not, were I not obliged to; but we are obliged to defend ourselves against the persecution of our oppressors, or have our constitutional rights rent from us, and have ourselves destroyed. We must either suffer that, or stand up and maintain the kingdom of God on the earth.

We have known all the time that the kingdoms of darkness were opposed to the kingdom of God—that the powers of earth and hell were combined against it. Christ and Baal cannot make friends with each other: you cannot mix oil and water, righteousness and wickedness. This is the kingdom of God; all others are of the Devil. They never can be united in this world, nor in any other: there is no possibility of the two kingdoms becoming one. Those who believe and obey the Gospel of the Son of God, and forsake all for its interests, belong to the kingdom of God, and all the rest belong to the other kingdom. There is a distinction, and the line must be drawn; and you and I have to stand up to it, even though it may take from us our right eyes and right hands. We must stand up to the line and maintain the kingdom of God, or we will all go to destruction together.

I am perfectly willing that the brethren should stop all improvements, if they choose, and spend a few years in seeing what our enemies will do; though their efforts against us will only tend to use them up the faster. If the people prefer it, they may stop their improvements and take care of their wheat, and cache a supply of grain, flour, &c., where no other per– sons can find it; though we can raise grain here all the time—yes, all the time.

Suppose that our enemies send 50,000 troops here, they will have to transport all that will be requisite to sustain them over one winter; for I will promise them, before they come, that there shall not be one particle of forage, nor one mouthful of food for them, should they come. They will have to bring all their provisions and forage; and though they start their teams with as heavy loads as they can draw, there is no team that can bring enough to sustain itself, to say nothing of the men. If there were no more men here than there are in the Seminole nation, our enemies never could use us up; but they could use up themselves, which they will do. The Seminoles—a little tribe of a few hundred in Florida—have cost our government, I suppose, in the neighborhood of 100,000,000 dollars; and they are no nearer being conquered than when the war commenced. And what few have removed have been induced to do so by compromise; and it would be far cheapest for the Government to pay the debts they honestly owe us, and leave us unmolested in the peaceful enjoyment of our rights.

Would not our enemies feel well in going to the canyons for wood the first night to cook their suppers with? The idea puts me in mind of an anecdote told by one Brown about the man who took the first barrel of whiskey up the Missouri River on a log raft.

They might stay amid blackened desolation till they had ate up what they had brought, and then they would have to go back.

It has been asked, “Have you counted the cost?” Yes, for ourselves; but I cannot begin to count it for our enemies. It will cost them all they have in this world, and will land them in hell in the world to come, while the only trouble with us is that we have two or three times more men than we need for using up all who can come here to deprive us of our rights.

As I said this morning, ten years ago on this ground I stated that we would not ask any odds of our enemies in ten years from that date; and the next time that I thought of it was ten years afterwards to a day. “They are now sending their troops” was the news; and it directly occurred to me, “Will you ask any odds of them?” No; in the name of Israel’s God we will not; for as soon as we ask odds, we get ends—of bayonets. When we have asked them for bread, they have given us stones; and when we have asked them for meat, they have given us scorpions; and what is the use in asking any more? I do not ask any odds of those who are striving to deprive us of every vestige of freedom and to destroy us from the earth.

Suppose that we should now bow down, and they should order their troops back, and then send a Governor and other officers here, how long would it be before some miserable scamp would get into a fuss with the Indians in Utah County, or in some other county, and get killed? Then the Governor would order out the Militia—probably two or three hundred men—to kill off those Indians. Well, the brethren, knowing that the aggressor is a white man, do not want to turn out and, like Gen. Harney, kill the squaws; and they say, “We shall not go.” Then the Governor would say, “They have committed treason;” and it would be, “Send an army here, and shoot and hang them.” Our enemies are determined to bring us into collision with the Government, so that they can kill us; but they shall not come here.

If the troops are now this side of Laramie, remember that the Sweetwater is this side of that place. They must have some place to winter, for they cannot come through here this season. We could go out and use them up, and it would not require fifty men to do it. But probably we shall not have occasion to take that course, for we do not want to kill men. They may winter in peace at some place east of us; but when spring comes, they must go back to the States, or, at any rate, they must leave the mountains.

We have no desire to kill men, but we wish to keep the devils from killing us. If you hear that they are near the upper crossing of the Platte, they will probably stay there till they can collect 50,000 troops. We will say that 9 and 3 equal 17; and if that is so, how long will it take to get those troops here? Let an arithmetician figure out how long it will be before 9 and 3 will make 17; for that will just be as soon as our enemies will get 50,000 troops here.

We have got to be called treasoners by our enemies. Joseph was taken up six times, if I remember rightly, on the charge of treason. Once he was brought into court by some enemies who thought they could prove that he had committed adultery, and that they termed treason. At another time our brethren wanted to vote in Davies County, Missouri, and said they would cast their votes and have their rights with other citizens; whereupon Joseph was taken up for treason. Another time, he was taken up on a charge of high treason; and when he came before the grand jury, his enemies wanted to prove that he had more than one wife, asserting that that was high treason.

Our enemies are constantly yelling “Rebellion! Treason!” no matter how peaceful, orderly, and loyal we may be. And now to come out in open opposition to their cursed, corrupt practices, will of course be counted treason. But let me tell you that the real, actual treason is committed in Washington, by the administrators of our Government sending an army to take the lives of innocent citizens. Every man is allowed by the Constitution to have what religion he pleases and to profess what religion he pleases. That liberty is guaranteed by the Constitution; “but you, ‘Mormons,’ an army must be sent against you, because you are Latter-day Saints.” Yes, an army must be sent to drive us from the earth.

There is high treason in Washington; and if the law was carried out, it would hang up many of them. And the very act of James K. Polk in taking five hundred of our men, while we were making our way out of the country under an agreement forced upon us, would have hung him between the heavens and the earth, if the laws had been faithfully executed. And now, if they can send a force against this people, we have every constitutional and legal right to send them to hell, and we calculate to send them there.

When I get over being angry, I may preach something else; but the past travels and sufferings of this people through mobocracy are before me.

I am not speaking of the Government, but of the corrupt administrators of the Government. They make me think of a sign in New York, upon which was lettered, “All manner of twisting and turning done here.” It is just so in Washington City; they can twist and turn in any and every way, to suit their hellish appetites.

Were I an officer sent to Utah for the purpose of aiding the unhallowed oppression of the innocent (and in this connection I disclaim all personalities), I would know the facts in the case before I would make any hostile move; and sooner than side with tyranny and murder, I would resign my commission, and say, “Take it and stick it in your boot, and go to hell, and I will go my way.” And I would rather go and raise my own potatoes for my wives and children than to hold office under such a set of administrators and bow down to their wicked designs; though, if I were of the world, I should probably do as the rest do.

I have already told you that the main cause of an army being now sent here is a political scheme for the purpose of getting money out of the United States’ treasury. Politicians and traders combine to lay plans, no matter how devilish, for getting their hands into the treasury of the United States, that they may have money with which to sow corruption and gratify their debauched natures.

Some men do not realize what they are doing. I said, a few weeks ago, that the deeds of some men are out of sight. Our merchants here have fanned the flame, and what for? To peddle off my blood and yours for gold and silver. Although that design may have been out of their sight, yet such is the case; but they will not make money by the operation. Should the crisis come, they will find themselves in poor pasture, with nothing but greasewood and sage to feed upon. It will not do for them to sell us for money; for we are worth more than the Methodist society was sold for in Canada, where they were sold at three cents a head.

I am aware that you will want to know what will be the result of the present movement against us. “Mormonism” will take an almighty stride into influence and power, while our enemies will sink and become weaker and weaker, and be no more; and I know it just as well now as I shall five years hence. The Lord Almighty wants a name and a character; and he will show our enemies that he is God, and that he has set to his hand again to gather Israel, and to try our faith and integrity. And he is saying, “Now, you, my children, dare you take a step to promote righteousness, in direct and open opposition to the popular feelings of all the wicked in your Government? If you do, I will fight your battles.”

Our enemies had better count the cost; for if they continue the job, they will want to let it out to subcontractors, before they get half through with it. If they persist in sending troops here, I want the people in the west and in the east to understand that it will not be safe for them to cross the Plains.

It has cost the Government hundreds of thousands of dollars more for the Indians in other territories than it has in this; and I have saved the Government hundreds of thousands of dollars, by keeping the Indians peaceable in Utah. Hundreds of miles have the Indians traveled to see me, to know whether they might use up the emigrants, saying—“They have killed many of us; and they damn you and damn us, and shall we stand it?” I have always told them to hold on, to stop shedding blood, and to live in peace. But I have been told that the first company of packers that went through here this season, on their way from California to the States, shot at every Indian they saw between Carson Valley and Box Elder; and what has been the result? Probably scores of persons have been killed; animals have been taken from nearly all the emigrants that have passed on that road; and the Indians in that region have now more stock than they know how to take care of; and they come into settlements with their pockets full of gold. The whites first commenced on the Indians; and now, if they do not quit such conduct, they must stop traveling through this country; for it is more than I can do to keep the Indians still under such outrageous treatment.

The people do not realize what they have done by driving us into the midst of the Lamanites. They prevented Joseph from associating with the Indians; but they, through their ignorance, thought that we were going to Vancouver’s Island, or on the borders of the Pacific; but lo they have driven us into the midst of the Lamanites. These Lamanites begin to have a knowledge of their forefathers, and they are cultivating the earth. Here were the most degraded classes of Indians to be found; but now there is not a tribe so enlightened, nor one that has so good a knowledge of its real position and standing before the Lord as have some of these Utah Indians. It is now very different with them to what it was when we first came here. It is now becoming a universal practice with them to punish the guilty, and not the innocent: they have been taught that from the time we first came here. Talk with them, and you will learn that they have a good deal of knowledge. They must be saved, for they are the children of Abraham.

The Lord in his mercy has suffered our enemies to do that which we could not have accomplished for many years; and, let a war commence, and there is no knowing where we shall next land in Jackson County, Missouri. They will learn that “Mormonism” is a living creature.

All the world have to learn that the Lord is God, and that he is the God of his children. He will protect his anointed; he will defend his own family; and all we have to do is to do his will; and every man, woman, and child ought to seek to learn the will of God and do it. When that is the case, we need not fear all earth and hell. Do not offend God by not doing as he wants you to.

May the Lord God bless you, brethren and sisters. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, September 13, 1857.

Before the meeting closes, I want to make a few remarks. My feelings are so complicated that I want to say a few words, and I do not want to; I want to talk, and I do not want to talk. You recollect hearing one of the Elders state upon the stand, not long since, that he came into the Church mad, and had been mad ever since. And I am too angry this morning to preach.

I have been in this kingdom a good while—twenty-five years and upwards, and I have been driven from place to place; my brethren have been driven, my sisters have been driven; we have been scattered and peeled, and every time without any provocation upon our part, only that we were united, obedient to the laws of the land, and striving to worship God. Mobs repeatedly gathered against this people, but they never had any power to prevail until Governors issued their orders and called out a force under the letter of the law, but breaking the spirit, to hold the “Mormons” still while infernal scamps cut their throats. I have had all that before me through the night past, and it makes me too angry to preach. Also to see that we are in a Government whose administrators are always trying to injure us, while we are constantly at the defiance of all hell to prove any just grounds for their hostility against us; and yet they are organizing their forces to come here, and protect infernal scamps who are anxious to come and kill whom they please, destroy whom they please, and finally exterminate the “Mormons.”

I did not arrive till late; and brother Taylor was then preaching upon this subject, and I was glad of it. He has taught you good principles. This people are free; they are not in bondage to any government on God’s footstool. We have transgressed no law, and we have no occasion to do so, neither do we intend to; but as for any nation’s coming to destroy this people, God Almighty being my helper, they cannot come here. [The congregation responded by a loud Amen.] That is my feeling upon that point.

On the 24th of July last, a number of us went to Big Cottonwood Canyon, to pass the anniversary of our arrival into this Valley. Ten years ago the 24th of July last, a few of the Elders arrived here, and began to plough and to plant seeds, to raise food to sustain themselves. Whilst speaking to the brethren on that day, I said, inadvertently, If the people of the United States will let us alone for ten years, we will ask no odds of them; and ten years from that very day, we had a message by brothers Smoot, Stoddard, and Rockwell, that the Government had stopped the mail, and that they had ordered 2,500 troops to come here and hold the “Mormons” still, while priests, politicians, speculators, whoremongers, and every mean, filthy character that could be raked up should come here and kill off the “Mormons.” I did not think about what I had said ten years ago, till I heard that the President of the United States had so unjustly ordered troops here; and then I said, when my former expression came to my mind, In the name of Israel’s God, we ask no odds of them.

I do not often get angry; but when I do, I am righteously angry; and the bosom of the Almighty burns with anger towards those scoundrels; and they shall be consumed, in the name of Israel’s God. We have borne enough of their oppression and hellish abuse, and we will not bear any more of it; for there is no just law requiring further forbearance on our part. And I am not going to have troops here to protect the priests and a hellish rabble in efforts to drive us from the land we possess; for the Lord does not want us to be driven, and has said, “If you will assert your rights, and keep my commandments, you shall never again be brought into bondage by your enemies.”

The officer in command of the United States’ army, on its way to Utah, detailed one of his staff, Captain Van Vliet, who is now on the stand, to come here and learn whether he could procure the necessary supplies for the army. Many of you are already aware of this, and some of you have been previously acquainted with the Captain. Captain Van Vliet visited us in Winter Quarters (now Florence); and, if I remember correctly, he was then officiating as Assistant-Quartermaster. He is again in our midst in the capacity of Assistant-Quartermaster. From the day of his visit to Winter Quarters, many of this people have become personally acquainted with him, both through casual intercourse with and working for him. He has invariably treated them kindly, as he would a Baptist, a Methodist, or any other person; for that is his character. He has always been found to be free and frank, and to be a man that wishes to do right; and no doubt he would deal out justice to all, if he had the power. Many of you have labored for him, and found him to be a kind, good man; and I understand that he has much influence in the army, through his kind treatment to the soldiers. He treats them as human beings, while there are those who treat them worse than brute beasts.

Well, the enquiry is, “What is the news? What is the conclusion?” It is this—We have to trust in God. I am not in the least concerned as to the result, if we put our trust in God. The administrators of our Government have issued orders for marching troops and expending much treasure, and all predicated upon falsehoods, while every honorable man would have first made an economical and peaceful enquiry into the circumstances. And even now, every honorable man would use all his influence to avert the present unjust and entirely groundless movement against us; but Captains, Majors, Colonels, and other subordinate officers have not the power. Wicked persons, solely for the accomplishment of their unhallowed schemes, have had the power to array the Government against us, through their lying and misrepresentation; but citizens, unorganized into cliques and parties, no matter how good their intentions and wishes, have not the power to avert the blow when the Administration of our Government is arrayed against us, unless they will also unite against the few well-organized scoundrels who are plundering our treasury and fast urging our country to dissolution. We have got to protect ourselves by the strength of our God. Do not be concerned in the least with regard to all the affairs that are before you; for we shall live and grow finely, as said a certain woman, who weighed but two pounds when an infant, and was put in a quart cup. Upon being asked whether she lived, “O yes,” she said, “I lived and grew finely.” It will also be said of the Latter-day Saints, “They lived and grew finely.”

You are taught from Sabbath to Sabbath what to do; and if you do that, all will be well. There is only one thing to fear, and that is, that you will not be faithful to the kingdom of God. We have that kingdom; and it will spread its balmy wings over thousands and millions who have not yet heard the Gospel, and they will find Israel to be “the head, and not the tail.”

What is the cause of the hostile feeling against this people? Brother Taylor has been telling you. God has restored the Gospel of salvation to earth again. That unites the hearts of the people, brings together those of different nations, notwithstanding their various traditions and their different manners and customs, and makes them of one heart and of one mind. And what follows? All hell is moved against them, because the kingdoms of this world—the kingdoms of darkness—are in danger. All hell is moved against this people, because we are of one heart and of one mind.

The faith of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is calculated to unite the people in one, and to bring them back to the unity and faith of those who obeyed the Gospel anciently, and finally to bring them back to glory. Then do you wonder that all the sects of the day are enraged against us? I have told you that I do not wonder; neither do I wonder that governors and rulers are enraged at our success. Are there any Democrats, any Whigs, any Methodists, any Baptists, or anything like the parties and sects of the day among us? No. What is there? Those who want to do the will of their Father in heaven; and when they can know his will, their faith is one, their hope is one, and they are one in all things.

It is not alone the United States that is in fear because of the union that exists with this people, but all Europe trembles this day in consequence of the faith there is here. Some may think that it is not so; but I know more about the United States than men do who come here direct from Washington. I read their history and their feelings every day. You need not think that the world are not opposed to us—you need not think that politicians are not opposed to us, for they are.

We have sent a delegate to Congress during the past six years, and has there ever been an opposing vote in his election? No. The people only want to know who the right man is, and then they will support him. Dr. Bernhisel is our delegate; and has it cost him thousands of dollars to gain his election? No; it has not cost him a single dollar; no, not so much as a red cent. We think that he is the most suitable man for us to send to Washington, and we say, “Let us send him,” and he is unanimously elected. And if we had a thousand officers to elect—if we had to elect the President of the United States, you would never see a dissenting vote.

Parties in our Government have no better idea than to think the republic stands all the firmer upon opposition; but I say that it is not so. A republican Government consists in letting the people rule by their united voice, without a dissension—in learning what is for the best, and unitedly doing it. That is true republicanism.

Do not be angry. I will permit you to be as angry as I am. Do not get so angry that you cannot pray: do not allow yourselves to become so angry that you cannot feed an enemy—even your worst enemy, if an opportunity should present itself. There is a wicked anger, and there is a righteous anger. The Lord does not suffer wicked anger to be in his heart; but there is anger in his bosom, and he will hold a controversy with the nations, and will sift them, and no power can stay his hand.

The Government of our country will go by the board through its own corruptions, and no power can save it. If we can avert the blow for another season, it is probable that our enemies will have enough to attend to at home, without worrying the Latter-day Saints. Have faith, and all will be well with us. I would like this people to have faith enough to turn away their enemies. I have prayed fervently about this matter; for it has been said that the troops would come: but I have said that, if my faith will prevent it, they shall not come. If God will turn them whithersoever he will, so that they do not come here, I shall be perfectly satisfied. But another man steps up, and says to the one that prays for our enemies to be turned away, “Brother, you are a coward; damn them, let them come, for I want fight to them.” Herein you perceive a conflict in our faith; and that should not be. If there was a perfect union of our faith, our enemies could never cross the Rocky Mountains; or, if they undertook to come some other way, they never could cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains, nor the Basin Rim, on our north, nor the deserts at the south. But, says one, “I want to fight.” Do all such persons know that they are not right? If they will examine their hearts, they will find a wicked anger and a malice there; and they cannot get into the kingdom of God with those feelings.

Learn to control yourselves; learn to be in the hands of God as clay in the hands of the potter; and if he will turn our enemies away, praised be his name. But if it should become a duty to take the sword, let us do it manfully and in the strength of Israel’s God. Then “one will chase a thousand, and two will put ten thousand to flight.” The day will be in which a man will go out and say to an army of a hundred thousand men, “Do thus, and so, or we are upon you;” and they will hear the rumbling of chariots and the rushing of troops, as in the days of Elijah.

You recollect of a Prophet’s telling what bread and meal should be sold for in a straitened city the following day. The enemy thought that there were millions of the Israelites after them, for they heard the rolling of chariot wheels, the clashing of armor, and the trampling of horses, and they fled. The Prophet had told the king that he would be trodden to death in the gate, and he was; and a measure of meal was sold in the city for a penny, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord. The doctrines of salvation are the same now as they were in the days of Adam, or Elijah, or Jesus, when he was upon the earth.

While brother Taylor was speaking of the sectarian world, it occurred to my mind that the wicked do not know any more than the dumb brutes, comparatively speaking; but it is our business to hunt up and gather out all the honest portion of the nations of the earth, and give them salvation. We may very properly say that the sectarian world do not know anything correctly, so far as pertains to salvation. Ask them where heaven is? Where they are going to when they die? Where Paradise is? And there is not a priest in the world that can answer your questions. Ask them what kind of a being our Heavenly Father is, and they cannot tell you so much as Balaam’s ass told him. They are more ignorant than children.

We have the knowledge of those things; and we have the greatest reason to be thankful of any people upon the face of the earth. If others ought to do right, we more. Be full of love and compassion to your fellow beings, full of kindness, such as human beings can possess, for that is our business. The only business that we have on hand is to build up the kingdom of God and prepare the way of the Son of Man.

If you do your duty in this respect, you need not be afraid of mobs, nor of forces sent out in violation of the very genius of our free institutions, holding you till mobs kill you. Mobs? Yes; for where is there the least particle of authority, either in our Constitution or laws, for sending troops here, or even for appointing civil officers contrary to the voluntary consent of the governed? We came here without any help from our enemies, and we intend to stay as long as we please.

They say that their army is legal, and I say that such a statement is as false as hell, and that they are as rotten as an old pumpkin that has been frozen seven times and then melted in a harvest sun. Come on with your thousands of illegally-ordered troops, and I will promise you, in the name of Israel’s God, that you shall melt away as the snow before a July sun.

There is one thing that I want, for the satisfaction of Captain Van Vliet. One of our old senators, Stephen A. Douglas, recently said before his constituents in Illinois, that nine-tenths of our people were aliens. We have a larger proportion of foreigners in this city than in any other part of the Territory, and there are a good many here today who have just come in from the Plains. I want those who are native born and naturalized American citizens to raise their right hands. [Over two-thirds of the congregation raised their hands.] You who have not yet received your naturalization papers will please manifest it in the same way. [Less than a third of the congregation raised their hands.] Now, Captain, you can see for yourself that over two-thirds of this congregation are either native born or naturalized American citizens.

I have called this vote that Captain Van Vliet may be able to do as he always does—speak the truth boldly, and tell them of it next winter in Washington; and that he can, if he sees Senator Douglas in Washington, tell him that his statement was false, for he has seen for himself.

If it were any use, I would ask whether there is ONE person in this congregation who wants to go to the United States; but I know that I should not find any. But I will pledge myself that if there is a man, woman, or child that wants to go back to the States, if they will pay their debts, and not steal anything, they can go; and if they are poor and honest, we will help them to go. That has been my well-known position all the time.

Brother Taylor has said that he bantered the United States for a trade, and promised them that if they would send all to Utah that wanted to come, we would send all to the States that wanted to go. We would get our thousands to their one, if they would make that trade. But no—they must keep on lying, howling, and trying to oppress and kill the innocent.

When some went away last spring, I told them to go in peace, and they did so. What are they doing now? Many of them are struggling to get back, and the rest are wishing that they had never left here. It is a kind of dear business to apostatize every year. I would rather stick to the old ship Zion.

When I was written to in Nauvoo by the President of the United States, through another person, enquiring, “Where are you going, Mr. Young?” I replied that I did not know where we should land. We had men in England trying to negotiate for Vancouver’s Island, and we sent a shipload of Saints round Cape Horn to California. Men in authority asked, “Where are you going to?” “We may go to California, or to Vancouver’s Island.” When the Pioneer company reached Green River, we met Samuel Brannan and a few others from California, and they wanted us to go there. I remarked, “Let us go to California, and we cannot stay there over five years; but let us stay in the mountains, and we can raise our own potatoes, and eat them; and I calculate to stay here.” We are still on the backbone of the animal, where the bone and the sinew are, and we intend to stay here, and all hell cannot help themselves.

We are not to be persecuted as we have been. We can say, “Come as a mob, and we can sweeten you up right suddenly.” They never did anything against Joseph till they had ostensibly legalized a mob; and I shall treat every army and every armed company that attempts to come here as a mob. [The congregation responded, “Amen.“] You might as well tell me that you can make hell into a powder-house as to tell me that you could let an army in here and have peace; and I intend to tell them and show them this, if they do not keep away. By taking this course, you will find that every man and woman feels happy, and they say, “All is right, all is well;” and I say that our enemies shall not slip the bow on “Old Bright’s neck” again.

God bless you. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, on Sunday, September 6th, 1857.

Brother Thomas B. Marsh, formerly the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has now come to us, after an absence of nearly nineteen years. He is on the stand today, and wishes to make a few remarks to the congregation.

You will comprehend the purport of the remarks he wishes to make, by my relating a part of his conversation with me yesterday. He came into my office and wished to know whether I could be reconciled to him, and whether there could be a reconciliation between himself and the Church of the living God. He reflected for a moment and said, I am reconciled to the Church, but I want to know whether the Church can be reconciled to me.

He is here, and I want him to say what he may wish to. [Brother Marsh then arose, and the President continued.] Brethren and sisters, I now introduce to you brother Thomas B. Marsh. When the Quorum of the Twelve was first organized, he was appointed to be their President.

REMARKS BY THOMAS B. MARSH. I do not know that I can make all this vast congregation hear and understand me. My voice never was very strong, but it has been very much weakened of late years by the afflicting rod of Jehovah. He loved me too much to let me go without whipping. I have seen the hand of the Lord in the chastisement which I have received. I have seen and known that it has proved he loved me; for if he had not cared anything about me, he would not have taken me by the arm and given me such a shaking.

If there are any among this people who should ever apostatize and do as I have done, prepare your backs for a good whipping, if you are such as the Lord loves. But if you will take my advice, you will stand by the authorities; but if you go away and the Lord loves you as much as he did me, he will whip you back again.

Many have said to me, “How is it that a man like you, who understood so much of the revelations of God as recorded in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, should fall away?” I told them not to feel too secure, but to take heed lest they also should fall; for I had no scruples in my mind as to the possibility of men falling away.

I can say, in reference to the Quorum of the Twelve, to which I belonged, that I did not consider myself a whit behind any of them, and I suppose that others had the same opinion; but, let no one feel too secure: for, before you think of it, your steps will slide. You will not then think nor feel for a moment as you did before you lost the Spirit of Christ; for when men apostatize, they are left to grovel in the dark.

I have sought diligently to know the Spirit of Christ since I turned my face Zionward, and I believe I have obtained it. I have frequently wanted to know how my apostasy began, and I have come to the conclusion that I must have lost the Spirit of the Lord out of my heart.

The next question is, “How and when did you lose the Spirit?” I became jealous of the Prophet, and then I saw double, and overlooked everything that was right, and spent all my time in looking for the evil; and then, when the Devil began to lead me, it was easy for the carnal mind to rise up, which is anger, jealousy, and wrath. I could feel it within me; I felt angry and wrathful; and the Spirit of the Lord being gone, as the Scriptures say, I was blinded, and I thought I saw a beam in brother Joseph’s eye, but it was nothing but a mote, and my own eye was filled with the beam; but I thought I saw a beam in his, and I wanted to get it out; and, as brother Heber says, I got mad, and I wanted everybody else to be mad. I talked with Brother Brigham and Brother Heber, and I wanted them to be mad like myself; and I saw they were not mad, and I got madder still because they were not. Brother Brigham, with a cautious look, said, “Are you the leader of the Church, brother Thomas?” I answered, “No.” “Well then,” said he, “Why do you not let that alone?”

Well, this is about the amount of my hypocrisy—I meddled with that which was not my business. But let me tell you, my brethren and friends, if you do not want to suffer in body and mind, as I have done—if there are any of you that have the seeds of apostasy in you, do not let them make their appearance, but nip that spirit in the bud; for it is misery and affliction in this world, and destruction in the world to come. I know that I was a very stiffnecked man, and I felt, for the first four or five years especially, that I would never return to the Church; but towards the latter part of the time, I began to wake up and to be sensible that I was being chastised by the Almighty; and I felt to realize the language of Jeremiah concerning Ephraim in the last days, where he says, “Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy on him, saith the Lord.”

Thinks I, this language suits my condition. I then thought, I will go back and see if the Lord will heal me, for I am of the seed of Ephraim, and I felt troubled from that day, and my soul was vexed with the filthy conversation of those Sodomites.

After forming this resolution, I tried to get an outfit, and I kept trying for two or three years; for I did not want to come here sick, lame, decrepid, and dependent; and therefore I kept on trying; but instead of gaining, I was like the man that undertook to climb the tree—I slipt down farther than I got up. I then thought to myself, I am getting old, and every year makes me older and weaker; and if I do not start, I shall soon die, and then whose fault will it be? I concluded it would be my own fault if I stayed. I therefore said, “I will go now.” That was last January. I looked round a few days to see what I could raise, and I raised five dollars and ten cents, and I said. “Lord, if you will help me, I will go.” I felt that he would: therefore I started with but five dollars and ten cents, from Harrison County, Missouri, to come all the way to this Valley. I knew that I could not come here with that small sum, and I did not see how I was to get any more; but before I got out of the State, the Lord had changed my fortune, and I had $55.05. I then concluded within myself that the Lord was with me; but still I had some hardships; for I traveled on foot in some severely cold weather, and I found that my chastisement was not over, notwithstanding the favor of the Lord in helping me to some means. I remarked that I had fifty-five dollars when I left the States, and that, too, obtained honestly, without any speculation, trading, swapping, or stealing; but I earned what I got, and left a good name behind me.

I have given you some items of my apostasy. I will now relate some of my recent experience.

When I got to Florence, or Winter Quarters, where I had to stay, waiting for an opportunity to cross the Plains, I read many of the publications and works of the Church, and became strengthened and informed in regard to the Priesthood of the Son of God. Although I knew something about the Priesthood before, so far as the theory was concerned, yet I discovered that I had never properly understood it; and hence I feel that my faith is greatly strengthened. I wanted to get posted up and see what the “Mormons” had learned since I left them; and I learned very much by reading the discourses that had been preached here.

The doctrine of plurality was a great bugbear to me, till I got to Florence and read the works of brother Orson Pratt; and now I see that it is heaven’s own doctrine, and the Church of Jesus Christ can never be perfect without it. Had I known as much of the Church of Jesus Christ and its doctrines before I apostatized as I now know, I think I could not have backslidden.

I have come here to get good society—to get your fellowship. I want your fellowship; I want your God to be my God, and I want to live with you forever, in time and eternity. I never want to forsake the people of God any more. I want to have your confidence, and I want to be one in the house of God. I have learned to understand what David said when he exclaimed, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” I have not come here to seek for any office, except it be to be a doorkeeper or a deacon; no, I am neither worthy nor fit; but I want a place among you as a humble servant of the Lord.

I did say once, when coming along, inadvertently, They may think that I am coming to get office, but if they offer it to me I will not have it, and that will show them I do not want any; but I took a second thought and said, I will say, The will of the Lord be done.

I have now got a better understanding of the Presidency of the Church than I formerly had. I used to ask myself, What is the difference between the President of our Church and a Pope? True, he is not called a Pope, but names do not alter realities, and therefore he is a Pope.

God is at the head of this kingdom, and he has sustained it. I was along in the start of it, and then Joseph was the little one; but, as the Scriptures say, “The little one shall become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation;” and Joseph lived to become a thousand, and this people are fast becoming a strong nation.

I am just as confident as I can be in the truth of those things that brother Heber has spoken of; for I see in my meditations how the Priesthood has been restored, when the Lord had taken it from the earth by the death of the Apostles, and how the authority to administer in the name of Jesus Christ was also taken, and that, when the authority went, miracles were taken away and the power of God ceased to be manifested through men during the long period of the rule of antichrist and anarchy.

I see the propriety of God’s vesting the authority in one man, and in having a head, or something tangible to see, hear, and understand the mind and will of God. When I saw this, I said, It is consistent: Christ is the great head of the Church. Christ is the head of his Church in the same relationship as every head is to the body to which it belongs; for every head must have eyes to see, a mouth to speak, and ears to hear. Well, Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, and he has got a man to represent him on the earth—viz., President Brigham Young. Jesus Christ is still the head of the Church; and his will to man on the earth is known by means of the mouthpiece of God, the Prophet, and Seer.

When I came to these conclusions, I said, Now I will go there among them; for I have found out how I may learn wisdom from God. I want to learn wisdom, and not to be ruled by my own imaginations.

God has given me reasoning powers, and I will use them, so far as I am capable, in the acquirement of knowledge. But how will I get wisdom from God? The answer is plain. He speaks through his mouthpiece, therefore I will go and place my ears close to his mouth—for I am not good of hearing—and I will pray to God in secret; and to such he has said he will answer them openly. I will pray for the thing that I want; and the chief desire of my heart before God is, that I may know that he accepts me.

Well, where shall I go, was the next question, to get a response to this desire? The answer was, Go to the President of the Church—to the mouthpiece of God, and then you can be taught, and there will be no difficulty in learning the mind and will of God.

I thank God that he has brought me back here, where I can receive such instructions, and with a prospect of seeing, notwithstanding my advanced age, the glory of God. Many of you that are young will live, as has been said, to see the glory of God manifested on the earth. Amen.

FURTHER REMARKS BY PRESIDENT BRIGHAM YOUNG

A portion of the congregation have heard what brother Marsh has said; but he spoke so low that you could not all hear. He wants to know whether this people are willing to receive him into full fellowship. When he came to Florence, he applied to brother Cunningham, who was then presiding there, for baptism. Brother Cunningham at first refused to baptize him, probably thinking that it would be better for him to wait till he came to this place; but he afterwards gave his consent to brother Marsh’s being baptized. Brother Marsh now wishes to be received into full fellowship, and to be again baptized here.

There are many here who have formerly been acquainted with him—with his moral character, and they can judge as well as myself. Those who are not acquainted with him will be willing to coincide with the judgment of those who once knew him.

I shall call a vote, to ascertain whether the people are willing that he should be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and be acknowledged a member in full fellowship. I wish those who are willing to receive brother Marsh into full fellowship as a member in this Church and kingdom to manifest it by the uplifted hand. [All hands appeared to be raised.] If there are any who are not willing, they now have the privilege of manifesting it by the uplifted hand. [Not a hand was raised.]

Brother Marsh, I think that will be satisfactory to you.

[T. B. Marsh: “It is, and I thank God for it.”]

I presume that brother Marsh will take no offense if I talk a little about him. We have manifested our feelings towards him, and we know his situation. With regard to this Church’s being reconciled to him, I can say that this Church and people were never dissatisfied with him; for when men and women apostatize and go from us, we have nothing to do with them. If they do that which is evil, they will suffer for it. Brother Marsh has suffered. He told me, yesterday, that the Christians might hang up their fiddle in regard to there being no Catholic Tophet or Purgatory.

You are aware that the children of the Mother Church have dissented from the idea of there being such a place as Purgatory; but brother Marsh says that there is such a place, and that he has been in it during the past eighteen years and upwards. I asked him whether he did not have to pray himself out. He answered, “Yes.” I then remarked—If you prayed yourself out, I suppose you saved the priests’ fees. “Yes,” he said; “It did not cost me a cent of money.” However, it cost him a great deal of labor, trouble, and pain.

In conversing with brother Marsh, I find that he is about the same Thomas that he always was—full of anecdotes and chit-chat. He could hardly converse for ten minutes without telling an anecdote. His voice and style of conversation are familiar to me.

He has told you that he is an old man. Do you think that I am an old man? I could prove to this congregation that I am young; for I could find more girls who would choose me for a husband than can any of the young men.

Brother Thomas considers himself very aged and infirm, and you can see that he is, brethren and sisters. What is the cause of it? He left the Gospel of salvation. What do you think the difference is between his age and mine? One year and seven months to a day; and he is one year, seven months, and fourteen days older than brother Heber C. Kimball.

“Mormonism” keeps men and women young and handsome; and when they are full of the Spirit of God, there are none of them but what will have a glow upon their countenances; and that is what makes you and me young; for the Spirit of God is with us and within us.

When brother Thomas thought of returning to the Church, the plurality of wives troubled him a good deal. Look at him. Do you think it need to? I do not; for I doubt whether he could get one wife. Why it should have troubled an infirm old man like him is not for me to say. He read brother Orson Pratt’s work upon that subject, and discovered that the doctrine was beautiful, consistent, and exalting, and that the kingdom could not be perfect without it. Neither can it be perfect without a great many things that the people do not yet understand, though they will come in the own due time of the Lord.

As I have but a few minutes for speaking, I will relate a little of the current news of the day.

On Friday evening, the 11th inst., two of the brethren who accompanied brothers Samuel W. Richards and George Snider from Deer Creek to 118 miles below Laramie, came in, and reported that soldiers and a heavy freight train were there encamped opposite to them and on the south side of the Platte. They could tell that they were soldiers, from the appearance of their carriages, wagons, tents, and mode of encampment. We did not learn anything very definite from these two brethren lately arrived.

Messrs. Russel and Waddle are freighting for Government, and some of their trains were scattered along to the Sweetwater. They have twenty-six wagons in each train, with a teamster and six yoke of oxen to a wagon. Some of those trains were on the Sweetwater when brother Samuel passed down, and quite a number of them are in advance of the soldiers. The brethren learned that Captain Van Vliet, Assistant Quartermaster, was coming on to purchase lumber and such things as might be needed for the army.

Last evening, brother John R. Murdock arrived direct from St. Louis. He left here with the mail on the 2nd day of July, and reached Independence in sixteen days, making by far the shortest trip on record, and in eighteen days-and-a-half from here landed in St. Louis. He tarried there till brother Horace S. Eldredge and brother Groesbeck had transacted some business, and then started up the river with a small train. On the 9th of August, brother Murdock left Atchison, K.T. Troubles were daily expected to break out in Kansas between the Republican, or Free State, and the pro-slavery parties; for which reason General Harney, with the cavalry, a portion of the infantry, and, I think, one or two companies of the Artillery, were detained there by orders from Washington, and Colonel Johnson ordered to assume the command of the army for Utah.

Some fifteen or sixteen hundred infantry started from Leavenworth; and when brother Murdock passed them, one hundred miles below Laramie, about five hundred had deserted, leaving, as he was told, about one thousand men on their way to this place. He passed a few freight trains, which were entirely deserted by the teamsters, and Russel and Waddle were not able to hire teamsters to bring those trains forward.

Brother Murdock did not think that they could get here this fall, unless we helped them in. Their teams are pretty good, but they are very much jaded. Their mule teams are in better condition, because they regularly feed them on grain.

From the time that I heard that the President of the United States had issued orders for soldiers to come here, they have had my best faith that the Lord would not let them get here. I have seen this people, when palsied with agues, fevers, and with various other diseases, hurled out of doors, driven away from their cellars full of potatoes, from their meal chests, from their cows, houses, barns, orchards, fields, and finally from their happy homes and all the comforts of life. I have seen that a good many times, and I pray that I may never see it again, unless it is absolutely necessary for the welfare and advancement of God’s purposes on the earth. I want to see no more suffering. I will not use the word suffering, for I call it joy instead of sorrow, affliction, and suffering. If we live our religion and exercise faith, it is our firm belief that it is our right to so exercise our united faith that our enemies never can come here, unless the Lord in his providence sees that it will be for our good.

It is my faith and feelings that, if we live as we should live, they cannot come here; but I am decided in my opinion that, if worse comes to worst, and the Lord permits them to come upon us, I will desolate this whole Territory before I will again submit to the hellish corruption and bondage the wicked are striving to thrust upon us solely for our exercising our right of freedom of conscience.

I will say, in reference to President Buchanan, that, for his outrageous wickedness in this movement, he shall wear the yoke as long as he lives; he shall be led about by his party with the yoke on his neck, until they have accomplished their ends, and he can do no more for them; and his name shall be forgotten; and “Old Bright,” as brother Kimball calls him, shall be free. I am persuaded that for their horrible, wicked treatment to this people—the only loyal people in the United States—the only people who know the worth of the Constitution—they will be sorely punished.

After doing what they already have done to this people—after sending among us the filth and scum of all creation (as some of the officers were) as officers of the Government, contrary to the genius of our institutions, I want to tell them that, though they continue to send poor pusillanimous curses here to be Government officers, we will not submit to it, troops or no troops. I shall tell them this in plainness and simplicity; and they shall find that in my simplicity I will try to sustain so righteous a position. And I believe that the point is yielded, both in Europe and America; and I believe they acknowledge that Brigham is a man of his word; and I have come to the conclusion that we will not again have officers thrust upon us contrary to our consent, the Lord helping us.

When brother Murdock left St. Louis, Mr. Cummings, the person who had received the appointment of Governor of Utah, was going to Washington, and he could not learn that there was one of the Territorial officers with the soldiers: hence I do not see but that I shall have to again preside over our Legislative Assembly this winter. I do not see that it can be otherwise; and William H. Hooper will be Secretary, just as he was last winter. They have refused to pay the expenses of the last Assembly and other just debts due to this Territory; but God will overrule those things for our good and the advancement of his kingdom, if we live our religion.

Our enemies will yet be glad to come to us for safety and salvation; and we will do as brother Kimball has said—we will save the old veteran fathers; and the time will come when we will be baptized for them, while those who trample upon the rights of their fellow men will be weltering in hell. Yes, we will bring up those old revolutionary sires and save them; for God loves men who are true to each other and are true to him.

If any want to apostatize, I want them to look at brother Marsh. I wish you could all see and understand what he has suffered. He has suffered a little; and I could tell you a good deal of the suffering induced by the weaknesses of men.

When the Quorum of the Twelve was first chosen, Lyman Johnson’s name was called first, Brigham Young’s second, Heber C. Kimball’s third, and so on. I had seen brother Marsh and others who were nominated for the Quorum of the Twelve, and I looked upon them as men of great powers of mind—as men of ability—men who understood the things of heaven. I looked upon them as angels, and I looked up to them just as my children look up to me.

I considered brother Marsh a great man; but as soon as I became acquainted with him, I saw that the weakness of the flesh was visibly manifest in him. I saw that he was ignorant and shattered in his understanding, if ever he had good understanding. He manifests the same weakness today. Has he the stability of a sound mind? No, and never had. And if he had good sense and judgment, he would not have spoken as he has. He has just said, “I will be faithful, and I will be true to you.” He has not wisdom enough to see that he has betrayed us once, and don’t know but what he will again. He has told me that he would be faithful, and that he would do this and the other; but he don’t know what he will do next week or next year.

I do not know what I shall do next year; I always speak for the present. But a man that will be once fooled by the Devil—a man that has not sense to discern between steel grey mixed and iron grey mixed, when one is dyed with logwood and the other with indigo, may be deceived again. You never heard me say that I was going to be true to my God; for I know too much of human weakness: but I pray God to preserve me from falling away—to preserve me in the truth. I depend not upon myself; for I know too much of human weakness and of myself, to indulge in such remarks.

I derive strength from a superior source. I have been drinking from that source for many years; and, as I told you last Sabbath, I have been trying to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. And, if we are faithful, we will all be counted worthy to be his disciples. God bless you! Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, August 30, 1857.

I can truly say that I am happy for the privilege of meeting with the Saints.

When I am alone, and look by the vision of the Spirit upon this people, my heart says within me, God bless the people, God bless the people; and I bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus. I feel to bless the people continually, from day to day. Their interest is my interest; their welfare is my welfare; their hope is mine. We are of one faith; and to see the people drawing near unto the Lord and becoming more of one heart and of one mind is the most cheering thought and reflection that can pass upon my mind: there is nothing else that compares with it. As for the riches of the world or the good things of the world—as for gold or silver, houses and lands, they are nothing in comparison to the purity of the faith of the people.

This people are increasing in their faith, they are increasing in their good works, and they are really becoming the Saints of the Most High. Any person possessing the Spirit of the holy Gospel, and who has been acquainted with this people during years that are past, can readily discover that they are merging to the period when they will become the disciples of the Lord Jesus. Perhaps we think that we are perfectly so now; but it is not the case—we are engaged in a preparatory work.

When the Gospel came to us, it found us in the depths of ignorance; it found us in darkness; it found us possessed of all the prejudices, feelings, and views that now exist in the world. There is no man—there is no woman, but what was more or less clothed upon with the traditions of their fathers. There cannot a person be found at the present day—one who has arrived at the years to think, to act, and to judge for himself, but what is more or less clothed and enveloped in the traditions of their fathers.

On the other hand, there is no person possessing the Spirit of revelation but what can very readily discern that the ways of the Lord are not like the ways of man, and that the children of men have gone out of the way. Take all nations—all people—by communities, by societies, by families, and by individuals—take the whole mass of the inhabitants of the earth, and they have each taken to their own way, as any person possessing the Spirit of revelation can discern to be the case in the whole world. At the same time, they imagine that they are right—that they have light—that they have intelligence—that they are possessed of true knowledge pertaining to God and the things of eternity.

Take the inhabitants of Japan—islands situated between here and China—and if you are acquainted with the people, with their feelings and true sentiments, you know that they actually believe that they are the only people that are enlightened, and that all the rest of mankind are heathen. Go to China, which is called by its inhabitants the celestial empire because of their supposed purity, and they actually believe that they are the only nation under heaven that has the true knowledge of eternity.

Turn to the Christian nations on the eastern and western continents—take enlightened Christendom as the whole—and they believe that they are the only people who have the knowledge of God. It is true that they far exceed all other nations in many of the arts and sciences, and they also believe that they are the only people who understand the true religion of heaven.

They are sending their missionaries to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south, and they are penetrating every nook and corner, to enlighten what they call the heathen nations. Is not that the case? That arises from the traditions of their fathers which are handed down to the children, and they are enveloped in them.

When we look at this people, could we expect them to become prepared to be the disciples of the Lord Jesus in one, in five, in ten, in twenty, or in thirty years? No. And it will be just as much as we can do to be worthy to be the brothers and sisters of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when he makes his appearance. Let us strive with all our might, be as watchful as it is possible for us to be, apply ourselves by faith and diligence to the keeping of his commandments, and continue so doing until Jesus sets his feet upon this continent, and we will then find that we are only just prepared to receive him. This is the preparatory work, and it will prepare the people, if they will live for it.

How can we live our religion, except we do as we are told? I will reverse the question and enquire, How can this people do as they are told, except they live their religion? They cannot. Every family—every neighborhood is taught to glorify God. They are instructed from day to day, they are taught the way of life and salvation, they are counseled continually to seek unto the Lord their God, to obtain the faith of the ancients, to obtain the light of the heavens, to walk in the light of His countenance day by day; but how can you do these things, except you do as you are told? You cannot. Neither can you live your religion, except you do as you are told; for the people are taught to live their religion—they are taught to cease from every evil thought and every evil action, to cease having a murmuring spirit, to cease having a doubtful feeling; and they are taught to cease being neglectful in regard to any known duty. We are taught to double our diligence where we have been slack, to seek unto the Lord day by day, that we may have the light of his countenance upon us.

Brother Heber has been prophesying. You know that I call him my Prophet, and he prophesies for me. And now I prophesy that, if this people will live their religion, the God of heaven will fight their battles, bring them off victorious over all their enemies, and give to them the kingdom. That is my prophecy. I said amen to all that brother Heber prophesied, for it is true; and he may say amen to all that I prophesy, for it is also true.

I have no fears in regard to the kingdom of God upon the earth; but I have fears lest this people be not prepared to receive glory, immortality, and eternal lives, when those principles are presented to them. This is all the fear that I have—that we will not walk up to our privileges and be prepared for them.

I thank my Father in heaven—yes, my soul says, Glory, hallelujah, praise the name of Israel’s God, for the blessings I enjoy at the present time! One year ago this very day, and previous to that time, my soul was pained within me. No tongue could tell—it could not be portrayed before the people, the feelings that I had: I could not tell them; and I did not know but that, if I should come out in the presence of the people and try to speak my feelings, they would call me crazy. However, I tried to make the people understand my feelings, but no tongue could tell them; and I actually believe that I would have lived but a little time in this existence, had not God waked up the people. I wanted to take up my valise and go throughout the Territory crying, Is there a man in this Territory for God?

If you want to know how I felt, I cannot tell you better than by describing my feelings in the way that I am now doing. One day, I told a number of the brethren how I felt, as well as I could; and brother Jedediah M. Grant partook of the Spirit that was in me and walked out like a man, like a giant, and like an angel, and he scattered the fire of the Almighty among the people. But what was the result so far as he was concerned? He went beyond his strength, and it cost him his life.

There is now scarcely a man but wants to do as God would have him do among those who claim to be Latter-day Saints, except those four or five that brother Heber speaks of; hence we hold a very large majority of that class of men and women who desire to do precisely as God would have them, and my heart says, God bless the people. God bless you, brethren and sisters. I bless you all the time. You are near my heart, and it is all my business to look after the welfare of the Saints. Remember that it will be just as much as you and I can do to prepare to meet the Savior when he comes, no matter whether we previously go into the grave or not.

There has been a great deal said in the lower world about this little handful of people; for you terrify the whole world! Not alone in the United States, but in England, in France, in Italy, in Germany, and in every State upon the eastern continent, the people are looking to see the result of the present movements of our Government towards this people. They are looking at the Gospel we preach, the course that we take, the influence we are gaining, and the numbers we are gathering to us; and they look at the subject not only in a religious point of view, but also in a national capacity.

Brother Heber said to you, if the time has come, designed by the Lord Almighty, for the thread to be cut between this people and the residue of the world, then the Lord will suffer our enemies to clip the thread; and I am with him in that sentiment. But if the time is not come, the Lord will not suffer them to come. If He designs that traffic should continue between us and them, that we shall have the privilege of bringing our immigration, of preaching the Gospel and saving the people, let me tell you that they will not come; God will stop them.

As for myself, I would just as soon this was the time as any other. If it is the time for the thread, in a national capacity, to be severed, let it be severed. Amen to it. But I will tell you what I have concluded: when we talk of gold, of silver, of riches, of the comforts of this world, with me it is the kingdom of God, or nothing; with us it must be the kingdom of God, or nothing. I shall not go in for anything half-way. We must have the kingdom of God, or nothing. We are not to be overthrown.

Cannot this kingdom be overthrown? No. They might as well try to obliterate the sun. And I should suppose that an experience of twenty-six years would have proven to the wicked that it could not be overthrown; but it only wakes them up to anger and stirs them up to be more diligent in their opposition to the righteous. They have been trying to break up this people and destroy their organization, ever since we became a church; and every time they try, their oppression forces us into greater note; they increase our numbers and strengthen us in faith and in the knowledge and power of God. And how long must they live before they can learn that such has been and invariably will be the result? They will learn it when they get into hell, and never before—never till they get into the spirit world; and then they will see that they have all the time been fighting against God; and never till then will they learn it. You cannot teach them anything.

Here are men who have been with us for six or seven years, and if they had any good, common philosophical power, they would know that ours is something different from any other authority and organization in the world. The union and peace that are here are in no other place on the face of the earth. Here are power and influence that are nowhere else on earth. Among this people there is an intelligence that is nowhere else to be found. Can darkness discover light? No; and even when it reflects itself, they turn it away as a trifling affair, and that light which was in them becomes darkness; and then greater is their darkness in the second instance than in the first.

Some of this people apostatize. But do you think that any would apostatize from the kingdom of God, if they knew that it was the kingdom of God? No. Why do they apostatize? Because, through disobedience, that little light they were in possession of is taken away, and they are left to believe a lie that they may be damned. That is the reason why they go away.

I say to this people, Do as you are told; and if you live by every righteous principle that you can learn and forsake every evil principle and act through your whole lives as becometh Saints of the Most High, all will be well. Can men live so that they can have the serene, blessed, calm, soft, soothing Spirit of the Lord always to abide with them? Yes, they can. And if they are tempted, they can resist temptation. Can women? They can. If they have temptation, they can resist it, and it will flee from them, and they will gain a victory.

So live, day by day, that your lives will be like an even spun thread. Let there be no lying, no backbiting, no evil; but let the whole life of every man and woman tend to good. Then, when they have their failings, they will forgive each other, and will find the words of the Savior to be true, that his Spirit will be in them as a well of living water springing up into everlasting life. Will they become prophets? Yes, and prophetesses. Let them honor their religion until they pass the ordeal, and they will reach the time when the Lord will never suffer them to fall. There will be a time when the fountain of life is within them; then they are prophets and prophetesses, and tell the truth all the time. They walk no more in darkness, but in the light; and that is the privilege of every man and woman.

Thank heaven that bickerings and contentions are lessening every year among this people. Suppose that we all most strictly lived our religion, would there be a hard word in this community? There would not. Do you understand that? Never accuse a man or a woman of evil, until you find out the cause. Never judge by the outward appearance, but judge righteous judgment. And if persons who are striving to do good should happen to commit an overt act, and are ready to restore to the uttermost, then that would be the occasion of a feeling of kindness and affection towards them. There is no reason for the people to do wrong, but there is everything to encourage them to do right.

The brethren have had a good deal said to them this morning, but I feel to bless the people; and I wish you to live nearer and nearer to the Lord. Seek unto the Lord our God continually; seek to possess more of his Spirit; throw off the power of erroneous traditions and of the evil influences that were around us in our youthful days and before we came to a knowledge of the truth. Learn the things of God, and you will find that they are very different from the things of the world; you will find all the plans and schemes of the world to be so different that you would hardly suppose that they ever knew anything about the plan of salvation.

Also remember to lay up your grain. Brother Heber has been preaching to you about that; therefore remember to lay up sufficient for your families. Sow your grain early this fall. Many wish to know whether I think we shall reap. I do not care whether we do or not. I intend to sow early this fall, so that it will ripen next season. How bad we should feel, if we did not sow, and all should be peace and safety next season, to know that we could have harvested if we had sown. I reckon that I should feel bad, if I were placed in such a condition; but I will prepare for the people to live so long as they dwell upon the earth.

What more will I prepare for? I will prepare for a fight, I will prepare for peace, and I will also prepare for everything that comes along; then I am ready for anything. Build? Yes, build, and make your homes as comfortable as you can.

If I knew that I was going to burn all my buildings next season, it would not hinder me for one hour from making improvements. The more I do, the more I shall be prepared to do. And I am determined to prepare to lay up the walls of Zion and to learn all I can, so that, if I should happen to be one of the men to engage in that work, I shall know how to commence and dictate the foundation of the walls of Zion and those of the Temple.

A great many think that we have been extravagant in laying so broad and deep a foundation for this Temple; but I would rather have that foundation, though it should lay as it is till the Millennium, than to have the most splendid superstructure built upon a sandy foundation. What do you say, you men and women of judgment? [Voices, “You are correct.”] Is there not more honor in that foundation, though it lay there till we go back to Jackson County, than there would be in such a building as I have named?

About two weeks ago, Elder Hyde began to say, “There is no knowing where;” and I took the words from his mouth and continued, “The Latter-day Saints will land in Jackson County, Missouri.”

The Lord has suffered the wicked to drive us about, that we might accomplish his designs the sooner. Some of you sisters are afraid of cousin Lemuel; and some say that our enemies are bringing presents to bribe cousin Lemuel. Let them bring and let them bribe, and then, if the time has come, when they have got through bribing, cousin Lemuel will turn round and take the rest.

God is at the helm. This is the mighty ship Zion. You stick to the ship, and honor it, and see that you are in favor with the ship Zion, and you need not worry about anything else. God has the hearts of the children of men in his hands; he puts hooks in their jaws and turns them about at His pleasure. God is here; the Holy Ghost is here and rests upon this people, and I am a witness to it. I know that the Holy Ghost dwells in the hearts of this people; and the world are afraid of the union that exists upon this people. They were afraid of that in the days of Joseph, and it has been their fear all the time. You might take a Democrat, a Republican, a ranting Methodist, and old, stiffnecked, ranting Presbyterian; and when they came to consider Joseph Smith and the Saints, they saw that they were one in faith, and it scared them all. They would say, “We are Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, but we are of different politics; in our churches may be found all kinds of politics, but you, Joseph Smith, alter men’s politics; you change them and make them all one.”

Brethren and sisters, do not be angry with them, for they are in the hands of God. Instead of feeling a spirit to punish them, or anything like wrath, you live your religion; and you will see the day when you will pray God to turn away from your eyes the sight of their afflictions.

There are thousands and millions in the United States, and in the world, whose hearts are like an aspen leaf because of this little handful of people in Utah. Pity them; for they know not whom they are fighting against; they know not their destiny.

This army that is reported to be coming to this place know no more about you and me than you know about the interior of China: they go because they are sent. If they knew our real character, the soldiers themselves would turn round and tell their officers to go to hell; they would take a stampede, and if their officers urged them to come and fight this people, they would turn round upon them or tell them to do it themselves.

Now, do not feel angry. Are not they to be pitied? Yes. Are you to be pitied? Yes, if you forsake God, or your religion. The Saints need to be pitied for nothing but for forsaking their religion. Be careful that you do not get darkness into your minds.

May God bless you. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered at the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, August 9, 1857.

So far as I am concerned, with regard to the performance of duties by the Elders of Israel—the duties which have been placed upon them and required at their hands upon their missions—for the gratification of the brethren just referred to by Elder Taylor, I will say, If there has been nothing hitherto expressed here manifesting the feelings of the First Presidency of the Church and the members in general on this point, I can answer for the people, by asking and answering a question.

Brother Taylor, brother George A. Smith, and brother Bernhisel, did you do your duty in Congress in reference to presenting our petition for a State? I think that I can answer for this Committee, as well as for the people, and say that they discharged their duty manfully and satisfactorily to their God and to their brethren. I can answer for the people, and say that they are most perfectly satisfied with the labors of our Committee. When a man can say of a truth, “I have done the very best that I could in my mission,” the heart of every Saint on earth acquainted with the circumstances, the angels in heaven, and our heavenly Father are all satisfied. There is no more required of us than we are capable of performing. The First Presidency are satisfied, and I can say that the people are satisfied.

With regard to the labors of brother Taylor in editing the paper called The Mormon, published in the city of New York, I have heard many remarks concerning the editorials in that paper, not only from Saints, but from those who do not profess to believe the religion we have embraced; and it is probably one of the strongest edited papers that is now published. I can say, as to its editorials, that it is one of the strongest papers ever published, so far as my information extends; and I have never read one sentence in them but what my heart could bid success to it and beat a happy response to every sentence that I have read or heard read. Brother Taylor, that is for you; and I believe that these are the feelings and the sentiments of all in this community who have perused that paper.

We are satisfied with the labors of the Elders generally. True, it is not every one that knows and understands all things; it is also true that men are liable to falter and fail in their judgment; but that is nothing against the real character of the man, if he is doing the best he knows how. It is true that at times Elders need correcting, and they receive correction in this place. It is also true that, when you correct an individual in his errors and try to place him in better circumstances pertaining to judgment and discretion, it is annoying, it is grievous, it is painful to the sensation of that individual. It is very true that chastisements are grievous when they are received; but if they are received in patience, they will work out salvation for those who cheerfully submit to them.

If the time was that the Elders of Israel could not be chastened and corrected for their wrongs, and be set right, you may know that they have proved recreant to the faith. And if those who are appointed to lead this people dare not rise up and tell them of their iniquity and chastise them therefore, and teach them the way of life and salvation, you may know that your leaders have fallen from their station.

The Lord has bestowed the everlasting Priesthood upon the children of men for their salvation. It is not believed for a moment, by any person who believes in the Bible, that a man or woman can be saved in their sins. They have to be separated from their sins and iniquity; they have to put off the old man, with all his deeds, and put on the new man Christ Jesus. If ever we see the time that we dare not tell men of their evils, and correct them when in fault, you may despair of salvation in this kingdom.

One grand cause of the enmity entertained towards us by officials sent here by the General Government has simply been, that I take the liberty of telling men where they do wrong and wherein they do wrong—both those who are in the Church and those who are out of it; and my brethren take the same liberty. If men do evil, we tell them of their meanness; whereas, in the other portion of our Government, men dare not speak their minds. They are tied up, bound up; they are in fetters and chains in every particular—as much so as brother Taylor has told you, and a great deal more. He said that if a man was found in Congress who dare speak in favor of innocence, justice, truth, and mercy, he dare not speak. If there were any there, when our petition was expected to be presented, who felt in their hearts to favor it, they dared not open their mouths in favor of its being granted; for if they spoke at all, they must speak according to the popular notions of the people; they must go with the tide of popularity.

This is the case with the whole world; but we are chosen out of the world. And if we accept salvation on the terms it is offered to us, we have got to be honest in every thought, in our reflections, in our meditations, in our private circles, in our deal, in our declarations, and in every act of our lives, fearless and regardless of every principle of error, of every principle of falsehood that may be presented. We have no difficulties with our Government: we never have had any difficulties with any government under which we have lived. But there has been a difficulty, and what is it? The “Mormons” have got something that the rest, of course, have not, “and we will kill them out of the way; we will not have them.”

As brother Taylor has said, speaking of the wisdom and power exhibited by the people of the world, there are men of talent, of thought, of reflection, and knowledge in all cunning mechanism: they are expert in that, though they do not know from whence they receive their intelligence. The Spirit of the Lord has not yet entirely done striving with the people, offering them knowledge and intelligence; consequently it reveals unto them, instructs them, teaches them, and guides them even in the way they like to travel. Men know how to construct railroads and all manner of machinery; they understand cunning workmanship, &c.; but that is all revealed to them by the Spirit of the Lord, though they know it not.

You can find in the minds of the people most admirable intelligence in things pertaining to the world; but when you touch the intelligence that pertains to other worlds, to the kingdom of heaven and heavenly things, they are dark as midnight darkness—so dark as this, that, let ever so good a thing be revealed to them, no matter how good for a nation, a people, a community, or an individual—let a man have it revealed to him how he can benefit the whole nation, they turn around and deny God in it. They are so dark as that, when they never received a particle of intelligence but what came from God. They are filled with darkness.

Instead of wishing injuries to come on them, my heart is pained for them when I behold their situation. They are drunk, not with strong drink, but with their own anger, and rage, and the spirit of the enemy which they have received. They are as wild as California horses. When a lasso is thrown on them, they will run madly against a knee, or a stone wall, or over a person, or anything; they are frantic, and would break their own necks. It is just so with the inhabitants of the earth, and especially so with our Government; and they are hastening with all possible speed, with the larriet around their necks, to jump the precipice and destroy themselves.

I can tell you one thing that I know concerning the inhabitants of the United States. It has come to this, that the honest among them—men, women, and children, have dreams foreboding evil. The visions of their minds are troubled; they are in sorrow; they feel melancholy, and have a presentiment that something evil is going to befall the people. And if you could discern the thoughts of their hearts this day, you would probably find millions of such persons in our Government. When they reflect upon the maddened zeal of the leaders, they know that they can endure but a little while, and query, “What will come?” What will the Lord bring on the people—upon this happy government? What evil catastrophe is about to befall us? Will there be war? Will we fight the “Mormons,” and will the Lord give the “Mormons” power to fight against us? Will the North make war upon the South? Will they take the sword one against the other? What will become of us? These forebodings are upon the people. They have dreams in the night which frighten them, and reflections in the daytime which give them sorrow; and they are harassed from day to day. They are to be pitied; for sorrow, woe, destruction, shame, and misery await them. I am sorry for them: they are to be pitied—to be prayed for.

Almost every man that has come from the East of late is telling you the political feelings and desires of the Government towards this people. Brother Taylor has just related that a gentleman he met on the road remarked, “What! Can you ‘Mormons’ fight the United States? Can you contend with them? You had better take a more specific policy than you have. Do not speak about the President, nor about any of the officials.” We shall talk as we please about them; for this is the right and privilege granted to us by the Constitution of the United States: and, as ministers of salvation, we shall take the liberty of telling men of their sins.

I shall take the liberty of talking as I please about the President of the United States, and I expect that I know his character better than he knows it himself. I will tell you in a few words a little of it. James Buchanan, who is now sitting in the chair of state, and presiding over this great Republic, is naturally a passive, docile, kind, benevolent, and good man—that is his natural disposition, I will venture. Arouse him, and he has been a man who could make flaming speeches. He is now bound up; they have the fetters upon his feet; he is handcuffed; his elbows are pinioned; he is bound on every side, and they make him do as they please. Is he obliged to do so? No.

Is a man fit to be President of the United States, who will bow and succumb to the whims of the people? No. A President should learn the true situation of his constituents, and deal out evenhanded justice to all, utterly regardless of the clamor of party. Suppose the President to be under the clamor and dictation of several parties, he would order out a company today, and tomorrow call them back; he would make a decree today, and next week revoke it and make another to suit another party. He ought not to pay attention to any party, but consider the nation as a family, and deal out justice and mercy to them equally and independently.

I wish that Hickory Jackson was now our President; for he would kick some of those rotten-hearted sneaks out, or rather order his negroes to do it. If we had a man in the chair who really was a man, and capable of magnifying his office, he would call upon his servants, and order him to kick those mean, miserable sneaks out of the presidential mansion, off from its grounds, and into the streets. But the President hearkens to the clamor around him; and, as did Pontius Pilate, in the case of Jesus Christ, has washed his hands, saying, “I am clear of the blood of those Latter-day Saints. Gentlemen, you have dictated, and I will order a soldiery and officials to Utah.” It is said in the Bible, that whosoever ye yield yourselves to obey, his servant ye are. The President has yielded himself a servant to cliques and parties, and their servant he shall be. And all that has been spoken of him by brother Kimball, in the name of Jesus Christ, shall come upon him.

Do you think that we shall be called treasoners, for rebuking him in his sinful course? Yes. Talk of loyalty to Government! Hardly a man among them cares for the Government of the United States, any more than he does for the useless card that lies on the table while he is playing out his hand. They disregard the Constitution as they would any old fable in any old school book. Scarcely a member on the floor of Congress cares anything about it.

While brother Taylor was referring to the conduct of officers of the Government, to the pistols, bowie knives, the oyster suppers, the pleasant little knick-knacks, and this, that, and the other, I was reminded of a circumstance that transpired in the region of the Salt Works in the State of New York. In that section there was a place called Salt Point, one of the roughest in the world for drunkenness, gaming, fighting, and cursing; and within a few miles from Salt Point was a place called Onadaga Hollow, and the people in those places used to be in a constant strife to see which should act the worst. As a man named Thaddeus Woods, who had become considerably wealthy by making and selling salt, was going from Onadaga Hollow to Salt Point, he stopped at a tavern, half-way between the two places; and when he and his traveling companions had rested themselves and fed their horses, Woods told one of his teamsters, who was one of the wickedest men to be found in those two places, that he would treat him if he would say three of the wickedest words that he could think of. The man agreed that he would; and when he had the attention and eyes of the company fixed upon him, he shouted out “Onadaga Hollow, Thad. Woods, and Salt Point,” remarking that those were three of the worst words that he could think of.

Brother Taylor says that language cannot express the conduct, the feelings, and the spirit that are upon the people in the States. Well, suppose you take up a labor and swear about them, what are the worst words that can be spoken? ‘Nigger stealing,’ Mobs or Vigilance Committees, and Rotten-hearted Administrators of a Government are three of the meanest and wickedest words that can be spoken. I expect that somebody will write that back to the States, as being treasonable, because spoken by a Latter-day Saint.

With regard to the present contention and strife, and to our position and situation, there are few things to be considered, and there is much labor to be performed. Let the Saints live their religion; let them have faith in God, do all the good they can to the household of faith and to everybody else, and trust in God for the result; for the world will not believe one truth about us. I tell you that the Government of the United States, and other governments that are acquainted with us, will not believe a single truth about us. What will they believe? Every lie that every poor, miserable, rotten-hearted curse can tell. What are we to do, under these circumstances? Live our religion. Are you going to contend against the United States? No. But when they come here to take our lives solely for our religion, be ye also ready.

Do I expect to stand still, sit still, or lie still, and tamely let them take away my life? I have told you a great many times what I have to say about that. I do not profess to be so good a man as Joseph Smith was. I do not walk under their protection nor into their prisons, as he did. And though officers should pledge me their protection, as Governor Ford pledged protection to Joseph, I would not trust them any sooner than I would a wolf with my dinner; neither do I trust in a wicked judge, nor in any evil person. I trust in my God, and in honest men and women who have the power of the Almighty upon them. What will we do? Keep the wicked off as long as we can, preach righteousness to them, and teach them the way of salvation.

Some speak of the nations now on the earth forgetting God, they have not forgotten Him, for they have never remembered Him. They have not departed from His ways, for they never found them; they have not lost faith in Him, for they never had any. There are men sitting here who were brought up Christians, who were trained to believe in the sacred words of truth contained in the Old and New Testament. What were you taught by your priests, your fathers, mothers, and associates, with regard to God? How many anxious hours I have experienced in my youth, to know, see, and understand things as they were and as they are. Did I ever see a man who could instruct me in those matters, until I saw Joseph Smith? I never did. And after I had made a profession of religion, I would ask the most powerful preachers whether they knew anything about God—where He is located, where Heaven is, and, where Hell is, who is the Father, who is the Son, and what the distinction is between them, who is Michael the archangel, who is Gabriel, and so on. Could they tell a thing about it ? No: and I am a witness that no man in Christendom knew anything about it, unless it was revealed by the Spirit to him.

I may say that many had revelations from God, but they had not the keys, and rights, and knowledge, and system of the religion of God. John Wesley was a good man, and so were thousands of others. Will they be saved? They are saved. You know what my doctrine is with regard to this matter. Every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body. Did they know anything about heaven, or God? No, they did not. Could they even explain one of the first simple lessons in the religion we believe, with regard to mortal man? Could any of them explain what the soul of man is, when it is written in the Bible, and they have read it thousands of times? No.

I have heard men preach hours upon the soul of man; and one of the smartest men that I ever heard preach, wound up a long discourse by saying, “Finally, brethren, I must come to the conclusion that the soul of man is an immaterial substance.” I have sat days and weeks, and months, and years to hear men explain the things of God; and what did they know about them? Nothing.

We have the keys of the priesthood and the words of eternal life, and understand them, and what manner of persons ought we to be? We ought to live our religion, believe in our God, love and serve Him, be faithful to Him, to one another, to all our covenants, and keep the devils from killing us as long as we can, and that is just as long as we have a mind to.

I recollect saying to a certain official here—one who wanted a few Indians for killing Gunnison, “If you want them, I will put them into your hands.” They were presented to him, but he dared not take them. I told him at the time of the conversation, that there might be some thirty of those Indians; but, if the United States should send 50,000 of their troops here they could not get one of them, if they had a mind to keep out of the way; and he believed it. I suppose you would like to know upon what principle? Like some of brother Taylor’s honest men that he thought he had found in the States, who, when he thought that he had found them, and went to put his hand upon them, were like the Paddy’s flea—they were not there, they were somewhere else. That is the reason why they could not get the Indians. There is the same reason why they cannot get us, until we have a mind to go them.

Do you wonder that the world is angry at us? No; for the time must come when your faith must be tried. Can the Lord take this kingdom and separate it from the kingdom of darkness? Can He bring it forth to establish His work upon the earth as extensively as the Prophets have prophesied, without separating us from the kingdoms of this word? You say, No. How is he going to do it? You have seen how, so far. In the days of Joseph, a string of guards was set around him on every side, lest he should have communion with the remnants of Israel who are wandering on the plains and in the canyons of this country. Those guards fought us, whipped us, killed our Prophets, and abused our community, until we are now driven by them into the very midst of the Lamanites. Oh, what a pity they could not foresee the evil they were bringing upon themselves, by driving this people into the midst of the savages of the plains. And here am I, yet, Governor of Utah.

Do you wonder that they are angry? Five years ago I told them that I should be Governor as long as the Lord wanted me to be, and that all hell could not remove me. They have tried during those five years to remove me, and I have had to appoint a Secretary for this Territory three times in that period; for the ones appointed by the President absconded from the Territory. And the prospect now is, that I shall still have to be the Governor—that I shall again have to preside over the Legislature, and that Captain Hooper, whom I appointed Secretary, will have to continue in that office.

God bless you. Amen.