A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1857.

Brother Heber has made a remark which I will take for a text. He said, “It is whispered about that some of the brethren laboring on the Public Works are living on dry bread.” I want to preach a short discourse upon this subject, and I will endeavor to do so to the understanding of those present. I acknowledge that some persons live very poorly, and are very destitute; but there is not one family out of a thousand in this Territory of those who live poorly, but what that destitute mode of living is brought upon them by themselves through their own mismanagement or the want of economy. For this reason I wish to confine my remarks to the principles of economy necessary in obtaining a comfortable living.

I have been a poor boy and a poor man, and my parents were poor. I was poor during my childhood, and grew up to manhood poor and destitute; and I am acquainted with the various styles of living, and with the different customs, habits, and practices of people; and I do know, by my own experience, that there is no necessity for people being so very poor, if they have judgment, and will rightly use it.

You may take the mechanics that are employed upon our Public Works. I am very well aware that the great majority of them are splendid workmen—that they can make fine buildings, with all the mason, and carpenter, and joiner work, and the painting of the very best quality of finish; and yet many of them are in poverty. We have some of the very best workers in brass, iron, wood, &c., that there are in the world; yet many of them are poor, suffer from hard living, and have to live on bread and water.

There is no necessity for any persons living on bread and water. We have not a man at work for us but what has had means put into his hands sufficient to support from five to twenty persons, and many of them could lay up from five hundred to a thousand dollars a year, if they would use proper economy. I comfortably supported a family when I was poor, and that, too, in a country where it was more difficult to do so than it is here—where it often was almost impossible to hire to do a day’s work—where a man would have to run and, perhaps, beg, and plead to be employed to do a day’s work; and when the labor was performed, it was frequently worth twice the amount to get the pay, which would generally be only three or four bits; though sometimes ordinary mechanics would receive five or six bits, and good mechanics one dollar or one dollar and a quarter a day.

I have labored for fifteen dollars a month to support a family, and that, too, in a place that was as hard again for a person to live in as it is in this city. You could not have the free use of so much as a quarter of an acre of ground thrown out to the public for a cow to graze upon. You could not get a stick of wood, although in a well wooded country, without paying for it. You could not get a pint of milk, or even of buttermilk, unless you paid the money for it.

I have worked for nearly all the various grades of wages, and supported a family since I was quite young. I know how to live, and I have taught my brethren here how to live, and I know how many of them do live. But you may take a hardworking man, one earning good wages, and though he carries an abundance into his house, his wife may sit there and toss it out again. You will find that much depends upon the economy of women, in regard to the living of the poorer class of the people—of the laboring class. For instance, let a man buy ten pounds of fresh meat and carry it home, in the morning the wife will cook up, perhaps, four or five pounds of that meat for the breakfast of the man, the wife, and a little child. To begin with, it is often cooked very badly, not properly seasoned, smoked up, part of it burnt, and the rest raw, so that they cannot eat much of it; and there is a great platter full left that cannot be eaten, and the uncooked portion has probably been neglected until it is spoiled, and thus nearly the whole is wasted.

Sisters, if you do not believe this, many of you go home and remember what you cooked this morning, and see the platters full, and the plates full, and the little messes standing here and there. By-and-by it is not fit to eat, and it is finally thrown out of door. Is this true? It is. The reason I say so is because I see it with my own eyes. You may wish to know where I see it. Among some of my neighbors where I visit, among some of my own family, and in many places where I go.

If a man is a good husband, and knows how to live, let him teach his wife how to cook the food he provides, as I have some of my wives, more or less, notwithstanding I have some excellent cooks; but I do not think that I have one but what I can teach in the art of cooking some particular varieties of food, for I have at times been obliged to pay considerable attention to this matter. And when I go into a house, I can soon know whether the woman is an economical housekeeper or not; and if I stay a few days, I can tell whether a husband can get rich or not. If she is determined on her own course, and will waste and spoil the food entrusted to her, that man will always be poor.

Some women will set emptyings in the morning, and let them stand until they sour, and mix up the flour with them, and sweeten it with saleratus, and then knead it ready for baking; and if sister Somebody comes in, they will sit down and begin to talk over old times, and the first they know is, the bread is sour: “Dear me, I forgot all about that bread,” and into the oven she puts it, and builds up a large fire, and again sits down to visiting with her neighbor, and before she thinks of the loaf, there is a crust burnt on it from a quarter to half an inch in thickness. So much of the bread is spoiled; there goes one quarter of the flour; it is wasted, and the bread is sour and disagreeable to eat; and the husband comes home and looks sour, and is sour, as well as the bread. He finds fault, and that makes the wife grieve, and there are feelings and unhappiness and dissatisfaction in the family. The husband may be a good man, and the wife may be a good woman, and try to please her husband, and to do as much as the old lady did, who said, “It was impossible for her to please her husband in baking bread; for if it was half dough, he did not like it; and if it was half burnt up, he scolded about it.”

You may say that it is hard work to please a man; yes, and woman too. But when a man does his duty in providing for a family, there can reasonably be but little complaint on the part of any sensible woman.

A man may be good and industrious—may be an excellent mechanic, and in many things a diligent man, as is the case with a number with whom I am acquainted; yet go to his house and ask, “Have you a pig in your pen?” “No, I have nothing to feed a pig with; I cannot keep one.” Sit down to his table, and he has not a mouthful of meat from week’s end to week’s end, unless he buys a little. “Have you a cow?” “No, I have nothing to feed a cow; I cannot hire a pasture; and were I to hire one driven to grass as far as the herd boys go, she would not give milk enough to pay the herd bill.” I have been in worse places than this, and kept a cow.

I have taught the brethren how to live upon less than five, three, or even two dollars a day for the support of a small family; and when men complain that they live here on bread alone, they do not reflect that they do not know how to provide for themselves. Years pass away, one after another, and I see more and more that there are but very few men and women that are even capable of taking care of themselves temporally.

You will see women, if their husbands have got fifty cents, who must buy crackers with it, or something nice. Johnny, Susan, Betsy, and Billy come along, and want a cracker, and the first you know is that the crackers are in the hands of the children who are outdoors playing with them, breaking them up, wasting and scattering them abroad. I will leave it to you, sisters, if some of you do not act in this manner. When children crumble up the bread, what do you do with it? You throw it into the fire. I learned my wife in the first place what the swill pail was made for, and said to her, do not let one crumb or kernel of anything be wasted, but put it into the swill pail, and when night came, I had something to feed the pig with. But often out of door go the pieces of bread and meat; or if half a gill of corn should be on the floor, it is swept out of doors, or more frequently into the fire to be wasted.

A great many men do not know that they can keep a pig; but there is not a family in this city, where there are two, three, four, or five persons, but what can save enough from their table, from the waste made by the children, and what must be swept in the fire and out of door, to make pork sufficient to last them through the year, or at least all they should eat. When you know enough to put a pig in a pen, do so; and when you have all opportunity to buy a bushel of corn, oats, or bran, get your bins ready and lay it away.

I say to the mechanics, especially to those who work for me, make your bins in the mornings and evenings, and do not spend the time we hire you to work for us to do your chores in. And another thing I will caution you about; do not steal the nails from the Public Works. Some of you have stolen our nails and lumber to work into articles for your own use. Do not do this.

We pay our mechanics from two and a half to five dollars a day, and there is no necessity for many of them using more than fifty cents or one dollar a day throughout the year. Why do you not buy a cow? “I have nothing to feed her with.” Yes, you have. In the course of the season, you will find a time that you can buy a little straw, and stack it up and take a good care of it. Buy now and then a bushel of bran, or oats, or corn, and lay it by. When you have done your day’s work, take your axe, cut up the straw, throw a little meal on it, give it to the cow, and sit down and milk her yourself, unless your wife is a good hand to milk, and can attend to it better and more conveniently than you can; in that case, let her do the milking, but do not set six or eight years’ old children to stripping the cows.

Purchase cows, for if we have not already supplied you with cows, we are able and willing to do so. Most, if not all, have already been furnished with cows. What did you do with the calves? “We sold them for a trifle.” Why did you not raise them? Do you not know that they would very soon be valuable? No, but you waste your calves, neglect buying pigs, and live without milk, and many of the easily procured comforts of life. Is there any necessity for this? No, there is not, if people will try to use a little economy.

Go round this city now, and probably you will not see one garden out of twenty, even where men have lived here four or five years, that has a single fruit tree growing in it. Have they set out anything? Yes, some cottonwoods; but they would not set out a peach tree, if you would give it to them. In many lots there is not a fruit tree, or currant bush, or anything to produce the little necessaries to make a family comfortable.

If I lived as I used to, I would have my cow, and she would give milk, and would not stray off; for I would always have a little handful of food to give her when she came up at night; I would also feed her a little in the morning, and at night she would come for more. I would keep my pig in the pen, and have a few fowls to lay eggs. I would raise my own pork, and in the spring I would not have to run to the Public Works and say, “I have not anything to eat.”

It is a shame that men and women do not pay more attention to the prin– ciples of economy in living. They want to have money to go to market and buy everything ready made. They want to have somebody feed them. I have thought, many times, that some persons would not be satisfied, unless we baked plum puddings, and roasted beef for them, and then fed them while they were lounging in big easy chairs; and still perhaps they would think that they were ill treated, if we did not chew the meat for them.

I worked hard when I first gathered with the Saints. I had to walk two miles to my labor, and the sun seldom, if ever, shone on my work before I had my tools in my hands and busily engaged; and I rarely laid down my tools so long as I could see to use them. In the morning I would get up and feed my cow and milk her, and do the other outdoor chores while my wife would be preparing breakfast. My pig was in the pen, and I would gather a little here and a little there, and a day would not pass without its having sufficient food. Why do you not think of these things? Because you will not.

Sisters, if you cannot properly attend to your bread making, and manage to not let any more flour be wasted, tie a string round one of your fingers so tight that it will hurt you, and every time you think of the string, think of what brother Brigham tells you. When the emptyings are in the flour, think of the string, also when the bread is put in the oven; and if you are still afraid that you will forget, tie the string a little tighter. And after your bread is beautifully baked, do not let a crumb of it be wasted.

When your husband brings home meat, exercise sufficient judgment to enable you to cook such portion as will be eaten, which is far better than so much placed upon the table that a large part of it will be wasted. Then take care of that which remains uncooked, put a little salt upon it, and put it in a cool place where it will keep a few days, and you will not be obliged to throw half of it away.

You may hear some woman here saying, “Husband, can you not go to the store and get me some ribbon? I want a bonnet and a pair of new shoes. Can you not get me some lining for a bonnet? I wish you would get me a new dress, I have not had one for a whole month, and I want to go a visiting; I cannot bear to wear these old dresses so often. I want a few aprons and a few pairs of stockings.” The man then has to buy the bonnets, the linings, the dress patterns, &c., and also to hire them made; and he has to buy aprons, shoes, and stockings, and even the garters that are worn on the stockings. There is not judgment, economy, and force enough in some women, to knit their own garters.

Let me tell you one thing, husbands; determine this year that you will stop buying these things, and say to your wife, “Here is some wool; knit your own stockings, or you will not have any: you will have to prepare the cloth for yourselves and children: I will provide the wool, the wheels, &c.; and if you will not make the cloth, you may go without.” Also raise flax, and prepare it for the women to manufacture into summer clothing.

I remember going into a friend’s house, one afternoon, when I was quite young: I think I was about fifteen; and pretty soon a couple of neighboring women came in to visit. They had not been in the house more than twenty minutes before the woman of the house went and brought out a pillow, and began to rail against her husband, saying, “He is a dirty, nasty man; he is the filthiest man in the world; that is the pillow he sleeps on.” I thought, you miserable fool, Why do you not wash that slip? Those women see that the blame rests on you, and not on your husband. And she continued telling them how nasty, filthy, and lazy he was. I knew enough about a family, at that early age, to know where the fault lay. At the same time there was plenty of wool and flax lying in her chamber, for I saw them; and a wheel and the other implements were on hand, all of which the husband had toiled for. He had also provided the cows, flour, and meat in abundance; but because he did not do everything, he was a “nasty, lazy man.” He must feed the hogs, spin the wool, wash the pillowcases and sheets, and do everything else, or be bemeaned by his wife. I said to myself, I expect I shall be married when I am old enough, and if I get such an animal as you are, I will put hooks in her nose to lead her in a way you have not thought of.

I have seen a great many persons live in the neglect of all the comforts of life, because they would not take hold and make themselves comfortable. Others do not know what to do with the comforts of life, when they have them. I have been in places where people had an abundance, and yet they lived, figuratively speaking, at death’s door, with regard to food.

I recollect once walking up to a house in Illinois, where a young woman was sitting just within the door dressed up, I may say, within an inch of her life, in calico that cost ten or twelve cents a yard in my country; and she was, according to her ideas, titivated out to the ninety-nines. Fourteen milk cows, with calves by their sides, were feeding on the prairie. I first asked her, “Can I buy some butter here?” “No, sir.” “Can I buy a little milk?” “No, sir.” I then asked her whether her father owned those cows; “Yes, sir.” “Do you milk them?” “No, sir; only a little in the morning to put in the coffee.” I wanted to laugh in her face, but politeness forbad me. There stood fourteen new milk cows, and not a drop of milk in the house, nor a pound of butter, and everything else was in keeping. An abundance of good things was around them, and yet they had nothing comfortable and wholesome.

It is just so with some people here. Every facility is in the possession of this people for living in the very best manner, if they would only learn how, and practice upon that knowledge. How much do you have to pay for your cow’s running on the range, or for the use of a lot? Nothing. How much rent do you pay for your land? Not any. What hinders you from raising something to feed a cow? Nothing. Who hinders you from planting your garden with corn, and saving the suckers and the fodder? Who hinders you from raising carrots, parsnips, squashes, &c., to feed a cow with through the winter? This you can do on a little more than a quarter of an acre, but will you do it? No; many of you will not. Does anyone hinder you? No; and yet some of you complain that you live poorly, and lay the blame upon me and brother Kimball, and brother Wells, and those men who dictate the Public Works.

We pay the public hands higher wages than they earn, and if they are obliged to live on bread alone from day to day, it is for want of economy and proper management. Am I to blame? No. Will I milk your cows for you? No. Will I buy butter for you? No; we will give you all that is brought in on tithing, and when we have done that, you may calculate to do without, or make your own butter. I know families that milk one cow for eight or ten in the family, and yet have butter on the table all the time, and occasionally sell a little. Others have six or eight cows, and seldom have any butter in the house; they do not take care of what they have.

Instead of people being poor, we already have too much, unless we take better care of it. I heard a man who is living in this city—one who has always been well off—state that he used to keep twelve cows when he first came here, and was often nearly destitute of milk and butter. After a few years, the number of his cows was reduced to six, and he said that the six did him more good than the twelve had done. In two years more, they were reduced to two, and the two cows have done him much more good than the twelve or the six did, for they could be and were more properly attended to.

Let me have the privilege of dictating every chore about my house, and I would soon put everything right. I do not have that privilege, for I have so many and so much around me, that I have to depend upon others. During the past six years, I have seldom kept in my yard less than thirteen cows for the use of my family, and there has not been one year of that time that we have had much more than milk enough the year round to put in the tea and coffee. I have directed the men who feed my cows to take a course to prevent such a variation in the supply of milk. I have told them to feed the cows thus and so; to give them so much in the morning, and so much at night, and to allow them as much water as they would drink. And after all, though perhaps I would not go to the barn as often as once in the week, I have frequently seen from a peck to a bushel of good wheat meal shoveled into the yard out of one cow’s trough. And when I have asked what does this mean, “Why, such a brother wanted to go a visiting, and would not be back for three days, so he put the three days’ feed before the cow at once.” Again, I might remark. “This cow looks poor; I have thousands of feed to give her; what is the matter?” “She eat until she nearly killed herself, and we have just made out to save her,” and that is all the satisfaction I would get. It is too often a perfect waste and destruction under my own nose, because I cannot find time to look after my private affairs.

I have asked myself, Shall I go and attend to my own business, or let it go? And I have replied, I will let it go to hell backwards rather than neglect my public duties. I will not neglect my public duties, if my property all goes to destruction—if we do not have a drop of milk from this time henceforth and forever. During the past winter, my large family have had three cows, and they have done me six times more good than ever the thirteen did. I prevailed upon one or two of my women to do the milking for the first time, whereas heretofore I have had to hire Jim, and Jack, and Peter Gimblet to do the milking, and they would often pound a cow until she would not give down her milk, and would kick her half to death, and then half milk her, and ruin everything about me. Three cows now do us more good than fifty would have done four years ago, under the old plan.

I expect that all persons who will not try to help and take care of themselves the best they can, will see the time when they will wish they had done so; yet I would like to turn away the evil day from them, if I can possibly do it, by correct teaching and example. All persons that will not try to take care of themselves, will see a day of sorrow, and will regret the waste of time misspent in this life.

When I labored, I did the milking and feeding most of the time, and fed the pig, and attended to all the outdoor chores; though, at the same time, if I was absent, I had a wife, after I came into this Church, who was always ready to feed pigs, milk and feed cows, and work in the garden, or do anything that should be done, so far as she was able. Wives, go into the garden and raise the salad and numerous other articles within your judgment and strength. Who hindered you from making a little vinegar last year? People are frequently running round and asking, “Where can I buy some vinegar?” When I was keeping a house, if my neighbors had a million hogsheads of vinegar, I had no need to buy a spoonful of it, for I would make a plenty for my own use, and would have eggs, butter, and pork, of my own producing, and manage to secure beef, and salt it away nicely, and we had all the essentials for comfortable diet.

Will the people continue to live? Many of them will merely manage to stay, just as a family did in Illinois. During a conference held in their neighborhood, we would sit down at the table, in the center of which was a great big milkpan piled full of lean beef, and sour bread to eat with it. After awhile, a plate of butter would be brought on, quite white, and full of buttermilk; and those articles comprised our dinner. When Sunday morning came, we had the rarity. In the mean time, I found out who owned the farm, the sheep, the horses, the cows, the oxen, the turkeys, the geese, the fowls, and the fine orchards. They were all owned by Esquire Walker. On Sunday morning, we sat down to the meat and bread, as usual, and clean butter was on the table that time, if I recollect rightly; but there was one plate with something upon it that I had not deciphered. I looked at it carefully, and by and by I concluded that it faintly resembled a pie. Sister Walker came along, saying, “Brother Young, there is some pie; it is peach pie; do eat some.” It was made of dough rolled out into a thin cake, and put on a plate, with a thin streak of poor, refuse, fuzzy peaches that had been merely halved, and the pits taken out; and then another thick tough crust put over them. I took a piece, and said to brother Kimball, What is this? at the same time giving him a wink. “Why, brother Young,” replied Mrs. Walker, “It is peach pie.” I remarked, “Brother Kimball, I never saw the like before in my life; did you?” “Never.” I went into the orchard, where they had been making brandy out of the best peaches for three or four weeks. Could they be put into a pie? No; but they must use the little, nasty, withered up ones.

I have related that circumstance to show you how much they knew about living. That family had plenty of fowls, cattle, and milk; and if they had known how to manage their abundance, they could have had every comfort of life served up in the richest and best style. They could also have made hundreds of pounds of maple sugar, which is the best of sweetening; for they had a sugar orchard on the farm. Yet, when I was there, they had a house with five or seven beds in one room; and when you walked across the floor, the planks would go clatter-to-bang. And when they wanted to see in the day time, they had to open the door, or draw up to the fireplace, and benefit by the light that came down the chimney. I asked Esquire Walker why he did not put a good floor in his house, and put in windows. He replied, “I have been thinking I would, for several years. Friend Young, I have a good deal of money and property on hand, and I think of going to Nauvoo, to invest several thousand dollars.” I state this to show you that many people do not know what to do with what they have.

You may see some little girls around the streets here with their mothers’ skirts on, or their sun bonnets, and with their aprons full of dirt. Your husbands buy you calico, but you do not know what to do with it. It is to be carefully worn until the last thread is worn out, and then put into the rag bag to make paper with.

Some men do not know what to do with their means. You may take the poorest mechanic here, and one who has nothing but bread to eat, and you may see him paying half a dollar or a dollar for a meal of victuals at the Globe. You may see the barber shops crowded with our poor mechanics, who pay from three to five dollars a quarter for being shaved. I bought a razor, when I began to shave, that cost thirty-seven and a half cents, and used it for fifteen years. Some black their boots, so that they will not last more than two or three months. I keep my boots well oiled, wear them two or three years, and then give them to the poor.

Nearly all who grumble about their poor scanty fare, would be rich if they would do as I do. Take care of your articles of food, of your clothing, of your boots, and hats, and you will have plenty; and let the women take care of what is taken into the house. If you do not go to now and prepare for the day of trouble, you will be sorry, and will lament and mourn.

I now want to tell you the feelings of several in this community: “I do not want to build a good house, because I shall have to move away by and by; our enemies will come and possess it. I do not want to lay up corn, because our enemies will come and take it from me.” If this people will do as they are told, will live their religion, walk humbly before their God, and deal justly with each other, we will make you one promise, in the name of Israel’s God, that you will never be driven from the mountains. And instead of mobs coming here to break open your granaries, they will come to this people, bringing their gold, and their silver, and their fine things, and plead with them for something to eat.

I told you last Sabbath, that if this people had not stepped forward to help the poor last fall, you would have seen harder times in 1857 than you did in 1855 and 1856.

Let us keep in the favor of the Lord, and be his friends, live to our covenants, love the Lord, and walk uprightly in all our acts and dealings, so that we will not be afraid to have them scanned by the Lord and His angels, and all good men on the earth; and we can stand justified. May the Lord bless you. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, March 29, 1857.

I am thankful that the weather has become so mild that we can again meet in this Bowery, which is large enough to accommodate the congregation; also that we are here under comfortable circumstances—happily situated, and trust that for several months to come, none of the Saints will be under the necessity of coming here an hour or two before the meeting commences, in order to obtain a seat here, nor of going away because there is not room.

There has been a good deal said by the brethren who have just spoken to you, and I have not heard anything but what pleases me, but what I consider to be correct; their ideas and doctrines are good.

I am happy to see brother Joseph L. Heywood here again. He has had a very tedious journey, and rather a wearisome sojourn at the Devil’s Gate, during most of the past winter. Many of the brethren and sisters in this congregation can testify that the Devil’s Gate is a place rather subject to cold and storms, and that hardships are common from that point to this.

Many persons are so constituted, that if you put them in a parlor, keep a good fire for them, furnish them tea, cake, sweetmeats, &c., and nurse them tenderly, soaking their feet, and putting them to bed, they will die in a short time; but throw them into snowbanks, and they will live a great many years. Brother Heywood would have been in his grave long ago, if he had not led an outdoor life, and such is the case with others; but he is again here, and we have the privilege of seeing him.

It rejoices me to hear the brethren rise up and tell their feelings, their faith and views. I was much gratified with the remarks made by brothers William H. Hooper and Robert T. Burton, especially upon the subject of obedience.

It may at first sight appear strange, and is so to an uninspired mind, that any people should have a want of confidence and faith in a righteous man on the earth, a lack which blights their hopes and faith quicker than it does to lack confidence in their God. This is the case, however curious it may appear, though we may hear some men declare that they wish to have such confidence in their leaders as not to enquire whether this or that is right, but to perform what they are bid to do. No man will have that degree of confidence, unless it is founded in truth. Here a question immediately occurs to the mind, will it save the people to do as they are told by any man upon the earth, if they are in the neglect of their duty towards their God and do not enjoy the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ? The answer is obvious; no one can have that implicit confidence in a righteous man, unless that person is in the line of duty.

The difficulty with the whole world in their divisions and subdivisions, is that they have no more confidence in each other than they have in their God, and that is none at all, no, not one particle. This confuses nations, and breaks them up; it weakens them, and they tumble to pieces. It disturbs cities and countries, and really the seeds of destruction are within those kingdoms where the people have not confidence in each other.

The Apostle John, treating upon the love of God that should dwell within us, writes, “For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” It is impossible. This subject is not understood by the human family. Naturally they have no conception of the character called “brother” by the Apostle. As just observed by brother Hooper, they have in their minds and creeds formed ideas of a great many characters that they call God. With the majority of the Christian world there are three Gods in one. With them that one God is three persons, and still but one, which actually amounts to His being no God at all. Why? Because He has no body, parts, or passions, consequently is nothing at all; their idea virtually annihilates the being they profess to believe to be three in one.

What effect has this doctrine, wherever the influence of the Christian world extends? Wherever they preach their own doctrine they destroy every idea of God in the minds of every person they have influence over, consequently they know nothing of Him, and of course we cannot expect the people to have confidence in Him. He, knowing the weaknesses of men, is compassionate; and if they speak against Him, in a manner derogatory to His character, misrepresenting His person and speaking evil of His dignity, He attributes that to the delusion and ignorance which His professedly Christian people have spread so generally in the minds of the people, and holds them not guilty, in consequence of their ignorance.

Let us even speak against a fellow being with whom we are acquainted and do understand, one whom we can see and comprehend, whose life and conduct we are familiar with, and, unless faults are made manifest that we have a privilege of exposing in that individual, it will destroy our faith and confidence, and weaken us more than it will to speak against a being that we know nothing of. This is reasonable, and is according to good sound logic, sense, and argument.

It is folly in the extreme for persons to say that they love God, when they do not love their brethren; and it is of no use for them to say that they have confidence in God, when they have none in righteous men, for they do not know anything about God. It is reasonable for the Elders of Israel to be very sanguine and strenuous on this point. And were I to be asked whether I have any experience in this matter, I can tell the people that once in my life I felt a want of confidence in brother Joseph Smith, soon after I became acquainted with him. It was not concerning religious matters—it was not about his revelations—but it was in relation to his financiering—to his managing the temporal affairs which he undertook. A feeling came ever me that Joseph was not right in his financial management, though I presume the feeling did not last sixty seconds, and perhaps not thirty. But that feeling came on me once and once only, from the time I first knew him to the day of his death. It gave me sorrow of heart, and I clearly saw and understood, by the spirit of revelation manifested to me, that if I was to harbor a thought in my heart that Joseph could be wrong in anything, I would begin to lose confidence in him, and that feeling would grow from step to step, and from one degree to another, until at last I would have the same lack of confidence in his being the mouthpiece for the Almighty, and I would be left, as brother Hooper observed, upon the brink of the precipice, ready to plunge into what we may call the gulf of infidelity, ready to believe neither in God nor His servants, and to say that there is no God, or, if there is, we do not know anything about Him; that we are here, and by and by shall go from here, and that is all we shall know. Such persons are like those whom the Apostle calls “As natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed.” Though I admitted in my feelings and knew all the time that Joseph was a human being and subject to err, still it was none of my business to look after his faults.

I repented of my unbelief, and that too, very suddenly; I repented about as quickly as I committed the error. It was not for me to question whether Joseph was dictated by the Lord at all times and under all circumstances or not. I never had the feeling for one moment, to believe that any man or set of men or beings upon the face of the whole earth had anything to do with him, for he was superior to them all, and held the keys of salvation over them. Had I not thoroughly understood this and believed it, I much doubt whether I should ever have embraced what is called “Mormonism.” He was called of God; God dictated him, and if He had a mind to leave him to himself and let him commit an error, that was no business of mine. And it was not for me to question it, if the Lord was disposed to let Joseph lead the people astray, for He had called him and instructed him to gather Israel and restore the Priesthood and kingdom to them.

It was not my prerogative to call him in question with regard to any act of his life. He was God’s servant, and not mine. He did not belong to the people but to the Lord, and was doing the work of the Lord, and if He should suffer him to lead the peo– ple astray, it would be because they ought to be led astray. If He should suffer them to be chastised, and some of them destroyed, it would be because they deserved it, or to accomplish some righteous purpose. That was my faith, and it is my faith still.

If we have any lack of confidence in those whom the Lord has appointed to lead the people, how can we have confidence in a being whom we know nothing about? It is nonsense to talk about it. It will weaken a person quicker to lose confidence in those who dictate the affairs of God’s kingdom on the earth, than to say “I do not know whether there is a God or not, and I care nothing about Him.” A man or woman will not be prepared to be taken by the enemy, and led captive by the devil so quickly for disbelieving in a being they do not know about, as for disbelieving in those whom they do know.

To say nothing of names, creeds, or titles, brother Joseph taught, and it is taught to the people now continually, to have implicit confidence in our leaders, to be sure that we live so that Christ is within us a living fountain, that we may have the Holy Ghost within us to actuate, dictate, and direct us every hour and moment of our lives. The people are urged from year to year, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, to live very near unto the Lord, to forsake every sin, and cling to the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls, so that we may know by the spirit of revelation whenever truth comes to us.

How many hundreds and hundreds of times have you been taught that if people neglect their prayers and other daily duties, that they quickly begin to love the world, become vain in their imaginations, and liable to go astray, loving all the day long to do those things that the Lord hates, and leaving undone those things that the Lord requires at their hands? When people neglect their private duties, should their leaders lead them astray, they will go blindfolded, will be subject to the devil, and be led captive at his will. How useless this would be! How unnatural, unreasonable, and unlike the Gospel and those who believe it!

How are we going to obtain implicit confidence in all the words and doings of Joseph? By one principle alone, that is, to live so that the voice of the Spirit will testify to us all the time that he is the servant of the Most High; so that we can realize as it were the Lord’s declaring that “Joseph is my servant, I lead him day by day whithersoever I will, and dictate him to do whatever I will; he is my mouth to the people. And I say to the nations of the earth, hear ye the servants I send, or you cannot be saved.” This is comprehended in the remarks just made by brother Burton, which comprises one of the greatest and fullest sermons that can be preached in the world. And I wish we had more Elders to go and preach just such sermons by the power of God, that is, “I know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God, that this is the Gospel of salvation, and if you do not believe it you will be damned, everyone of you.”

That is one of the most important sermons that ever was preached, and then if they could add anything by the power of the Spirit, it would be all right. When a man teaches that doctrine by the power of God in a congregation of sinners, it is one of the loudest sermons that was ever preached to them, because the Spirit bears testimony to it. That is the preaching which you hear all the time, viz.—to live so that the voice of God’s Spirit will always be with you, and then you know that what you hear from the heads of the people is right. When you do not so live, you are ignorant; and then when you testify, you testify to what you know nothing of. Live so that you can know and testify to every principle that is right, not with mere lip service, but from the heart be able to say truly, “I know that everything is right.”

As I have frequently said to this people, they are a good people. We are striving to make the kingdom of heaven. Many think that this people have got to make great sacrifices, but what have we to sacrifice? Nothing, for all is the Lord’s. But suppose that we had something to sacrifice, they would be willing to do it; they would be willing to do anything for the sake of salvation. They have already forsaken their homes and friends, and come here to serve the Lord, and now continue, shall I say continue to reform? Yes, continue this reformation that has been talked about. Continue to improve yourselves, to live so that your faith and knowledge will increase in the things of God, that our minds may be opened to those things that pertain to our peace and eternal salvation, and live no more in the dark, whereby you are constrained to say, “I do not understand the things that are taught, these are great and marvelous things, they are beyond my comprehension; I do not know why it is that I feel as I do many times; I have feelings come on me that I cannot account for.”

If you live near to God, and every moment have your minds filled with fervent desires to keep the law of God, you will understand the Spirit that comes to you; you will know how to build up the Lord’s kingdom, and increase in every good thing; and it will be one continual scene of rejoicing instead of mourning. Those who mourn and feel that they have really endured sufferings and afflictions, and sacrifices to a great amount for the kingdom of heaven, do not enjoy the Spirit of their religion. They do not enjoy the Spirit of this Holy Gospel, for they do not live near enough to the Lord so that Christ is in them like a living fountain, like a well of water springing up to everlasting life.

The persons who enjoy that Spirit are never sorrowful nor cast down. They never endure afflictions and mourn because they suppose that they have sacrificed for the Gospel, but they are always joyful, always cheerful, with a happy smile on their faces, and, as brother Robert said, it does make the devil mad. That is true, it makes him mad that he cannot afflict this people so as to make them have a sad countenance.

When you come across those who have a wonderful sight of trouble, trouble with their wives and with their neighbors, it is those who do not live their religion. Those who have the Spirit of their religion feel hope bound in their feelings, and have a word of comfort for themselves, their families, and their neighbors, and all is right with them. Let us make the building up of the kingdom of heaven our first and only interest, and all will be well, sure.

Have we reason to rejoice? We have. There is no other people on this earth under such deep obligation to their Creator, as are the Latter-day Saints. The Gospel has brought to us the holy Priesthood, which is again restored to the children of men. The keys of that Priesthood are here; we have them in our possession; we can unlock, and we can shut up. We can obtain salvation, and we can administer it. We have the power within our own hands, and this has been my deep mortification, one that I have frequently spoken of, to think that a people, having in their possession all the principles, keys, and powers of eternal life, should neglect so great salvation. We have these blessings, they are with us.

Have we the visible hand of God with us? We have. Many circumstances transpired last year with regard to the immediate providences of God. Can we see the visible hand of the Lord in His dealings to us this season? We can. Any person who could have numbered Israel in the valleys of the mountains, and the bushels of grain taken from the earth last fall, would have said there is not enough grain raised in 1856 to last the people to the first of April, 1857.

That was so obviously the prospect, that brother Kimball prophesied that there would be harder times in 1857 than we had seen in 1856. I told him that I would bring to bear all my faith, and all the power I had, and all my ability against that prophecy, when he said the times would be harder this year than they were last. Still there were no human prospects, visible signs, means, or substance to prevent it, according to the number of bushels of grain taken from the earth, and the number of people in this Territory to be sustained therewith. There was a better prospect for our suffering for want of food this year, than there was in either 1856 or 1855, but I promised myself that I should exercise my power against that prophecy. Brother Heber says, “Amen,” to that statement now. He said so then, and I know that he would rather have it fail than to have people suffer.

Brother Heber says, “The wheat swells.” I believe that. It increases in the granaries. I have believed that principle for many years. I know that God has dealt with me and with others in a way that cannot be accounted for upon common modes of reasoning. I have heretofore mentioned what some may think the trifling circumstance of a man’s finding money in his pocket that could not have been there, unless an angel or some other person had put it there unbeknown to that man. Flour and wheat have been found in barrels and bins, after they had been taken out even to the scraping of the barrels, and that, too, without the owner’s knowing how the stock had been replenished. Who put it there, is not for me to say; but I know who did not. Let the people guess who put it there.

Have we any visible signs of the providences of God to us? We have, if men have their eyes open to see for themselves. If this people called Latter-day Saints could see by the visions of the Spirit the hand dealings of the Lord as visible as some see, there would be nothing but rejoicing among us from the oldest to the youngest, from the first to the last, from the one side of this globe to the other.

We will now turn right round, and ask, are there afflictions? Yes. People are taken sick and die, and we have not the power to keep them alive; and I do not think I would, if I had power; and I do not think I will when I have power, because I then shall have more wisdom than I have now. Knowledge is power; and as I gain knowledge I gain power. If we will consider these things, we will see that the visible hand of the Lord is with us continually.

Let the Latter-day Saints in these valleys of the mountains ask themselves this question, Do we, as a community, as a Church and kingdom of God on the earth, as individuals, believe that if we had shut up the bowels of our compassion last fall, and said to our immigration, “Suffer and perish in the mountains, I have nothing to spare, I cannot relieve you,” we should have as much grain and substance on hand as we now have? Would not every man and woman exclaim, “We would have been in poverty and want?” What has made us rich in this matter? One united effort by this people to bring men, women, and children out of the snow, and off from the Plains, and keep them from perishing. “Here are the wheat, the barley, the corn, the boys, horses, mules, blankets, saddles, &c., go, my brethren, and bring those persons off the Plains.” They went, and that, too, cheerfully.

Brother Kimball says that that movement prevented his prophecy coming to pass. If that did it, I wish I could as easily and cheaply turn aside all prophecies of that kind and nature, for I do not wish this people to suffer, to go hungry and naked, nor to be sick and afflicted, or in pain. I want them to live and increase in every good work.

Suppose the whole community should ask themselves this question, Do you not believe that the Lord has favored and blessed us in consequence of our doing right? Yes, we would reply at once, we believe that our faith to our God and proving ourselves friends to Him and His people, and being kind to the suffering poor, have caused His blessings to be poured out upon us, and we are favored as we are. If the people continue to be humble before Him, to keep His commandments, to love and serve the Lord, and forsake those little trifling concerns which pertain to the world, and to the spirit of the world, which is the spirit of sorrow, anxiety, and trouble, and get the Spirit of the Lord and live in it, we shall increase in the facilities of life; we shall have the comforts of life from our gardens, farms, orchards, flocks and herds, and we shall have means to gather up the poor from every land.

This is the land of Zion. West of us is a body of water that we call the Pacific, and to the east there is another large body of water which we call the Atlantic, and to the north is where they have tried to discover a northwest passage; these waters surround the land of Zion, and we will bring the poor home to this land. These valleys are nothing more than a temporary hiding place for the Saints, and if they will do right here, no power can disturb them. Be kind to all, to our friends, to the household of faith, and even to our enemies. Do all you can to save everybody, and the Lord’s hand will be over us for good, and we will be preserved.

Hitherto there has been too much of a spirit to find fault, but I expect that this spirit is very near kicked out of doors. And you may still hear some saying, “There are hard times coming by and by; the mob are coming; the crickets and the grasshoppers will eat us out.” They have tried that, and I have no more fears about one army than I have about the other; though the crickets and the grasshoppers are the greatest plague, for we can hit men, but when you hit one cricket or grasshopper, the air is at once alive with them, and if you kill one, two come to bury him.

Dismiss all feelings of fear, and say nothing about them. Let it be the whole aim of the Saints to know how to build up the kingdom of God on the earth. And if you want to know how to spend your time, inquire from hour to hour what you can do to do good. If necessary, take off your hat, and run through the streets for something to do. Go into the garden, plant potatoes, set out fruit trees, sow peas, and put all kinds of useful seeds into the ground. And when the devil tells you to do some wonderful big thing, wait until you become some wonderful big person, and reflect that you are yet only like one of the people, and must take care of yourself.

I am glad that we have the privilege of again assembling in this Bowery, where there is plenty of pure air and the people can be comfortable. The ground under this shade is yet damp, although we have had fires burning upon it to make it as dry as possible, and it may be wisdom for those sisters who wear thin shoes, to bring a small piece of oil cloth or carpet to put their feet upon. I would rather see the sisters come to meeting with wooden bottomed shoes, than to come with their fine morocco shoes and take cold. If you will accustom yourselves to wearing wooden bottomed or thick soled shoes, you can sit here with impunity.

Take care of yourselves, and live as long as you can, and do all the good you can. Let us try to live until we can kick the devils out of this land, and off from the earth. I want to live for this, to see Zion redeemed, and the Church and kingdom of God cover the face of the whole earth, and have one universal reign of peace. May the Lord bless us. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 15, 1857.

I am not in the habit of taking a text, when I preach to the Saints; but I will quote a portion of Scripture, and offer a few remarks upon it.

It is recorded, concerning the Savior Matthew xii. 46-50, that “While he yet talked to the people, behold his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

The Savior’s reply to the questions, “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?” is fraught with a principle that is very little noticed by many. I frequently hear the brethren, and you may hear both them and the sisters, in the prayer meetings, where they have a privilege of speaking, say, “I have not a father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first nor second cousin, nor any relative whatever in this Church.” Do you not hear such expressions made by the Saints? Yes; and I sometimes here them from this stand.

Whether to the understanding of his hearers at that time, or whether to ours, those questions were correctly answered by our Savior in the observation, “For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” So far as I am concerned, I do not claim relationship anywhere else. And I do not think that the Savior will claim any son or daughter of Adam to be his brother, sister, mother, or kin, or connection of any kind or description, according to the flesh, except those who do the will of our Father in heaven—the will of Jesus and his Father.

We presume that the Savior perfectly understood his origin, for he was then over thirty years of age, and had been instructed by his Father in heaven and by the Holy Ghost, and had had the visions of his mind repeatedly opened, according to the history given by his disciples; therefore we have no hesitation in believing that he understood his origin, who he was, the errand for which he came into the world, the business he had to attend to here, and understood the end of his mission in the meridian of time. He understood that which you and I do not understand, without the same kind of revelations and teachings as he enjoyed.

Let the human family do as they did in the days of Adam, in the days of Noah, or even as they did in the days of Lot; let parents propagate children, and let one generation succeed another, and this does not change the blood, flesh, bones, sinews, &c., pertaining to our organization in the flesh; this does not change in the least the peculiar characteristics of the organization of our bodies. The Apostle merely hinted at this subject when he said, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” (Acts xvii. 26.)

No matter who they are, nor whether they are upon the islands, or upon the continents; no matter whether they are the wild Arabs who traverse the scorching sands of Arabia, the aborigines of our own country, who roam over its plains and moun– tains, or the delicately nurtured dwellers in highly civilized nations; they are all of one flesh and blood.

Consequently we can readily and safely draw the conclusion that a man or woman who has sprung from the loins of Father Adam and Mother Eve, whether upon the islands of the sea, in the west, in the east, or on the opposite side of this globe, is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, as much so as any person now in this house or in this Territory. But the relationship that I claim, is to those who do the will of our Father in heaven; they are my brethren and sisters.

I know a great many here who have no relatives in this Church, using that term in its customary acceptation. Sometimes wives leave their husbands, to come here; mothers also leave their children, and children their parents. Ask them, “Where is your husband?” “In England,” or in some other country. “Have you any children?” “Yes.” “Where are they?” “They would not come with me.” “Have you any brothers and sisters, or parents?” “Yes, my father and mother are living” “Did they believe the Gospel?” “No.” “Did your brothers and sisters believe it?” “No, I am a lone person.”

Such persons are apt to feel a spirit of despondency, to mourn and complain, “O that I had a Father’s house to go to; or if I had one person whom I could visit and call sister, how happy I should be; but I am a stranger here, I have no relatives in this kingdom.” Is that feeling correct or incorrect? I say that it is incorrect; such conclusions are not true. That man or woman that is a child of God, that honors his or her calling in the kingdom of God on the earth, is just as much your brother or sister as any person you have been accustomed to claim that relationship with. If you see a woman who lives her religion, who is owned of God, you see a person that is flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood, and bone of your bone, although she may have been born upon the opposite side of the earth from where you were born. Those who actually live the religion we profess, are as much your brothers and sisters as are those born of the same earthly parents. Jesus understood this, as we may learn from his expression, “For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

Let your hearts be at rest, for you have brothers and sisters here to visit; they are your connections, your relatives, your brethren and sisters.

A great many have an experience that has proven to them the truth of this doctrine. Ask those individuals, those who at times have desponding feelings about the absence of their relatives, when they are in the light of the Spirit, when the joys of salvation fill their bosoms, whether they would prefer the society of their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters whom they have left behind, or whether they would like to associate with them better than with their neighbors here, and they will tell you, “No.” Would you visit them, as quick as you would a good Saint? “No.” Do you have the same feeling and fellowship for them, as for a Saint? “No.” Are they as near and dear to you as those who are Saints? “No.” And yet, when the Spirit is gone from them and they are left to themselves, they are apt to feel lonesome and cast down, to be filled with desponding feelings, and to cry out, “I wish I could see my father, my mother, my brothers and sisters; I wish they were here.” And I wish you to understand that your brethren and sisters are here, even according to the flesh. Yes, according to the connection and relationship we bear to each other, to our Father and God, and to our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ.

It is true that I have not altogether the experience that those have whose parents would not embrace the Gospel, nor any of their father’s family. My father and stepmother embraced the plan of salvation as revealed through Joseph the Prophet; and four of my brothers, five sisters, and their children and their children’s children, almost without exception, are in this Church; also many of my cousins, uncles, and other classes of what we call relatives or relations, are in this Church. But I had this trial when I embraced this Gospel, “Can you forsake your friends and your father’s house?” This was in the vision of my mind, and I had just as much of a trial as though I had actually been called to experience all that some really have. I felt, yes, I can leave my father, my brothers and sisters, and my wife and children, if they will not serve the Lord and go with me.

I did not ask my wife whether she believed the Gospel; I did not ask her whether she would be baptized. Faith, repentance, and baptism are free for all. I did not know, when I was baptized, whether my wife believed the Gospel or not; I did not know that my father’s house would go with me. I believed that some of them would, but I was brought to the test, “Can I forsake all for the Gospel’s sake?” I can, was the reply within me. “Would you like to?” “Yes, if they will not embrace the Gospel.” “Will not these earthly, natural ties be continually in your bosom?” “No; I know no other family but the family of God gathered together, or about to be, in this my day; I have no other connection on the face of the earth that I claim.” And from that day to this, if my father was still living, or my mother, and would not believe the Gospel, embrace it, and then live it, or if any of my living brothers and sisters would not, I would rather meet a Saint who was a beggar in the streets and bid him welcome to my house, than to receive a visit from any of my unbelieving connections, even though they had the wealth of the Indies. I was brought to this test in my own feelings, in the first of my experience in this Church.

Here are our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. And perhaps it would be strictly correct to say that we have fathers in the Gospel, spiritual Fathers, for the Apostle Paul called Timothy, whom he brought into the Church, his “own son in the faith,” and charged him to “be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient;” to be careful, cautious, with regard to the people that believed in Jesus Christ; to learn the disposition and the nature of the people, that he might understand himself and those he taught; and alluded to others that were traveling and preaching; building up Churches, or presiding over them after they were built up.

Looking at the conduct of many, yea, very many, as we can see it exhibited in this our day, they want the mastery, the influence, the power. They want to be able to say to the people, “Do this or do that,” and have no objections raised. They would have the people obey their voice, and yet they do not know how to gain the affections of the people; they do not understand the dispositions of the people.

Paul observed the same difficulty in his day. Many Elders were preaching and presiding, who were ignorant, aspiring, and tyrannical, and but few of them treated the people as kind and benevolent fathers treat their children. There were not many fathers, but there was a disposition to be “many masters,” as we see here.

The most of our Elders want to be obeyed, as strictly as you are taught by them from this stand that this people ought to obey brother Heber, or brother Brigham; as strictly as they preach to you to obey our counsel. I do not threaten you much; No. If I have not wisdom and power to gain the influence necessary for me to wield in the midst of this people, without cursing them, without telling them that they and their substance shall be cursed, and that if they do not do as I say they shall go to hell—without threatening the people all the time with my judgments and the judgments of the Almighty—I say, let Brigham sink a little lower, and get into the field where I can find my true level, where I can be made more useful.

You never hear me plead with nor threaten the people much, nor chastise them often and severely for not obeying my counsel. Is it right that others should do so? Yes, it is all right, if they are so disposed; I have no fault to find with regard to others urging the people to obey counsel. But if I do not give the Saints and others the counsel of the Almighty, and that too by the Spirit of my mission, they are at liberty to dictate me, or to correct me in every error I commit; and certainly I should commit great errors, if I did not enjoy and have the Spirit of my mission, and counsel according to the will of the Lord. If all who are called to responsible stations would look at themselves precisely as they are, I will venture that we would have many more fathers than we now have, and fewer masters to drive the people.

As I have frequently said to the brethren, stop, hold on. If you have sheep and have become a shepherd in the fold of Christ, you must bear in mind that you must know your sheep, and that then they will know you, that is, if you have got sheep. Perhaps some of you are nursing a flock of goats, and do not know the difference. But if you actually have a flock of sheep, you should, instead of hallooing, “Shoo, shoo, shoo, get out of the way,” and instead of driving them, take a course that when they hear your voice they may begin to bleat and run for their shepherd, because he has a little salt for them. When the sheep hear the voice of a good shepherd they expect to hear the words of life; and everyone that has the knowledge of God will know and understand that such a shepherd is acting in his duty, and they will walk up to his counsels and example. Do all the shepherds take a wise course? No, and the reasons have been told here enough times.

Elders of Israel and Bishops, be fathers, and take a course by which you will win the affections of the people. How? With your silken lips? No, no; but with the fear of the Almighty. Do you know that men and women of God love truth? They do not love sophistry, it is an abomination to them. When men are smooth as oil, with a smile always upon their countenances, as some Elders have, to gain an influence, the love people have for such men is rotten, is without foundation; and in the day of trouble, when they need a foundation in their people, they will find that it will fall to the ground, and that the people will pass by them and say, “We do not know those men.” Let your influence and your power be gained by the power of the Lord Almighty, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and see that you have within you a well of water, springing up to everlasting life. Then when your brethren and sisters come around you they will drink at that fountain, and say, “We are one with you.”

You hear the Elders teaching the people to try and have confidence in God, and saying, “Do have confidence in the ordinances of the house of God; brethren and sisters try and live your religion; try and have confidence in your religion; have confidence in your God; have confidence in the Elders of Israel, that lead you; have confidence in your Bishops and other presiding officers, &c.”

You know that almost every man who becomes a public speaker uses certain peculiar words to convey particular ideas, selects a vocabulary and arrangement more or less peculiar to himself, thereby causing that great variety of style observed in speakers and writers. I have mine, which is peculiar to me. Did you ever see a man who had such a peculiar vocabulary as brother Heber has? I never did. Orson Hyde has a mode of expression peculiar to himself, and so has every public speaker. My use of language is good to me; and though others may use different words to convey the same ideas, let me give out those ideas in my own style, according to my understanding.

Now to return to those teachings by the Elders, in such cases I would say to my dear brethren, to those who are of the household of faith, try to get a little confidence in yourselves, and then try to live so as to have confidence in your God. Ask even an infidel whether he believes that the wonder workings of nature, the strange phenomena which he sees and cannot account for, are produced, and he will answer, “Yes, I know they are.” Do you know that men, women, and children are healed? Yes, you know they are. You behold those remarkable phenomena, though you cannot fully account for them. You believe in a great many things which you do not understand, but do you believe in yourselves? No, that is the grand difficulty with everyone of us.

I will take my own experience. When men and women bring their sick to me, if I had the power I would heal all that should be healed. And if I had perfect confidence in myself, and the Lord had that confidence in me which I should then have in Him, no power beneath the heavens could prevent the power of God from coming on them and healing them through me. But I have not yet attained to perfect confidence in myself in all circumstances, neither has God in me, for were such the case, He would answer every request I made of Him, every wish of mine would be answered to the letter. And this is the difficulty with the people, they have not attained to perfect confidence in themselves, neither have we as yet sufficient grounds for that degree of confidence.

We lay hands on the sick and wish them to be healed, and pray the Lord to heal them, but we cannot always say that He will. We do not always know that He will actually hear our prayers and answer them. Sometimes the Elders will get that faith, and the sisters will often lay hands on their children and have faith and confidence in themselves that God will answer their prayers, and say to fevers and pains, “Be ye rebuked and stand far off from this the afflicted,” and it is done. But you have to attain to this power by your faithfulness and confidence in yourselves, that God will answer your prayers. We know that the Lord often heals the sick; and we believe all the time that He is able to do so, but will He because we ask Him to? That is the question, and we are often doubtful about it.

Do you think that I would have let my brother die, if I had the power the Lord has? Would I have let Jedediah gone behind the veil, had I had that power? No; though in that I might have gone contrary to the wishes of the Almighty. For want of the knowledge which the Lord has, if I had power I might bring injury upon myself and this people.

We must have knowledge pertaining to ourselves, and that knowledge will give us the key to know how to ask and obtain, and without that knowledge we cannot have eternal life, which is “to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent.” If we have that knowledge we will know how to ask so as to obtain, and not ask amiss, we will ask and have our requests granted. How can we have that knowledge? By applying our hearts to wisdom and our lives to rectitude; by living as perfectly before God as we know how; by doing those things that we know to be right, those about which we have no doubt or dubiety, and never doing that which we are suspicious is wrong, and then be satisfied and not crave after that which is not for us, but let it remain in the hands of God. If we can obtain faith and confidence in ourselves, there is no lack in the power of God; neither is there any lack in His diligence, for He is always on the alert.

In our ignorance and darkness we may be led into error, if we follow our feelings, as I just now observed might have been the case in regard to retaining brother Jedediah, as also brother Willard, brother Whitney, and many others. Had we had the power, would we have parted with Joseph? No, notwithstanding his work was finished on the earth. Many ideas have been imbibed and advanced concerning the death of Joseph. It was precisely as the Lord had decreed, designed, willed and brought about. No power could have altered it in the least. He had finished his work on the earth. Still if you and I had had the power without the knowledge, we would have kept Joseph on this earth, and then he would have failed to perform his mission in the spirit world.

I learned during the intermission, that several understood brother Heber to say, in his remarks in the forenoon, that Joseph was resurrected. He did not say any such thing, but left the sentence with a word understood at each end of it, or a sort of conjunction disjunctive at each side of it. I thought at the time that many would understand brother Heber as saying that Joseph was resurrected, and I take this opportunity to correct that misunderstanding. Joseph is not resurrected; and if you will visit the graves you will find the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum yet in their resting place. Do not be mistaken about that; they will be resurrected in due time.

Jesus had a work to do on the earth. He performed his mission, and then was slain for his testimony. So it has been with every man who has been foreordained to perform certain important missions. Joseph truly said, “No power can take away my life, until my work is done.” All the powers of earth and hell could not take his life, until he had completed the work the Father gave him to do; until that was done, he had to live. When he died he had a mission in the spirit world, as much so as Jesus had. Jesus was the first man that ever went to preach to the spirits in prison, holding the keys of the Gospel of salvation to them. Those keys were delivered to him in the day and hour that he went into the spirit world, and with them he opened the door of salvation to the spirits in prison.

Compare those inhabitants on the earth who have heard the Gospel in our day, with the millions who have never heard it, or had the keys of salvation presented to them, and you will conclude at once as I do, that there is an almighty work to perform in the spirit world. Joseph has not yet got through there. When he finishes his mission in the spirit world, he will be resurrected, but he has not yet done there. Reflect upon the millions and millions of people that have lived and died without hearing the Gospel on the earth, without the keys of the kingdom. They were not prepared for celestial glory, and there was no power that could prepare them without the keys of this Priesthood.

They must go into prison, both Saints and sinners. The good and bad, the righteous and the unrighteous must go to the house of prison, or paradise, and Jesus went and opened the doors of salvation to them. And unless they lost the keys of salvation on account of transgression, as has been the case on this earth, spirits clothed with the Priesthood have ministered to them from that day to this. And if they lost the keys by transgression, someone who had been in the flesh, Joseph, for instance, had to take those keys to them. And he is calling one after another to his aid, as the Lord sees he wants help.

Jedediah is not asleep, his spirit is not dead, he is not idle; neither is Willard idle, asleep, or dead. Joseph needed them there, also brother Whitney, and all the rest of the faithful who have departed in our day; and he is now anxious to get a few more of the faithful Elders to assist him in the great labors in the prison house. He is there attending to the business of his mission; and if they did lose the keys of the Priesthood in the spirit world, as they have formerly done on the earth, Joseph has restored those keys to the spirits in prison, so that we who now live on the earth in the day of salvation and redemption for the house of Israel and the house of Esau, may go forth and officiate for all who died without the Gospel and the knowledge of God.

Brother Heber did not say that Joseph was resurrected, though I was satisfied that many of the hearers would draw such a conclusion. As quick as Joseph finishes his mission in the spirit world he will be resurrected.

I do not know that any news would come to my ears so sad and discouraging, so calculated to blight my faith and hope as to hear that Joseph is resurrected and has not made a visit to his brethren. I should know that something serious was the matter, far more than I now apprehend that there is. When his spirit again quickens his body, he will ascend to heaven, present his resurrected body to the Father and the Son, receive his commission as a resurrected being, and visit his brethren on this earth, as did Jesus after his resurrection. Mary met the Savior after his resurrection, and, “supposing him to be the gardener, saith, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him.” But when she learned who he was, and was about to greet him, he said, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.” As quick as Joseph ascends to his Father and God, he will get a commission to this earth again, and I shall be the first woman that he will manifest himself to. I was going to say the first man, but there are so many women who profess to have seen him, that I thought I would say woman.

I should feel worse than I now do, if I knew that Joseph was resurrected and had not paid us a visit, which he most assuredly will do, when that period arrives.

When Jesus was resurrected they found the linen, but the body was not there. When Joseph is resurrected you may find the linen that enshrouded his body, but you will not find his body in the grave, no more than the disciples found the body of Jesus when they looked where it was lain.

To return more closely to the subject I have in my mind, I will ask, can we do anything to restore confidence in ourselves? Yes, we can; and those principles that will actually give us confidence in ourselves, are what we ought to have constantly before us. But those who have been intimately acquainted with this people can see a difficulty on the other hand. A man would get exceeding great faith, if he did not outweigh and outmeasure himself, for it is but a short time before some are prone to take the glory to themselves, and say, “I have laid hands on the sick and they have been healed. Stand out of the way, everybody, I am the man for you to look at,” and they go to the devil.

Again, many will pray for the sick and for themselves, for this blessing and that, without receiving an answer, and think “I am so unworthy, I have not lived my religion and walked up to my privileges, though I have thought of everything that I can confess.” Some people will come and confess to me things as simple as it would be for a woman to take the last egg from her hen’s nest, and then reflect, “what an evil I have done to rob that poor hen of her last egg,” and talk about that which the Lord cares nothing about, and say within themselves, “I do not receive the blessings I desire; I have tried to humble myself and do the best I know, and yet I do not receive that faith and power I want, that I am looking for and expect.” You cannot receive it, until you are capable of using it, neither should you. It would not be wisdom in the Lord to give you power any faster than you gain knowledge.

Those who humble themselves before the Lord, and wait upon Him with a perfect heart and willing mind, will receive little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little, “Now and again,” as brother John Taylor says, until they receive a certain amount. Then they have to nourish and cherish what they receive, and make it their constant companion, encouraging every good thought, doctrine and principle and doing every good work they can perform, until by and by the Lord is in them a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life.

Some of you may remember hearing Elder Taylor preach on that subject some years ago. He illustrated it most beautifully, I never heard it so beautifully illustrated, by instancing people’s applying their words, works, and wisdom, in seeking first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, seeking to build up the kingdom of God on the earth, and exhorted that every other interest should sleep to wake no more; that every man and woman should have a lively interest for the kingdom of God, and let narrow, contracted, sectional, individual interests lie dormant, asleep, severed from us, and taught that our whole lives would then be occupied in loving God and doing good, until Jesus would form in us that living fountain from which we may have revelation and gain wisdom.

Can you learn by what you see? Yes, if you know how. No matter what your circumstances are, whether you are in prosperity or in adversity, you can learn from every person, transaction, and circumstance around you. You can learn from yourselves and your neighbors, and can apply all your energies to the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth, if your knowledge, interests, hopes, joys, efforts, and labors are concentrated therein; and you will be in that almighty big root that brother Heber was talking about in the forenoon.

Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and his Father is the husbandman. In reality his Father was the root of that vine, and Jesus was the vine, though he did not tell them that for they could not understand anything about it. His Father was the root, the living fountain, and the God whom we have to serve. Let us be branches and cling to this vine, hang to the true principles, and all that we do, let it be to nourish, cherish, love, build, increase, and multiply the size, glory, power, and excellency of this tremendous great vine. There will be but one big vine in the vineyard, according to that. Never mind, we will be the branches, and the roots will fill the whole soil and the branches the heavens.

It may be just as well to have one tree that will bear a million bushels of peaches, as to have a million trees that will only produce one bushel each. All can partake and be filled; all who will can rejoice, and all can strive to build up this one kingdom, or to nourish this great tree.

I now wish to particularize a little, and will commence by asking whether any persons here are sick, and if so, I will tell you what their disease is, when I get ready. Some men and women fairly get sick, so that they have to go to bed. What is the matter? “O I feel that I cannot stand it any longer.” What is the matter, sister? “My husband knows something that he cannot tell me.” Do some of you men know something that you cannot tell your wives? “O, I have received something in the endowment that I dare not tell my wife, and I do not know how to do about it.” The man who cannot know millions of things that he would not tell his wife, will never be crowned in the celestial kingdom, never, NEVER, NEVER. It cannot be; it is impossible. And that man who cannot know things without telling any other living being upon the earth, who cannot keep his secrets and those that God reveals to him, never can receive the voice of his Lord to dictate him and the people on this earth.

Does brother Heber know things that I do not? Yes, facts that have slept in his bosom from the time I first knew him. Did he ever have a thought, a wish, or desire, to tell them to me? No. Do I know anything that I should keep fast locked in my bosom? Yes, thousands of things pertaining to other people, that ought to sleep as in the silent grave. Do those things go from me to brother Heber? No. To my wife? No, for I might as well at once publish them in a paper. Not that I wish to undervalue the ability, talent, and integrity of woman, for I have many women to whom I would rather reveal any secret that ought to be revealed, than to nine hundred and nine out of a thousand men in this Church. I know that many can keep secrets, but that is no reason why I should tell them my secrets. When I find a person that is good at keeping a secret, so am I; you can keep yours, and I mine.

Now I want to tell you that which, perhaps, many of you do not know. Should you receive a vision of revelation from the Almighty, one that the Lord gave you concerning yourselves, or this people, but which you are not to reveal on account of your not being the proper person, or because it ought not to be known by the people at present, you should shut it up and seal it as close, and lock it as tight as heaven is to you, and make it as secret as the grave. The Lord has no confidence in those who reveal secrets, for He cannot safely reveal Himself to such persons. It is as much as He can do to get a particle of sense into some of the best and most influential men in the Church, in regard to real confidence in themselves. They cannot keep things within their own bosoms.

They are like a great many boys and men that I have seen, who would cause even a sixpence, when given to them, to become so hot that it would burn through the pocket of a new vest, or pair of pantaloons, if they could not spend it. It could not stay with them; they would feel so tied up because they were obliged to keep it, that the very fire of discontent would cause it to burn through the pocket, and they would lose the sixpence. This is the case with a great many of the Elders of Israel, with regard to keeping secrets. They burn with the idea, “O, I know things that brother Brigham does not understand.” Bless your souls, I guess you do. Don’t you think that there are some things that you do not understand? “There may be some things which I do not understand.” That is as much as to say, “I know more than you.” I am glad of it, if you do. I wish that you knew a dozen times more. When you see a person of that character, he has no soundness within him.

If a person understands God and godliness, the principles of heaven, the principle of integrity, and the Lord reveals anything to that individual, no matter what, unless He gives permission to disclose it, it is locked up in eternal silence. And when persons have proven to their messengers that their bosoms are like the lockups of eternity, then the Lord says, I can reveal anything to them, because they never will disclose it until I tell them to. Take persons of any other character, and they sap the foundation of the confidence they ought to have in themselves and in their God.

If you cannot have confidence in God, try and have it in yourselves. If you lay on hands for the recovery of the sick, or for the reception of the Holy Ghost, or to bless or curse, unless you know that God hears you and will answer you, your administration is liable to fall to the ground. When you have confidence in yourselves you will have confidence in your God. You know that God is able to do what you desire of Him in righteousness, but the question is, will He? No, He will not do for this people that which we want Him to, until we prove to Him and to the angels that we are the friends of God, and will never betray Him in any way, shape, or manner. If we are His friends, we will keep the secrets of the Almighty. We will lock them up, when He reveals them to us, so that no man on earth can have them, and no being from heaven, unless he brings the keys wherewith to get them legally. No person can get the things the Lord has given to me, unless by legal authority; then I have a right to reveal them, but not without. When we can keep our own secrets, when we can keep the secrets of the Almighty strictly, honestly, truly in our own bosoms, the Lord will have confidence in us. Will He before? No. Are we going to become secret keepers in any other way than by applying our lives to the religion we profess to believe? No.

We want confidence in each other. The Bishops, Presiding Elders, and men in authority seek for the obedience and confidence of the people. How are they going to get it? By abusing the people? By scolding them? Are they going to get it by flattering them with smooth, deceitful tongues? No, they will not get it in any of those ways. There is only one way to get it. This people are a good people. As I said last Sabbath, they are willing to do anything to obtain eternal life, to secure to themselves a seat in the boxes, as brother Orson Hyde termed it. If you have a blank ticket for a theater, you may fill it up for the boxes, or the gallery, or the pit, just as you please. Your lives must fill that blank, and if you would fill it for one of the best seats in the kingdom, you must live accordingly.

Do not flatter the man of influence, or the rich man. I know that the brethren might turn round and say, “Brother Brigham, do you see any of this, very lately?” The brethren have learned, years ago, that if a man was to give me a gold watch, a suit of clothes, a span of horses, a fine carriage, or a purse containing a million of dollars to buy my friendship, that does not buy it, has nothing to do with it, consequently I have not much opportunity of knowing whether the people have this spirit or not, for they do not exhibit it to me. If they feel to give me anything, they give it because they wish to give brother Brigham something.

If a man should offer to make me a present of a thousand dollars, though I knew at the time that he would be kicked out of the Church in the next minute, I would accept it and try to make good use of it. On the other hand, if a man was in beggary, and owing this Church a thousand dollars and lacking a suit of clothes, but with his heart right, brother Brigham would say, “Come along here, you are the man I want to see; come to my table and eat, and I will also give you clothing to put on.” Let a man have the power of God with him—the Holy Ghost within him—so that when he talks you can see, feel, and understand that power; so that you can see and understand that the water of life is in him, insomuch that when he speaks, the sweet words of life flow out; then I am ready to exclaim, “Come, here, my brother, you are the man for me.”

When every person will cease to hang upon the brittle, rotten threads upon which the world hang, and turn round and say, in the power of God, “I will make friends and gain my influence, by that power; I will have all I do have in the name and power of God, and that which I do not thus get, I will not have,” then you will begin to gain the influence you want, and to have confidence in yourselves and in each other. Can the people have confidence in each other, and continue to conduct themselves as many have? No, they have got to be strictly honest.

I will take myself as an example, with all the influence I have in the midst of this people and over them (and I really and honestly think that I have a great deal more influence here than Moses had among the children of Israel), and suppose that I lie to that man, and deceive that woman; pilfer from that neighbor, and have what the Indians call two tongues, talk this way and that way to gain power; and be very plausible, very soft and kind to those present, and say that the brother who is not before me is the devil, and when he is gone, that the other is the same; while each one is with me all is smooth and fine weather; but of the absent say, that man who was just here, I am glad I have found out his iniquity, he is full of it; and be dishonest with this and the other person, falsifying my words here and there, how long would I have confidence in the midst of this people? I would lose it at once, and ought to, because I would not be deserving of their confidence.

When a man or woman ought to be chastised, I am able to do it, and I will do it righteously. If they need a severe chastisement, I can put it on severely; if a light one, I can bear on with a light hand.

When people come to me, I look at them to see them as they are, though I am not yet perfect in this. I have not yet the eyes I wish to have, nor the wisdom. Do I wish to know how they look with man, or to my brother? No, but how they appear before the God of heaven. If I can gain that knowledge, if I can know precisely how an individual appears to my Father in heaven, and be able to look at him with the same kind of eyes as do the Holy Ghost and holy angels, then I can judge the good or evil in the person, without further trouble.

That is the method by which I settle so many difficulties. I can go to the High Council, even should they have forty cases of the most difficult kind, and if I would dictate, I could wind up the forty cases, while they would wind up one or two. The reason is this, I bring the individuals before me, and they cannot deceive. If there is lying, wickedness, malice, and deception, I will detect them and judge them from the words that flow from their own mouths. I take the parties and hear them, and I can know at once as much as a dozen witnesses could show, so far as pertains to the truth in the case. Look at people as the Lord sees them, and then deal with them accordingly; and be honest with that man, woman, or neighbor.

Brethren and sisters, you know that often, when you hear that anyone has spoken against you, your feelings are irritated, disturbed by anger, and you imagine that that person is your enemy, when, in reality, such is not the case. Are you never liable to err? If your neighbor has spoken something derogatory to your character, go to that neighbor and say to him, “I heard that you said so and so, and with such and such reason, and I connected this and that with it,” and you can soon learn the facts in the case. It is often all right, when we talk calmly together, like brethren; and we think alike about each other, about this circumstance and that. When we hear a part of a conversation, we may easily make a wrong and false construction, and thereby bring evil. How many evils do we produce by this course?

If we take isolated sentences of Scripture, and pick out words here and there, and place them together, how inconsistent we can make the Bible. It would be as inconsistent as some individuals now say it is, whereas, if read by the Spirit in which it was given, it is not inconsistent.

We often make the consistent acts of our fellow beings inconsistent, by thinking that someone has done us an injury, when after all the heart of the person was honest, and no harm was designed. If a brother has spoken ten thousand words wrong, if he is full of error, full of weakness, a man of passions like unto ourselves, but is honest at heart, what then? Overlook their follies, and do not watch for iniquity in our brethren. If the real sentiments of honesty are in every man and woman, be unsuspicious of evil intent, and have confidence in their fidelity, and you will have confidence in yourselves, and will restore confidence in each other, so that every word will be as the law to each other.

Then when the Lord sees that we have confidence in each other, that we are full of integrity, that we never forsake each other, nor violate our covenants, nor the keys of the kingdom, nor are untrue to our God, He will say, “There is a people I can reveal myself to and tell what I please, and they will keep my secrets and their own, and no power can get them from them.” This is the way you will get confidence in your God and in yourselves. We may have confidence in God until doom’s day, until we carry out in our lives all that we now know about God, and it will profit us little, unless we take a course that He may have confidence in us, and reveal unto us His secrets, as the Prophets have said, for His secrets are with the Prophets.

There are other things that I might speak upon, for my mind is pretty full and fruitful, but I have spoken about as much as my health will permit.

I feel to wish that I could bless you as I want to, but I have not yet perfect confidence in myself. If I had, would I not lift the curtain, that you might see things as they are? I would rend it, so that you might see heavenly things; though, perhaps, that would not be prudent.

May the Lord enable us to increase in that which we have, and to continually do and say according to the knowledge we gain. May God bless us. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in Great Salt Lake City, March 8, 1857.

I presume there will not any person object to my talking this morning, although there may be many who wish to occupy the time.

There are a few items that I wish to lay before the brethren; the first is concerning our northern mission. A good many names of persons invited to go north have been read here, and I want to say to all those brethren that we do not desire any of them to go north with us this spring, unless they would like so to do, and can make it convenient to take the trip to see the country. We will excuse all who do not wish to go, also all whose circumstances rather forbid their going, and whose other duties of greater importance prevent them. Again, I would like to have all who wish to go on that journey consider that they have an invitation, so far as they can go consistently with their circumstances. I invite all to go who wish to and can do so conveniently. I think that the brethren understand, both those who live in the country and in this city, that the invitation to go north is not given in respect of persons, but any who have not been invited and who wish to go, may have the privilege; and those who have been invited but cannot go consistently, we will excuse.

The brethren who have been called upon foreign missions we expect to respond to the call cheerfully, where it is a duty; but where we invite persons to accompany us in visiting dif– ferent regions of country for our gratification, health, information, and satisfaction, the case is a little different.

Last Sabbath I was here in the forenoon, but I did not feel able to come in the afternoon. However, I gave brother Kimball a text with regard to this people to preach upon in the afternoon, and I expect that he did so, and presume that it proved satisfactory to the congregation.

Concerning what has been said by brother Orson Hyde since I came in, pertaining to light and knowledge, it is worth our serious attention. I understand that this people do not all live up to their privileges. I have told you that I was really mortified to hear the Elders of Israel preaching a reformation; this is a source of mortification to me, and the reasons are these. When life and salvation are put into the possession of individuals, or of a community, and they have all the means of obtaining the knowledge of God, and the wisdom of God, to understand the ways of God and to secure to themselves light, life, and immortality; and when those means are in them and round about them, and in all their communications and avocations of life are present with them, then to think that those individuals, or that community, should neglect such a great opportunity and prize, a prize beyond all earthly prizes or wealth of this earth, which can bear no comparison to it, is exceed– ingly marvelous; and to see them neglect this great prize, their conduct is like, speaking after the manner of the world, that of a miser who should turn from a mountain of gold which is so valuable, and go to a sand bank to scratch it over, to pick out shot to make himself wealthy.

When life and salvation are put in the possession of individuals, or of a people, to see them neglect those principles for anything pertaining to this world, or to let sorrow or affliction, or trials, or temptations, or buffeting, or smiting, or driving with the sword, fire, or anything else in the shape of persecution that can be poured on them, and to see them turn away from the things of God and be driven from the path of righteousness that would lead them to eternal glory, and crown them with crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives, is mortifying to my feelings, and I feel mortified when we have to say, “Reformation,” yet such is often the case. And many times when people have received and enjoyed great light and intelligence, the things of this world choke the good word, thorns and thistles spring up, and they seem to have but little root in themselves. The sun rises and scorches the tender plants that seem to be growing in them, and we have to cry to the people, “Reform, reform, REFORM,” when in reality it is a disgrace that such instruction should ever be necessary. It is a great disgrace; it is mortifying to angels, and I will insure that it is mortifying to our Father Adam. His heart is pained with such things; and the Prophets are pained with them, and so are all who understand and have proved themselves worthy of eternal life, both those who now live on the earth and those who have gone behind the veil.

For us to be repenting and reforming is really a disgrace. If it is annoying to borrow light from others, it is a disgrace to take a course in life to have to repent of the use made of that light. It is a disgrace to our organization, to the design of heaven, and to the intelligence God has given to man for his benefit. Truly wise persons hate to look upon such conduct, they look upon it with contempt. They are more worthy and noble than to condescend to take a course in life which they have continually to be repenting of.

As to light, a subject that brother Hyde has been speaking upon, I will present a few of my views in somewhat different terms. In the first place, to say that we “borrow light from one another,” I do not know that I precisely understand that idea, for I have no light to lend. Perhaps I am not so well endowed with light as some who have lived on the earth, but I have none to lend. I will use another term, and I might say, perhaps, with a good deal of propriety, that the poet conveys my idea pretty correctly in his lines concerning the wise and foolish virgins— “Go to them that sell and buy, And get yourselves a full supply.”

Another wrote— “The richest man I ever saw, was him that begged the most; His soul was filled with Jesus, and with the Holy Ghost.” I will go to begging instead of borrowing. But it is no great matter whether light is borrowed or begged, for it is not so much the way in which I obtain knowledge, as in the use I make of the knowledge I have obtained. The wrong use of our knowledge is what brings default in me or you.

I say that I have no light to lend. If God has given me light, if I possess the light of the Spirit of revelation, and bestow that knowledge upon my brethren, that same fountain increases in me; whereas, if I were to shut it up—to close up the vision—and keep it from the people, it would be like the candle lighted and put under the bushel, where of course the want of free air would extinguish it; and if the light in me becomes darkness, how great is that darkness! This is my explanation with regard to the light that is in me. If I receive from the fountain, the more I give the more I receive. The freer I am to hand out that which the Lord bestows on me, the better my mind is prepared to receive more from the fountain; that is the experience of every individual.

Here let me say what I do know and understand every branch of knowledge, of wisdom, of light, of understanding. All that I know, all that is within my organization mentally or physically, spiritually or temporally, I have received from some source. So it is with you. There is no knowledge, no light, no wisdom that you are in possession of, but what you have received from some source. Do you think this is true?

When will we possess knowledge, and power, and glory, and wisdom independently? When Jesus has finished his work. When we have proved ourselves worthy to be crowned, when we have passed through all the ordeals of suffering, trials, and temptations, and proven to our Father and our God that we are His friends, that we will live and serve Him, and not forsake our parents—will not forsake our Father’s house and His precepts; when we have proven ourselves faithful in the flesh and have gone through the veil into the spirit world—have done all that is required of us in preaching to those who are in prison, and are faithful until we receive our bodies again—until these tabernacles which we now occupy are resurrected and brought again to the spirits, and the spirits to the tabernacles, and Jesus calls on us to come up and be crowned among the faithful who will receive crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal life, then we will receive that power, knowledge, and wisdom, and possess it as independently as the Gods possess their power. It will then be bequeathed to them that they will have light within themselves. Why? Because they have control over the elements, and it will never be until then.

We have no light, no power at present, only what is given to us. Brother Hyde calls it borrowing, but I call it a free gift, or begging. The Lord’s giving does not diminish His fountain of spirit that our philosopher brother Orson Pratt speaks of, that he believes occupies universal space, or, in other words, that universal space is filled with, and that every particle of it is a Holy Spirit, and that that spirit is all powerful and all wise, full of intelligence and possessing all the attributes of all the Gods in eternity. I hardly dare say what I think and what I know, but that theory, though apparently very plausible and beautiful, is not true, for it is, or would be contradicted by the Prophets, by Jesus and the Apostles, and by all good men who understand the principles of eternity, both those who have lived and are now living on the earth. Brother Hyde was upon this same theory once, and in conversation with brother Joseph Smith advanced the idea that eternity or boundless space was filled with the Spirit of God, or the Holy Ghost. After portraying his views upon that theory very carefully and minutely, he asked brother Joseph what he thought of it? He replied that it appeared very beautiful, and that he did not know of but one serious objection to it. Says brother, Hyde, “What is that?” Joseph replied, “it is not true.”

With all the knowledge and wisdom that are combined in the person of brother Orson Pratt, still he does not yet know enough to keep his foot out of it, but drowns himself in his own philosophy, every time that he undertakes to treat upon principles that he does not understand. When he was about to leave here for his present mission, he made a solemn promise that he would not meddle with principles which he did not fully understand, but would confine himself to the first principles of the doctrine of salvation, such as were preached by brother Joseph Smith and the Apostles. But the first that we see in his writings, he is dabbling with things that he does not understand; his vain philosophy is no criterion or guide for the Saints in doctrine. According to his philosophy, the devils in hell are composed of and filled with the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, and possess all the knowledge, wisdom, and power of the Gods. If he believes his own doctrine pertaining to the celestial and other kingdoms, viz., that the devils in hell possess the same power as the Gods, they being opposed to Jesus and his Father, the whole fabric must fall. When I read some of the writings of such philosophers, they make me think, “O dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got!” The influences of the Almighty, by the Holy Spirit, have got to work upon us to revolutionize us. We must with our organization, as we are organized to become independent beings, though not yet independent of the influences around us, bring into subjection our own wills and efforts, and subject ourselves to the principle of obedience to the celestial law. And when we have overcome the seeds of sin that are in our mortal tabernacles, and brought our bodies and spirits in subjection to the celestial law of Christ, and proven ourselves worthy to receive that exaltation promised to the faithful, then it will be high time for us to receive independent kingdoms, thrones, principalities, and powers. We have them not now, and if we had we would not know what to do with them.

There are but few men that know how to govern in temporal things; fewer still who know how to control the feelings of the people, how to guide the power of any kingdom that was ever organized on the earth. Nations and kingdoms of this world rise up and flourish only for a season. What is the difficulty? They contain the seeds of their own destruction, sown therein by the framers of human governments; those combustive elements are organized in their construction from the first. With all the excellency, and all the carefulness and correctness exhibited in the formation of constitutions and laws, they have the seeds of destruction within themselves. In the laws of every government now on this earth, there are certain principles in their constitutions that will ere long sap the foundations of their existence; and so it will be, so long as men continue to persist in ruling and making laws, in regulating and controlling by human wisdom alone, and in issuing their mandates and sending their officers to administer laws, made by the wisdom of man. I repeat, that just so long they will continue to throw into their laws, into the constitutions of their governments, principles that are calculated to destroy the fabrics.

Why are they thus lead to sow the seeds of their own destruction? Because the kingdoms of this world are not designed to stand. When men are placed at the head of government who are actually controlled by the power of God—by the Holy Ghost—they can lay plans, they can frame constitutions, they can form governments and laws that have not the seeds of death within them, and no other men can do it. Consequently I say that there are but few who know how to control or govern even in temporal affairs on this earth. Then why should we have kingdoms and thrones committed to our charge, when we are not capacitated to rule over them? We are now trying to frame our lives in a way that we may be prepared to live in a kingdom that is eternal, and it will be just about as much as we can do to prepare ourselves to enter into that kingdom which will endure forever, without our being made Kings and Priests in that kingdom for some time yet.

Can any man tell the variety of the spirits there are? No, he cannot even tell the variety that there is in the portion of his dominions in which God has placed us, on this earth upon which we live, for we can see an endless variety on this little spot, which is nothing but a garden spot in comparison to the rest of the kingdoms of our God. Again, you may observe the people, and you will see an endless variety of disposition, and an endless variety of physiognomy. Bring the millions of faces before you, and where can you find two faces precisely alike in every point? Where can you find two human beings precisely alike in the organization of their bodies with the spirits? Where can you point out two precisely alike in every particular in their temperaments and dispositions? Where can you find two who are so operated upon precisely alike by a superior power that their lives, their actions, their feelings, and all pertaining to human life are alike? I conclude that there is as great a variety in the spiritual as there is in the temporal world, and I think that I am just in my conclusion.

You will see people possessed of different spirits; but I will say to you what I have heretofore frequently said, and what brother Joseph Smith has said, and what the Scripture teaches, your spirits when they came to take tabernacles were pure and holy, and prepared to receive knowledge, wisdom, and instruction, and to be taught while in the flesh; so that every son and daughter of Adam, if they would apply their minds to wisdom, and magnify their callings and improve upon every grace and means given them, would have tickets for the boxes, to use brother Hyde’s figure, instead of going into the pit. There is no spirit but what was pure and holy when it came here from the celestial world. There is no spirit among the human family that was begotten in hell; none that were begotten by angels, or by any inferior being. They were not produced by any being less than our Father in heaven. He is the Father of our spirits; and if we could know, understand, and do His will, every soul would be prepared to return back into His presence. And when they get there, they would see that they had formerly lived there for ages, that they had previously been acquainted with every nook and corner, with the palaces, walks, and gardens; and they would embrace their Father, and He would embrace them and say, “My son, my daughter, I have you again;” and the child would say, “O my Father, my Father, I am here again.”

These are the facts in the case, and there are none ticketed for the pit, unless they fill up that ticket themselves through their own misconduct. Are all spirits endowed alike? No, not by any means. Will all be equal in the celestial kingdom? By no means. Some spirits are more noble than others; some are capable of receiving more than others. There is the same variety in the spirit world that you behold here, yet they are of the same parentage, of one Father, one God, to say nothing of who He is. They are all of one parentage, though their is a difference in their capacities and nobility, and each one will be called to fill the station for which he is organized, and which he can fill.

We are placed on this earth to prove whether we are worthy to go into the celestial world, the terrestrial, or the telestial, or to hell, or to any other kingdom or place, and we have enough of life given us to do this. And as I frequently say, and think more frequently, it is a disgrace for the Latter-day Saints to say, “Let us lay hold now, and have a reformation.” We should never cease reforming and seeking to the Lord our God; and wherein we can better any trait in our lives, let us go to with our mights and reform ourselves, and not ask an Elder to come and preach reformation to us, and we will find that every one of us will be ticketed for the boxes, if we will do what we ought to do. If we fill out tickets so as to pass Joseph, Peter, Jesus, the Prophets, Abraham and the Patriarchs, our tickets will take us into the celestial kingdom. And if we can pass the Prophet Joseph, answer his questions, and bear his scrutiny, we shall consider ourselves pretty safe. We may fill out our tickets for seats in the celestial, terrestrial, telestial, or some other kingdom, just as we please. We have got to fill out our own tickets; our own lives will fill them up, and we will be judged according to the deeds done in the body, every one of us, and that is the filling up of the ticket.

I remarked to brother Kimball last Sabbath, that this people are the best people that ever lived upon the earth; I am actually a good deal inclined to think so. Do not marvel at this remark. How long did it take Enoch to purify his people—to become holy and prepared for what we want this people to be prepared for in a very few years? It took him 365 years. How long has this people lived? It will be 27 years on the sixth of next month, since this Church was organized. What do you think about this people? I say that the virtuous acts of their lives beat the whole world. Were the children of Israel ever so obedient to Moses, as this people are to me? No, they never began to be; for obedience they could not favorably compare with this people. Moses led his people forty years in the wilderness in rebellion, fighting, stealing, whoring, and every manner of iniquity; and their evils were so great, that God cut every one of them off in the wilderness, except Caleb and Joshua. He did not suffer one of them to go into the land of Canaan, except the two I have named; they never revolted from Moses, but held up his hands all the time. They never turned away, not even when Aaron, his half-brother and right hand man, made the golden calf. When Aaron gathered up the earrings, and finger rings, and jewels, and made a calf, and led the children of Israel astray to worship an image, and say, “These be thy Gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” while Moses was in the mountain talking to the Lord, Caleb and Joshua did not turn away; and if they were in that company, their souls shuddered while the people were making that calf.

Were Enoch’s men as obedient and advanced as far as this people in the same time? I think not. Let this people continue to make the improvement they have made, and it would not be 165 years before they could take this part of the country and go off, should it be necessary, until the earth is purified. Yet Enoch had to live and strive, and toil during 365 years, in order to bring his people under the principle of strict obedience. This contrast is encouraging to this people.

Now let me tell you that there are hundreds of men and women in this community that believe they ought to repent, but cannot find out for what, cannot tell wherein to do differently, from what they do, and do not know what to do. Do you do everything you know to be right and pleasing in the sight of God? Yes, say hundreds and thousands of the people. Do you do anything you know to be wrong? Hundreds may reply, “We do not know that we do, but we do not feel as though we enjoyed as much as we should.” Hold on, do not get away from us. If you were now in the enjoyment of the things you have a presentiment of in your own feelings, that in the anxiety of your own hearts you are longing for, if you could get all that in your possession, you would not stay here; we should lose you, for you would be too pure to tarry in our society. Do not be in a hurry; let us stay together and fight the devil a little longer. Some of you think that by next fall you must obtain all that the Elders preach. If you do, you will go behind the veil, and we cannot have your society.

With many, a presentiment arises in their hearts like this, “We want something wonderful, or we must do something that we have not done. We must revolutionize our lives; we must reform,” but they do not know wherein. Serve God according to the best knowledge you have, and lay down and sleep quietly; and when the devil comes along and says, “You are not a very good Saint, you might enjoy greater blessings and more of the power of God, and have the vision of your mind opened, if you would live up to your privileges,” tell him to leave; that you have long ago forsaken his ranks and enlisted in the army of Jesus, who is your captain, and that you want no more of the devil.

Should a sister, full of faith, happen to lay her hands on the sick, and they thereby be relieved in the hour of distress, then the devil will come along and say, “Sister, I tell you that you have more faith than brother Brigham, brother Heber, or the Twelve.” In such cases just tell Mr. Devil to kiss your foot and leave, that you have no more faith and knowledge than your Father and God has given you; that you are not any more or less than His child, and mean to serve Him, and that you have broken friendship with the devil, and therefore he must leave forthwith. Some of you sisters will get to thinking, “O that I knew what to do. Brother Kimball pours it out on me and tells me to repent; brother Brigham pours it on me, and brother Hyde and others, and they tell me that I am not half so good as I should be.” Hold on, do not get so nervous that you cannot eat your bread and meat.

We have Zion in our view in her perfection, as you have. Do you know how you looked on Zion when you first embraced the Gospel? You thought there would be no more trial, no more sorrow or vexation of spirit; that everybody would do right, and that there would be no more wrong; that if you once reached the gathering place, there your souls would be full of glory, and you expected that you could then sit and “sing yourself away to everlasting bliss.” You have to go through the smut mill, in order to be made clean; then you have to be winnowed, then ground, and then go through the bolt; and in this operation a good many will actually “bolt.” There are many pretty good men who want to go to California and to the States; they have felt the effect of the boltings. You have come here, and many have undergone a great deal of trouble to do so, in order to serve your God and live your religion; and when you do not know what to do to make yourselves better, be contented, and eat your food with a thankful heart to the glory of God. And when you lay down, say “All is peace, all is right; and if the Lord wishes to take me away tonight, I am ready to go.” There are thousands of this people who, if they were to live ten thousand years in the flesh and according to the chance they have had, would be no better than they are now.

It is said to be eternal life, “to know the only wise God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.” I will tell you one thing, as brother Hyde has said, it would be an excellent plan for us to go to work and find out ourselves, for as sure as you find out yourselves, you will find out God, whether you are Saint or sinner. A man cannot find out himself without the light of revelation; he has to turn round and seek to the Lord his God, in order to find out himself. If you find out who Joseph was, you will know as much about God as you need to at present; for if He said, “I am a God to this people.” He did not say that He was the only wise God. Jesus was a God to the people when he was upon earth, was so before he came to this earth, and is yet. Moses was a God to the children of Israel, and in this manner you may go right back to Father Adam.

If you look at things spiritually, and then naturally, and see how they appear together, you will understand that when you have the privilege of commencing the work that Adam commenced on this earth, you will have all your children come and report to you of their sayings and acts; and you will hold every son and daughter of yours responsible when you get the privilege of being an Adam on earth.

Suppose that one of us had been Adam, and had peopled and filled the world with our children, they, although they might be great grandchildren, &c., still, say I, had I been Adam, they would be my flesh, blood, and bones, and have the same kind of a spirit put into them that is in me. And pertaining to the flesh they would all be my children, and I would call them to account, and by and by I would call every one of them home. They would have to render up to father an account, that he may know what their works have been on earth, for man is judged according to his works on the earth.

Comparing spiritual with temporal things, it must be that God knows something about temporal things, and has had a body and been on an earth, were it not so He would not know how to judge men righteously, according to the temptations and sin they have had to contend with. If I can pass brother Joseph, I shall stand a good chance for passing Peter, Jesus, the Prophets, Moses, Abraham, and all back to Father Adam, and be pretty sure of receiving his approbation. If I can pass all this ordeal, shall I not be pretty safe? I think I shall.

When we get before father Adam and the innumerable company that will come before him—when we draw near to the Ancient of Days with the rest of his children, and receive his approbation, shall we not be safe? If we can pass the sentinel Joseph the Prophet, we shall go into the celestial kingdom, and not a man can injure us. If he says, “God bless you, come along here;” if we will live so that Joseph will justify us, and say, “Here am I, brethren,” we shall pass every sentinel; there will be no danger but that we will pass into the celestial kingdom. Will we all become Gods, and be crowned kings? No, my brethren, there will be millions on millions, even the greater part of the celestial world, who will not be capable of a fulness of that glory, immortality, eternal lives and a continuation of them, yet they will go into the celestial kingdom. Will this people all go into that kingdom? I think a good many will have to be burnt out like an old pipe, before they can go into any decent kingdom.

Think how many have come into this church, from the commencement of it until now, and apostatized. Will our present population equal them in number? No, it would be like a drop in a bucket, compared with them. Do you know of any other people’s striving to enter in at the strait gate besides this people? Yes, many in the sectarian world, and the honest among the heathen nations are seeking with all their mights to enter in, and I do not know but what they are the foolish virgins that brother Hyde has been talking about. The parable will apply to them, as well as to a portion of this people. They live according to the moral law given to them, and no people can be morally any better than are thousands and millions of them, for they have spent days and years on their knees to get the power we have, but could not obtain it. Why? Because they had not the keys of the everlasting Priesthood. Where will they go? To heaven, and they will have all the heaven, bliss, and crowns that they have anticipated in the flesh, and then you may add a hundredfold more. Can they go into the celestial kingdom? No, not without the keys of that kingdom.

Well, brethren and sisters, may the Lord bless you and comfort your hearts. Be true to your God and to your religion. Do not forsake them, but forsake sin wherever you may see it. Shun sin, whether it is in me or in any other person, and cleave to righteousness and to the Lord. Do not betray your God nor your covenants, and I say, God bless you and prepare us all for His celestial kingdom. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, February 8, 1857.

I feel myself somewhat under obligations to come here and talk to the people, inasmuch as I have absented myself for some time, and others have occupied this stand.

Perhaps I will not talk to you long, but I desire to pursue some of the ideas that brother Cummings has just laid before you. I can testify that every word he has spoken is true, even to the advancement of the Saints at a “snail gallop.” Though that is rather a novel expression, still it is true, as well as all the rest which he advanced.

The items that have been advanced are principles of real doctrine, whether you consider them so or not. It is one of the first principles of the doctrine of salvation to become acquainted with our Father and our God. The Scriptures teach that this is eternal life, to “know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;” this is as much as to say that no man can enjoy or be prepared for eternal life without that knowledge.

You hear a great deal of preaching upon this subject; and when people repent of their sins, they will get together, and pray and exhort each other, and try to get the spirit of revelation, try to have God their Father revealed to them, that they may know Him and become acquainted with Him.

There are some plain, simple facts that I wish to tell you, and I have but one desire in this, which is, that you should have understanding to receive them, to treasure them up in your hearts, to contemplate upon these facts, for they are simple facts, based upon natural principles; there is no mystery about them when once understood.

I want to tell you, each and every one of you, that you are well acquainted with God our heavenly Father, or the great Eloheim. You are all well acquainted with Him, for there is not a soul of you but what has lived in His house and dwelt with Him year after year; and yet you are seeking to become acquainted with Him, when the fact is, you have merely forgotten what you did know. I told you a little last Sabbath about forgetting things.

There is not a person here today but what is a son or a daughter of that Being. In the spirit world their spirits were first begotten and brought forth, and they lived there with their parents for ages before they came here. This, perhaps, is hard for many to believe, but it is the greatest nonsense in the world not to believe it. If you do not believe it, cease to call Him Father; and when you pray, pray to some other character.

It would be inconsistent in you to disbelieve what I think you know, and then to go home and ask the Father to do so and so for you. The Scriptures which we believe have taught us from the beginning to call Him our Father, and we have been taught to pray to Him as our Father, in the name of our eldest brother whom we call Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world; and that Savior, while here on earth, was so explicit on this point, that he taught his disciples to call no man on earth father, for we have one which is in heaven. He is the Savior, because it is his right to redeem the remainder of the family pertaining to the flesh on this earth, if any of you do not believe this, tell us how and what we should believe. If I am not telling you the truth, please do tell me the truth on this subject, and let me know more than I do know. If it is hard for you to believe, if you wish to be Latter-day Saints, admit the fact as I state it, and do not contend against it. Try to believe it, because you will never become acquainted with our Father, never enjoy the blessings of His Spirit, never be prepared to enter into His presence, until you most assuredly believe it; therefore you had better try to believe this great mystery about God.

I do not marvel that the world is clad in mystery, to them He is an unknown God; they cannot tell where He dwells nor how He lives, nor what kind of a being He is in appearance or character. They want to become acquainted with His character and attributes, but they know nothing of them. This is in consequence of the apostasy that is now in the world. They have departed from the knowledge of God, transgressed His laws, changed His ordinances, and broken the everlasting covenant, so that the whole earth is defiled under the inhabitants thereof. Consequently it is no mystery to us that the world knoweth not God, but it would be a mystery to me, with what I now know, to say that we cannot know anything of Him. We are His children.

To bring the truth of this matter close before you, I will instance your fathers who made the first permanent settlement in New England. There are a good many in this congregation whose fathers landed upon Plymouth Rock in the year 1620. Those fathers began to spread abroad; they had children, those children had children, and their children had children, and here are we their children. I am one of them, and many of this congregation belong to that class. Now ask yourselves this simple question upon natural principles, has the species altered? Were not the people who landed at Plymouth Rock the same species with us? Were they not organized as we are? Were not their countenances similar to ours? Did they not converse, have knowledge, read books? Were there not mechanics among them, and did they not understand agriculture, &c., as we do? Yes, every person admits this.

Now follow our fathers further back and take those who first came to the island of Great Britain, were they the same species of beings as those who came to America? Yes, all acknowledge this; this is upon natural principles. Thus you may continue and trace the human family back to Adam and Eve, and ask, “are we of the same species with Adam and Eve?” Yes, every person acknowledges this; this comes within the scope of our understanding.

But when we arrive at that point, a veil is dropped, and our knowledge is cut off. Were it not so, you could trace back your history to the Father of our spirits in the eternal world. He is a being of the same species as ourselves; He lives as we do, except the difference that we are earthly, and He is heavenly. He has been earthly, and is of precisely the same species of being that we are. Whether Adam is the personage that we should consider our heavenly Father, or not, is considerable of a mystery to a good many. I do not care for one moment how that is; it is no matter whether we are to consider Him our God, or whether His Father, or His Grandfather, for in either case we are of one species—of one family—and Jesus Christ is also of our species.

You may hear the divines of the day extol the character of the Savior, undertake to exhibit his true character before the people, and give an account of his origin, and were it not ridiculous, I would tell what I have thought about their views. Brother Kimball wants me to tell it, therefore you will excuse me if I do. I have frequently thought of mules, which you know are half horse and half ass, when reflecting upon the representations made by those divines. I have heard sectarian priests undertake to tell the character of the Son of God, and they make him half of one species and half of another, and I could not avoid thinking at once of the mule, which is the most hateful creature that ever was made, I believe. You will excuse me, but I have thus thought many a time.

Now to the facts in the case; all the difference between Jesus Christ and any other man that ever lived on the earth, from the days of Adam until now, is simply this, the Father, after He had once been in the flesh, and lived as we live, obtained His exaltation, attained to thrones, gained the ascendancy over principalities and powers, and had the knowledge and power to create—to bring forth and organize the elements upon natural principles. This He did after His ascension, or His glory, or His eternity, and was actually classed with the Gods, with the beings who create, with those who have kept the celestial law while in the flesh, and again obtained their bodies. Then He was prepared to commence the work of creation, as the Scriptures teach. It is all here in the Bible; I am not telling you a word but what is contained in that book.

Things were first created spiritually; the Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and lived with Him. Then He commenced the work of creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as He had been created in this flesh himself, by partaking of the coarse material that was organized and composed this earth, until His system was charged with it, consequently the tabernacles of His children were organized from the coarse materials of this earth.

When the time came that His firstborn, the Savior, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the Father came Himself and favored that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it. The Savior was begotten by the Father of His spirit, by the same Being who is the Father of our spirits, and that is all the organic difference between Jesus Christ and you and me. And a difference there is between our Father and us consists in that He has gained His exaltation, and has obtained eternal lives. The principle of eternal lives is an eternal existence, eternal duration, eternal exaltation. Endless are His kingdoms, endless His thrones and His dominions, and endless are His posterity; they never will cease to multiply from this time henceforth and forever.

To you who are prepared to enter into the presence of the Father and the Son, what I am now telling will eventually be no more strange than are the feelings of a person who returns to his father’s house, brethren, and sisters, and enjoys the society of his old associates, after an absence of several years upon some distant island. Upon returning he would be happy to see his father, his relatives and friends. So also if we keep the celestial law when our spirits go to God who gave them, we shall find that we are acquainted there and distinctly realize that we know all about that world.

Tell me that you do not know anything about God! I will tell you one thing, it would better become you to lay your hands upon your mouths and them in the dust, and cry, “unclean, unclean.”

Whether you receive these things or not, I tell you them in simplicity. I lay them before you like a child, because they are perfectly simple. If you see and understand these things, it will be by the Spirit of God; you will receive them by no other spirit. No matter whether they are told to you like the thunderings of the Almighty, or by simple conversation; if you enjoy the Spirit of the Lord, it will tell you whether they are right or not.

I am acquainted with my Father. I am as confident that I understand in part, see in part, and know and am acquainted with Him in part, as I am that I was acquainted with my earthly father who died in Quincy, Illinois, after we were driven from Missouri. My recollection is better with regard to my earthly father than it is in regard to my heavenly Father; but as to knowing of what species He is, and how He is organized, and with regard to His existence, I understand it in part as well as I understand the organization and existence of my earthly father. That is my opinion about it, and my opinion to me is just as good as yours is to you; and if you are of the same opinion you will be satisfied as I am.

I know my heavenly Father and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, and this is eternal life. And if we will do as we have been told this morning, if you will enter into the Spirit of your calling, into the principle of securing to yourselves eternal lives, eternal existence, eternal exaltation, it will be well with you. But if, after being put into a carriage and placed upon the road, after having everything prepared for the journey that infinite wisdom could devise, this people stroll into the swamp, get into the woods among the brambles and briars, and wander around until night overtakes them, I say, shame on such people.

I am ashamed to talk about a reformation, for if you have entered into the spirit of your religion, you will know whether these things are so or not. If you have the spirit of your religion and have confidence in you, walk along and continue to do so, and secure to yourselves the life before you, and never let it be said, from this time henceforth, that you have wakened out of your sleep, from the fact that you are always awake.

We talk about the reformation, but recollect that you have only just commenced to walk in the way of life and salvation. You have just commenced in the career to obtain eternal life, which is that which you desire, therefore you have no time to spend only in that path. It is straight and narrow, simple and easy, and is an Almighty path, if you will keep in it. But if you wander off into swamps, or into brambles, and get into darkness, you will find it hard to get back.

Brother Cummings told you the truth this morning with regard to the sins of the people. And I will say that the time will come, and is now nigh at hand, when those who profess our faith, if they are guilty of what some of this people are guilty of, will find the axe laid at the root of the tree, and they will be hewn down. What has been must be again, for the Lord is coming to restore all things. The time has been in Israel under the law of God, the celestial law, or that which pertains to the celestial law, for it is one of the laws of that kingdom where our Father dwells, that if a man was found guilty of adultery, he must have his blood shed, and that is near at hand. But now I say, in the name of the Lord, that if this people will sin no more, but faithfully live their religion, their sins will be forgiven them without taking life.

You are aware that when brother Cummings came to the point of loving our neighbors as ourselves, he could say yes or no as the case might be, that is true. But I want to connect it with the doctrine you read in the Bible. When will we love our neighbor as ourselves? In the first place, Jesus said that no man hateth his own flesh. It is admitted by all that every person loves himself. Now if we do rightly love ourselves, we want to be saved and continue to exist, we want to go into the kingdom where we can enjoy eternity and see no more sorrow nor death. This is the desire of every person who believes in God. Now take a person in this congregation who has knowledge with regard to being saved in the kingdom of our God and our Father, and being exalted, one who knows and understands the principles of eternal life, and sees the beauty and excellency of the eternities before him compared with the vain and foolish things of the world, and suppose that he is overtaken in a gross fault, that he has committed a sin that he knows will deprive him of that exaltation which he desires, and that he cannot attain to it without the shedding of his blood, and also knows that by having his blood shed he will atone for that sin, and be saved and exalted with the Gods, is there a man or woman in this house but what would say, “shed my blood that I may be saved and exalted with the Gods?”

All mankind love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation. Will you love your brothers or sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood? That is what Jesus Christ meant. He never told a man or woman to love their enemies in their wickedness, never. He never intended any such thing; his language is left as it is for those to read who have the Spirit to discern between truth and error; it was so left for those who can discern the things of God. Jesus Christ never meant that we should love a wicked man in his wickedness.

Now take the wicked, and I can refer to where the Lord had to slay every soul of the Israelites that went out of Egypt, except Caleb and Joshua. He slew them by the hands of their enemies, by the plague, and by the sword, why? Because He loved them, and promised Abraham that He would save them. And He loved Abraham because he was a friend to his God, and would stick to Him in the hour of darkness, hence He promised Abraham that He would save his seed. And He could save them upon no other principle, for they had forfeited their right to the land of Canaan by transgressing the law of God, and they could not have atoned for the sin if they had lived. But if they were slain, the Lord could bring them up in the resurrection, and give them the land of Canaan, and He could not do it on any other principle.

I could refer you to plenty of instances where men, have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins. I have seen scores and hundreds of people for whom there would have been a chance (in the last resurrection there will be) if their lives had been taken and their blood spilled on the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty, but who are now angels to the devil, until our elder brother Jesus Christ raises them up—conquers death, hell, and the grave. I have known a great many men who have left this Church for whom there is no chance whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been better for them. The wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbid this principle’s being in full force, but the time will come when the law of God will be in full force.

This is loving our neighbor as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. Any of you who understand the principles of eternity, if you have sinned a sin requiring the shedding of blood, except the sin unto death, would not be satisfied nor rest until your blood should be spilled, that you might gain that salvation you desire. That is the way to love mankind.

Christ and Belial have not become friends; they have never shaken hands; they never have agreed to be brothers and to be on good terms; no, never; and they never will, because they are diametrically opposed to each other. If one conquers, the other is destroyed. One or the other of them must triumph and utterly destroy and cast down his opponent. Light and darkness cannot dwell together, and so it is with the kingdom of God,

Now, brethren and sisters, will you live your religion? How many hundreds of times have I asked you that question? Will the Latter-day Saints live their religion? I am ashamed to say anything about a reformation among Saints, but I am happy to think that the people called Latter-day Saints are striving now to obtain the Spirit of their calling and religion. They are just coming into the path, just waking up out of their sleep. It seems as though they are nearly all like babies; we are but children in one sense. Now let us begin, like children, and walk in the straight and narrow path, live our religion, and honor our God.

With these remarks, I pray the God of Israel to bless you forever and ever, for you are the best people on earth. I can say that I am happy that you are doing so well as you are. Continue to increase in all the graces of God’s Spirit until the day of His coming, which I desire with all my heart, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, February 1, 1857.

Let the congregation be as still as possible.

I wish to occupy a short time in speaking to you, and I am not able to talk with the ease that I could wish, for my health has for some time obliged me to confine myself pretty closely to my rooms. This is the first time that I have walked so far as to come to this Tabernacle since the burial of Jedediah M. Grant. My bodily afflictions would not permit me to walk much, and they also still hinder my efforts in speaking or exercising. I have been troubled this winter as are many in this high altitude, with a rising of the blood to the head; that is what is troubling me this morning, insomuch that I hardly felt able to get here.

Aided by the faith and prayers of the Saints, I will endeavor to speak so that you can hear me, and to edify you according to the best of my ability.

I have a great desire to teach people the way of life and salvation; I have been occupied in that labor for many years. It has been my chief business to instruct the inhabitants of the earth how they can secure unto themselves eternal life. The more I become acquainted with the principles pertaining to salvation, and the more strictly I adhere to them, the more importance I attach to them.

If I do not always view people as they really are, yet I see them par– tially as they are, perhaps, as looking through a glass darkly, and in the vision of my mind, looking at this people called Latter-day Saints, and leaving out the residue of the inhabitants of the earth, to give vent to my understanding, I could cry aloud and weep before the Lord. It appears to me that very many, in their understandings, according to the past conduct of the people, leaving out the present, are too much like brute beasts, or like the door on its hinges, which opens and shuts as it is acted upon, and is insensible. This appears to be the situation of some of the people.

Sometimes this seems strange and inconsistent, knowing that mankind are organized to receive and continue to receive, and that receiving one fact in the understanding does not deprive them in the least of receiving another. There is no heathen nation but what expects their posterity to improve in all the knowledge they possess, and that is required by the parents. But the Christian nations with whom we have been associated, boast of their intelligence, suppose that they are exhibiting great knowledge, and that it towers to the heavens, and expect their children to improve in all the arts and sciences in their possession.

When people have the privilege of securing to themselves eternal exaltation, when the words of eternal life are given to them, what a pity it is that they do not understand, how liable they are to fall out by the way, and that this is necessary in this state of probation. Place before some persons that which their appetites crave and require, and they will forsake every other thing, even their best friends. They will contend against their best friends and benefactors, in order to glut their appetites. When I look at this people, to say nothing about any people but the Latter-day Saints, if I have a correct understanding, some few of them look to me to be much like what we call brute beasts. The people are instructed, from their youth, that there is no end to their learning. They are taught by their parents and by their teachers that they can continue to learn, that they can store up knowledge, treasure up the wisdom of the world, and never see the time, although they shall live to the age of Methuselah or older, but what they can add to their store of knowledge.

When I apply these principles to the Latter-day Saints, it would seem that when they are once filled, when they are once fed upon the words of eternal life until their souls are satisfied, they conclude that that meal will last forever. They think they will never require any more, and so they become empty, faint, wearied, dull, stupid, and before they are aware of it, they need a spirit of reformation; they need a fresh manifestation of the power of God to stir them up and waken them out of their sleep, to remove the scales from their eyes, to arouse them from their lethargy. And when again awakened, they begin to see that they have been without food; then they can realize that they have neglected the more weighty matters. I ask the Latter-day Saints, is such the case? Is it true that any of the Elders of Israel, with their wives and children, neglect the things of God, and turn to the paltry, corruptible things of earth, and let their affections and feelings be attracted from holy principles, and placed on objects of no moment? You can answer this question at your leisure.

You that see and understand things as they are, you who can obtain the visions of eternity, whose minds soar aloft to things beyond this veil of tears, how does it appear to you? Do you feel as though you can weep over the people? Whether you do or not, that is my feeling. To observe for what trifling things men and women will turn away from the spirit of the holy Gospel, after traveling a few hundred miles with, perhaps, a few little trials to pass through, such as being perplexed with wild cattle in their teams, with misfortunes and losses; and they thirst, thirst greedily for the vain and foolish things of the world, and neglect the Spirit and principles of the holy Gospel. It has killed them spiritually to pass through those sorrows, privations, and trials.

You may ponder these ideas in your hearts, at your leisure. Such conduct is one of the most astonishing things to me that ever I have experienced or beheld; yet I have reasons for thinking that I understand the natural causes why the people are as they are.

I flattered myself years ago, that whoever embraced the doctrine of salvation would so live as to enter in at the straight gate, in this, however, I have been mistaken. If we this day had congregated the vast multitudes that have taken upon them the name of Christ, that have entered into the new and everlasting covenant to serve the Lord our God, those who have embraced the Gospel of salvation that has been revealed through His Prophet and Seer in the last days, and then selected out those who still stand firm in the faith, you would find that but a small portion of the vast congregation had kept the faith; far the greatest number would be on the left hand. If you were to inquire of them individually, “after you heard the Gospel, believed and embraced it, did you think you would ever leave the faith?” every man and woman would reply, “No, no; I will believe and obey until death; no power on earth shall deprive me of the blessings of the Gospel that I have embraced; for it I have sacrificed my all.”

Again, would not thousands that have forsaken their fathers, mothers, children, or companions, for the sake of the Gospel, but are now enveloped in the spirit of the world, when asked whether they know this Gospel to be true, reply, “We believe it;” and when asked whether Joseph Smith was a Prophet, reply, “We believe it?” Ask such persons why they do not gather with the Saints, and the ten thousand obstacles that would be presented would tower up like mountains and keep them from gathering. Ask them why they do not pay their tithing, and they have ten thousand excuses and reasons to render. Inquire why they do not do something for the Gospel, and instruct them if they cannot pay their tithing, nor gather with the Saints, to go and preach to their neighbors, and they will say to you, “O, my neighbors are pretty well off, they are good people; here are the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, &c., and they are good people, and I really do not feel it my duty to preach to them.” Where are such persons? They are in darkness, they have apostatized. Another great class you will find have come out in open rebellion to the faith, to those principles they once testified they knew to be true, and that too by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Now leave that vast multitude, and come to this place. Here is the gathering of the people; here is the carcass, and the eagles gather to this place; here they are by thousands and scores of thousands. Look through this vast multitude before me, and through the inhabitants of this Territory, and then go to the United States and to Europe, and the Islands of the sea, and gather up all who profess to be Latter-day Saints, and how many of them are there in the way to enter into the straight gate? How many are going to be crowned with the Gods? You will all admit that this is a hard question to answer. Do you think one half of them will enter in at the straight gate, pass by the angels and the Gods, and receive a celestial exaltation? I pray they may, even if I do not believe so.

Is there any person deprived of this privilege? No, not one. Has the Lord cast an obstacle in the way of any individual, to deprive him of the privilege of being exalted? No, not one: but everything that could be done has been done, every provision that could be made has been made, every law that could be instituted to encourage and elevate the people, to increase their faith, their knowledge, their understanding, and to lead them to life and salvation, the Lord has brought to this people. Then the Lord is not to blame. Are angels to blame? Are they hindering the people? No. Are the spirits of the just casting stumbling blocks before the people, or tying their hands, or turning them away from the right path? No.

Do you think that one half of the people walk up to every known duty, are so doing and laboring that they are in the straight and narrow path that leads to the lives? Answer this question at your leisure. Yet every person will acknowledge that everything the Lord could do for our salvation has been done. All heaven is anxious that the people should be saved. The heavens weep over the people, because of their hard hearted– ness, unbelief, and slowness to believe and act.

You have been taught, all the day long, that you are in a world of sin; you have been taught, all your lives, that the seeds of sin are sown in your mortal bodies; you have been taught that the spirit warreth against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit; that the spirit of every man and woman that gets into the celestial kingdom must overcome the flesh, must war against the flesh until the seeds of sin that are sown in the flesh are brought into subjection to the law of Christ. This has been taught you, from your youth up. There is not a society in Christendom but what has taught these principles, and you have read them in your Bibles when you were children. Your mothers taught you that we were in a world of sin, and that the enemy of righteousness is all the time ready and watching to overcome every individual. You reply at once, “We believe this doctrine,” and yet, from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, we go on as we have. Some will say, “I did give way to my evil passion yesterday, and I will give way again today, and I will let the flesh overcome the spirit. I will bring my spirit into subjection to my evil passions and evil influences that the enemy of Christ has sown in the human system. I will let the tongue speak just what it pleases; I will rail out against my neighbor; when I get mad I will blaspheme; I will deceive my brother, or my neighbor,” and thus they bring the spirit into subjection to the flesh, until the Lord Almighty will withdraw the light of truth from those individuals, and they are left, if not to apostatize, to deny Joseph as a Prophet, Jesus Christ as the Savior, and to esteem Holy Writ and all the revelations from God as a burlesque. They are left in the dark, to welter in sorrow in the flesh, and in the spirit world they never can be exalted.

Is it, then, any marvel, that those who dwell in the heavens should weep over the people? Do you wonder, now, that the Prophets used to weep over the people in ancient times? That Joseph used to weep over the people in his day? If you do, I do not.

Here is a large number of the Latter-day Saints situated upon the mountain tops, and right before each individual is eternal day or eternal night; eternal light or eternal darkness; eternal love or eternal hatred; eternal glory or eternal misery. This would want a great deal of explaining, to bring it down to your capacities, so that you can understand; but I use one class of these expressions to convey an idea of the opposite of the glory prepared for the very people now before me. The Lord has done everything He can do in justice and in truth; in His mercy and in His long-suffering and kindness there is nothing He has neglected, in order to put into the possession of this people power to secure to themselves eternal day, eternal peace, instead of eternal misery. Eternal glory, happiness, beauty, power, exaltation, excellency, and every good thing are prepared for the Elders that now sit before me to enter into the presence of the Father and the Son, where they could be exalted, sit with the Gods, be crowned with immortality and eternal lives; become the fathers, not only of many nations, but of an endless posterity; be the framers, not only of a kingdom, but of an endless chain of kingdoms. Nothing more can be done, than what has been done.

How many of those now looking on me will order their lives so that they will secure to themselves eternal happiness and exaltation? Do you think that one half of this congregation will answer that question? I pray that they may, whether I believe it or not.

Do you see people neglect their eternal welfare? A feeling prevails with some that, “we do not know these things, we have not seen these things, we do not understand that there is a kingdom prepared for the faithful; we do not understand that there is a place prepared for those that are unruly, those that disbelieve, those that neglect the truth and the Gospel when put in their possession. We do not know anything about these things.” Is this so? What do you say, brethren and sisters? Have you seen the Father and the Son? Do you know where they live? “O, no.” Have you seen the courts of glory, have they been opened to your view? “O, no.” What next? The spirit of unbelief takes place in your hearts. The enemy, the evil that is in the world, that has caused the trouble, sorrow, and perplexity, is with you, is your constant companion, and is continually suggesting that you know nothing about these things, consequently, without the utmost care and exercise of faith, and close application in life of the requirements of heaven, you are left to drink into the spirit of infidelity.

In this manner people are left in darkness, do not understand the things of God, neglect their salvation, and go groveling and feeling their way through this world, without a ray of light to shine on their path; hoping that there is a God, and, if there is, that He will be merciful to them; thinking that, if there is a heaven, they want to go there; if there is such a character as a Savior, they hope his blood will atone for their sins; and if there are any such beings as angels, they hope they will pick them up, by and by. It resolves itself to this, “If there is a God, O, be merciful to me.” You do not know, do you? “O, no, we cannot realize it.”

Let me ask a question, before I proceed further. How did you feel when the Spirit of the Gospel first entered into your hearts, when the light of the Gospel first shone in your understanding? Had you any such feelings then within you? Had you any doubts? How did you talk, when you first rose to testify that the Book of Mormon was true, that Joseph was a true Prophet, that this work was of God, that the Lord Almighty has revealed Himself in these our days? Had you any doubts? “No, I could not help bearing testimony to those things, I was so full of light and peace.” Did you hate anybody, at that time? “No. I was filled with peace and union; I loved God and all the works of His hands. There was no anger, malice, or wrath in me.” Do you feel so now? Many of you would tell me, “no.” Have you abode in that Spirit and feeling? You will answer, “no.”

You say within yourselves, “I believe the Gospel, I believe the Lord has revealed the truth concerning Himself, concerning the Son, concerning angels, salvation, eternal exaltation, &c.; I admit all this to be true.” Then you have to admit that we are organized to inherit all glory, power, and excellency; to be filled with eternal salvation and exaltation, and to become the sons of God, as the Apostle says, to be “Gods, even the sons of God;” fathers who shall endure, and whose posterity shall never end; though the Apostle turned the point very quick, because the people were not prepared to receive it. You admit the fact that we are organized expressly for the purpose of being exalted with the Gods.

You have the words of eternal life in your possession. What next? Take your own philosophy; if I am organized and capacitated to receive this glory and this exaltation, I must be the friend of Him who has brought me forth and instituted this exaltation for me; I must not be His enemy at any time. Again, you say, “we are organized to become Gods, even sons of God; to act independently.” You expect to see the time when you will have at your control worlds on worlds, if your existence endures. Take Abraham, for instance, you can read the promise made to him, and again to Jesus. “Now,” say you, “we are to have kingdoms, thrones, principalities, powers, dominions, &c.” Can you read it in this book? This is the Old and New Testament, which you and I were taught, from our youth, to believe is the word of God. If I am to receive these blessings I will be an independent character, like those who dwell in eternity. If this is the case, let me pause for a moment and use my own natural philosophy. How can I prove myself the friend of God, who has placed all this glory within my reach, unless His influences are withdrawn from me, to see whether or not I will be His friend? At the time when you receive the greatest blessings by the manifestations of the power and Spirit of God, immediately the Lord may leave you to yourselves, that you may prove yourselves worthy of this exaltation. Multitudes, on the right hand and on the left, when this Spirit and power are withdrawn from them, sink into unbelief, and do not know whether there is a God, or not. Ask them, “What did you realize and experience yesterday?” The reply is, “I do not know anything about it. I can see this house, I can see the sun, I can see men and women, but I can say no more.” “Do you believe what you believed yesterday?” “I do not know.”

Can a man be exalted upon any other principle? When men are left to themselves, it is then they manifest their integrity, by saying and feeling, “I am the friend of God.” Do all people realize that? If they did, let me tell you, they would cling fast to their integrity. When the mind of a righteous man is beclouded by darkness, when he does not know the first thing about the religion he believes in, it is because the veil is dropped so that he may act on the organization of his own individual person, which is calculated to be as independent as the Gods, in the end. When you are fully aware of this, then you are ready to lay down your lives for the cause of God and for His people, if you act on your own integrity and philosophy.

One of the greatest trials that ever came on the Son of God when he was in the flesh, upon that man whom we hold as our Savior, was when the mob had him in their possession. They spit on him, scourged him, mocked him, and made a wreath of thorns and placed it upon his head (and I will insure that it was so placed on his head as to cause the blood to start), and said to him, “Here is your cross, you poor, worthless scamp, take and carry it on to that hill, for there we are going to nail you to it.” How would you feel in such a time, and at that very hour and moment when this tabernacle suffers, should the Father then withdraw Himself and say, “Now, my son, I will see whether you will prove yourself worthy or not?” Did he walk up the hill? He did, and carried the cross until he fainted under it; then they took it and went on, and he submitted patiently to the will of his Father.

Will you submit patiently to the will of your Father in the hour of darkness? Will you say that you are the friends of God? O shame! Many of you will not say so, in the hour of darkness. Take these Latter-day Saints, the Elders of Israel, and let many of them pass where they can hear the name of Jesus Christ and the name of their Father and God blasphemed, and they will pass along as unconcerned, and will never move a muscle nor a nerve of their systems. That is nothing to them compared to what it would be to have their own dear name spoken against in the least. Speak against William, John, or Thomas, and then you will see the fire of resentment roused in that individual; while, at the same time, they may be opposed to their Father and God, to their Savior, to the Prophet, and to their holy religion. People may scandalize these as much as the tongue of slander can, and not a word said, nor a look of disapprobation given. But, my dear brethren, those holy men and women (pardon me if I burlesque the idea a little), your names are so dear to you that, let anyone speak a word against them, you are at once for fight.

If you want to know what you should do, when you hear a man blaspheme the name of God, and you feel that there are ten thousand million devils around you to see whether you will be for your religion, knock down the man that blasphemes, and say, “If I cannot pray, I can fight for my religion and my God.” When you are in darkness is the time for you to exhibit your integrity, and to prove that you are the friends of Him who has called you to this glory and eternal life.

Do you want to know how to pray in your families? I have told you, a great many times, how to do when you feel as though you have not a particle of the Spirit of prayer with you. Get your wives and your children together, lock the door so that none of them will get out, and get down on your knees; and if you feel as though you want to swear and fight, keep on your knees until they are pretty well wearied, saying, “Here I am; I will not abuse my Creator nor my religion, though I feel like hell inside, but I will stay on my knees until I overcome these devils around me.” That will prove to me that you are the friend of God, that you are filled with integrity. This is good for every person to practice in the hour of trial and darkness. Say, “I am the friend of God, and if you abuse Him, I shall abuse you.” This is what Abraham used to do. He would take his servants and go out, once in a while, and chastise the poor, miserable characters that ridiculed the Priesthood that was on him.

Here are the people that say they are Latter-day Saints. Now, if you can understand your own position, you will know, perhaps, better how to deal with yourselves and control yourselves; how to bring into subjection your own dispositions, your passions, appetites, and wills, and let the Spirit of Truth the Lord has given you commence and conquer and overcome, little by little, until you gain the mastery in the spirit. This prepares the tabernacle for a resurrection and eternal life. You cannot inherit eternal life, unless your appetites are brought in subjection to the spirit that lives within you, that spirit which our Father in heaven gave. I mean the Father of your spirits, of those spirits which He has put into these tabernacles. The tabernacle must be brought in subjection to the spirit perfectly, or your bodies cannot be raised to inherit eternal life; if they do come forth, they must dwell in a lower kingdom. Seek diligently, until you bring all into subjection to the law of Christ.

As to the knowledge of the people, what do they know? They know many things. What do they not know? Ten thousands of millions of times more than they know, for, comparatively speaking, they know but little. What knowledge we have, we have obtained by an experience. No man could know that he could build a building, unless he was to go to work and try. Were he to go to work and erect a building, he would then know that he knew how to do it.

Some things you do know, and there are a great many things that you do not know. “Can you mention anything that we do not know?” Yes, we could enumerate a great many things, and then have mentioned only a small portion of what is unknown to man. I will take that class of this congregation that do not know anything about God, heaven, earth, or hell, nor about anything else only as they sense with their natural senses, and ask them, can you tell me your own origin? I would be glad to see such a person, but he is not to be found. Take a man who does not know anything about these things, and he cannot tell his origin.

Again, with all the wisdom there is in the world, I can refer you to another thing which you do not know; you do not know how to take the native elements and organize a body like the ones you possess. You may take the chemical apparatus of the most extensive laboratory, and go into these mountains, and see whether you can, with all your knowledge and appliances, make a human body that can breathe, to say nothing about the spirit: you cannot do that; then you do not know how.

If we were to ask the question how we came here, we cannot answer it. We know that we are here, and we know that we live. We know that we see, hear, smell, &c., through the organization of our senses. We know that when we have something good to eat, and plenty of it, that we can satisfy our appetite, and we also know that we get hungry again; we get sleepy, awake, and go about our business. The brute beasts know all this, although their sensitive powers are not so acute, nor possessed of so extensive a range as are those of the human family; their attention more particularly belongs to the things of this earth.

The Scriptures say that man is created but a little lower than the angels, still the great majority do not know whether there is a God; they do not even know whether it is of any use to pray to our Father in heaven, nor whether they have got a Father there. We do not know how to make a spear of grass grow on the earth, nor a tree, nor any other kind of vegetation; all this is beyond our knowledge. They grow, but we do not understand how. They are produced from the elements, but undertake to organize the elements and make a cucumber grow, and we fail; that is beyond our knowledge.

We do know, by observation, that this earth revolves on its axis, that it has its circuit and performs its annual times. We know, by observation, that the firmament is filled with small flickering lights. The astronomer says he knows that many of those lights are actually suns to solar systems, the same as our sun is to us. Does he know that? Has he been there to see? “No.” Then he may be deceived; men’s eyes are often deceived. They have had their eyes, ears, and all the other sensitive organs brought to bear upon a person, and have been positive that they were conversing with and looking upon him, when at the same time that person was a hundred miles from them; they were certain that they heard him speak with their natural ears, yet they were deceived. So the astronomer may be deceived by his powerful glasses. But all the argument in the world could not make you believe that those stars, or lights, were not there; you see them. Suppose that our optical powers have all been deceived, just as they are in some instances. There is plenty of proof that the optic nerve has been deceived, even through a glass, persons supposing that they saw things which they, in reality, never did see.

Upon natural principles, leaving out the light of the Spirit, the light of revelation, or saying that there is no God, and such being the case, on the natural philosophy of the natural world, and the natural belief, and ideas of those who imbibe deistical principles, they do not know whether it is the sun or not that shines upon us; they feel warm, they think they see the sun. But if your optic nerve may deceive you, so the astronomer may be deceived. “No,” says he, “I cannot be deceived,” and this congregation says, “We cannot be deceived; we know that we hear you preach today; we see you in the stand today, and all the earth cannot make us believe to the contrary.” Maybe you are deceived. “But we cannot be mistaken in this, we do know that it is certain.” Suppose that you go home and tonight sleep very soundly, and that perchance a stupor should come over you, causing you to forget what has transpired today; I have known such circumstances. Suppose you forget tomorrow what has transpired today in this Tabernacle, and somebody should come along and ask you whether you recollected what brother Brigham said yesterday, you would answer, “I did not hear him say anything.” It would be said, “You were at the meeting, and I saw you.” You would ask, “What meeting? I was not at any meeting.” “Don’t you recollect of going to meeting yesterday?” “No, I do not.” Did you ever know a person so forgetful as this? Well, it is not more strange than much other forgetfulness, not a particle more.

A child says, “Mother, where did you put those shears, or that knitting? Or, what did you do with your pipe?” The reply is, “I laid it up.” “But you must have had it since.” “Don’t dispute me, child,” while all the time she had the pipe in her mouth. I bring up these small things, to compare with greater things. Have you never laid things carefully away and entirely forgotten them, and, when you have accidentally found them, had all the circumstances opened to your mind, and said, “O, I know all about them now, but I have never before been able to bring them to mind, since the things were so carefully laid by?” That is no more strange than it is that you should forget what the Lord has done for you fifty years ago; that is no more strange, than it is for you to forget when your spirits came into your bodies, for you came here under a covenant to prove yourselves, in a day of darkness, to be friends of God, and under a covenant that you would forget everything that had past previous to your coming here.

What do you know? All that you know, aside from what God has taught you, is not worth much to you; that I will say on my own responsibility. You know that the sun shines; you can see the stars shine in a clear night. You know that when you embraced the Gospel of salvation in England, the State of New York, Vermont, &c., you felt happy; that your hearts were full of joy and peace; that you felt as though the heavens smiled upon you, and that all around was glory. There was no malice, wrath, or root of bitterness in you, but since then a cloud has come over you, the veil has been dropped over the vision of your minds, and you have been left to act for yourselves. You know all this.

What do you know on natural principles? I do not say natural philosophy, because my religion is natural philosophy. You never heard me preach a doctrine but what has a natural system to it, and, when understood, is as easy to comprehend as that two and two equal four. All the revelations of the Lord Almighty to the children of men, and all revealed doctrines of salvation are upon natural principles, upon natural philosophy. When I use this term, I use it as synonymous with the plan of salvation; natural philosophy is the plan of salvation, and the plan of salvation is natural philosophy. I need not say any more with regard to what you do not know.

I have shown you, by instancing small circumstances of common occurrence, that people are apt to deny today what they knew yesterday; and you know that you have disputed others with regard to these little things which have transpired, after the circumstances connected therewith had escaped your memory. It is just so with regard to your religion. And when you come to the almighty philosophers, those who think they know so much, they are in the same dilemma; their optic nerves and their glasses may all deceive them. Unless a person is taught by the principle of eternity, and is insured by those principles that dwell with the Gods, he may be in doubt, because it is a doubtful case. All is doubtful, except what comes from the Almighty in His revelations to His people.

I will now say something about our immigration this season. In the providences of God when understood, you will see that one thing has a bearing upon another. The providences of God are natural principles, when they are all understood, but you take a little here and a little there, and you leave the people in mystery and doubt, and they will say that wonderful things have taken place, when at the same time you will find that they have all transpired upon natural principles.

Previous to the death of Joseph, he said that the time would come when the Saints would be glad to take a bundle, if they could get one, under their arms and start to the mountains, and that they would flee there, and that if they could pick up a change of linen they would be glad to start with that, and to go into the wilderness with anything, in order to escape from the destruction that is coming on the inhabitants of the earth. This we believed, or at least I did; though it seemed to be pretty hard that people should be obliged to leave their houses, farms, friends, and comforts that they had gathered around them, and run from them all. I am going to take that as a leading item for this season.

We have been experimenting. Five companies, I think, have come across the Plains with handcarts, and they have come a great deal cheaper and better than other companies. I believe that if a company was to try it once with ox-teams and once with handcarts, every one of them would decide in favor of the handcarts, unless they could ride more and be more comfortable than people generally are with ox-teams.

I count the handcart operation a successful one, and there is a lesson in it which the people have overlooked. What is it? Let me ask the sisters and brethren here, what better off are you today, than as though you had started with a bundle under your arm? You started with an abundance, but have you any oxen, or wagons, or trunks of valuable clothing, or money? “No.” What have you got? A sister says, “I have the underclothes I wore on the Plains, and a dress, and a handkerchief which I pinned over my head in the absence of my sunbonnets which were worn out, and I am here.” Are you here? “Yes.” Did you come across the Plains? “Yes.” Do you feel bad? “O, no; I feel pretty well.” Now reflect, what else do we want of you, and what else do you want of yourselves? “Why,” says one, “I want a dress and a pair of shoes.” Well, go to work, and earn them, and put them on and wear them. “I want a bonnet.” Go to work and earn it, and then wear it as you used to do.

What do you want here but yourselves? Nothing, but yourselves and your religion; that is all you want to bring here. If you come naked and barefooted (I would not care if you had naught but a deerskin around you when you arrive here), and bring your God and your religion, you are a thousand times better than if you come with wagonloads of silver and gold and left your God behind. If I want to take a wife from among the sisters who came in with the handcart trains, I would rather take one that had nothing, and say to her, I will throw a buckskin around you for the present, come into my house, I have plenty, or, if I have not, I can get plenty.

Some want to marry a woman because she has got property; some want a rich wife; but I never saw the day when I would not rather have a poor woman. I never saw the day that I wanted to be henpecked to death, for I should have been, if I had married a rich wife. I asked one of my family, when in conversation upon this very point, what did you bring, when you came to me? “I brought a shirt, and a dress, and a pair of slippers, and a sunbonnet,” and she is as high a prize as ever I got in my life, and a great deal higher than many would have been with cartloads of silver and gold.

The people are what we want. Reflect about this; and let the Elders when they go upon Missions, sound this in the ears of the Saints; and, if you please, philosophize upon it, weigh the matter well, and see what else there is that is in reality good for anything, but just the Saint at the gathering place; let the Saint come, and we have all we can get.

I want you to keep in mind what Joseph said, that the day would come when the Saints would be glad to take a bundle under their arms and run to the mountains. What else have they done this season? Men and women started with their fine things, they had their gold and their silver, their flocks and their herds, and their abundance, but they have nearly all come here naked and barefooted, comparatively speaking; thank God for that. What do I care, if not the first particle of the property that is left behind is ever gathered up again? You are situated precisely as we were when we left Nauvoo, Kirtland, Missouri, &c. We started naked and bare. If I can only take myself and my God, and my religion, it is all I want. The heavens are full, the earth is the Lord’s, and we have nothing to do but go to work and organize the elements and get what we want.

This is the day in which we are to learn and to increase in our knowledge. Have we got a good lesson this time? I think we have. What is it? That the Saints, when they start from England, may stop buying their silks and satins, their ribbons and finery. You cannot bring them here, unless Providence provides different for you, than it did for the immigration last season. If you have a fine silk mantilla, a fine satin dress, fine kid shoes, a fine lace bonnet, and you say that you want to carry them to Zion, do as they did last season. Here are the poor we had to bring over. Now let me tell you that if you had taken the money you paid to William Walker to bring out the baggage, and used it for the gathering of the honest poor, it would have done some good; but that property is spoiled, I understand, and I am glad of it. Much of it was spoiled before it was taken from Iowa City, or, if it was not then, it probably is now. And I expect that the goods are all spoiled at the Devil’s Gate. You will pardon me for my abruptness, but I will tell you what that operation made me think of, that what you did not leave in hell’s kitchen, you had to leave at the Devil’s Gate. If you only honor your God and your religion, the silks and the satins, and the money you paid out for them, may all go to hell with the balance. Live your religion, and the promise I make you is that you shall have what you want in righteousness. “Then,” someone may say, “I will have a new dress tomorrow, if that is it.” But will you not wait, until your patience is well tried? If you will not, I will make you, if I can. At the proper time, you will have all the riches you need. If you had riches now, they would do you no good.

Recollect the text, which is that the time will come when the Saints will be glad to catch a bundle under their arms and run to the mountains. The time has been when they undertook to come with an abundance, but they got here with nothing. Take the money that was laid out for those articles which you expected to put on when you came into this Tabernacle, and it would have more than made a comfortable fit-out for the companies from the States. If those articles had been left in the stores, and you had taken your sovereigns and half-sovereigns, and shillings, and pence, you would have had enough to have brought all the companies over those Plains. This is something that I want you Elders to think of; and I want you to thunder it among the people, long and loud, like the thunders of Mount Sinai.

Take the money heretofore spent for useless articles, and pick up your poor neighbors who have not the first shilling; make your way to Liverpool, pay your passage across the ocean to the United States, and then take a handcart, or a good hickory stick between two, and put your luggage on it, and let the handcart go, and walk to Zion.

When you get here, we want nothing but yourselves, if you have your God and your religion with you; but if you have not them, stay back. We have already got enough half-hearted Christians here; we have enough poor devils here now, and half-hearted hypocrites, and we do not want anymore of them to come here. All hell is boiling over to fill this place with such poor, miserable characters.

If you bring yourselves, it is all we want. Take the money that bought the goods which have been left on the way, and it would have brought every soul that came in last season, without the assistance of the P. E. Fund Company; and, instead of our paying out fifty or sixty thousand dollars, that sum would have been saved. That money would have made your fit-out across the Plains, to say nothing about what has been done for you at this end of the route.

Again, we could have taken every soul that has come in this season with the wagon trains, by the P. E. Fund, &c., and brought them from Liverpool cheaper than we brought them out of the snow at this end of the journey, to say nothing of the hardship and suffering. Do you not see that there has been a great outlay that we must save hereafter?

I will say to the Saints abroad, if you can get some good hickory cloth, or some buckskins, and let the sisters make dresses and garments that cannot be easily torn, and that will last till you get here, and come and bring yourselves, that is all we want. And for the time to come, let the P. E. Fund money alone, and let your silks and satins alone, and take the means you have, and bring yourselves to this place.

The Lord, in His providence, has shown you and me, and the community in this Territory, and will show to the people in the old countries, if the Elders are faithful, that they may bid farewell to bringing their millions’ worth of goods here. If they bring anything, let them bring their sovereigns here; the gold will do them more good here than anything else. Do not peddle it out in the world. Get the Lord to send an angel with you; get His Holy Spirit to travel with you to this place, and leave all trash behind.

If the companies are composed solely of young females, they may come by tens of thousands, if they like, for I have never yet seen anything in this market that can equal the handcart girls.

I want to see men and women come as I have suggested; and I think just as much of them, if they come and bring their religion with them, as though they came with cartloads of gold, silver and merchandise.

I wish you to contemplate upon these things! And I want you to listen to my exhortation in spiritual things. Here is a people before me that say they are in a reformation; I believe it. There is a good spirit they have now in their possession, which some have not had for some time.

I believe that the brethren and sisters are trying to do right, to make satisfaction, and to order their lives better before God and each other. And let me tell you that, when you have lived a whole lifetime, you will find that you have never righteously had a single hour to spend for anything except reformation, for an increase of faith, for a growth in the knowledge of the truth. You have no time to backslide, nor to spare for the world. It is God and His kingdom; all things else will be secondary considerations.

I am happy for the privilege of speaking to you today, and I trust that I shall see you here many times. I pray for you continually, and I know that you pray for me. I do not ask this people to pray for me, for I have the witness that there is not an honest heart in this kingdom but what is praying for me continually. You are before me always, and my whole desire is for your welfare, and the welfare of the kingdom of God on the earth. May God bless you. Amen.

A Funeral Sermon by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, December 4, 1856.

We expected that this congregation would have been assembled and seated by ten o’clock, or by a quarter past ten at the latest; it is now twelve, lacking five minutes, and near the time when we should be moving to the place of burial.

The time is so far advanced that I shall not presume to answer my feelings, in my remarks on this occasion. I expected to have had time enough for offering some of my feelings and views, with regard to the living and the dead. True, it would take me a long time to reveal to you what is in my heart, but I expected to have had time to bestow a portion thereof on this congregation.

I will say to those here assembled, and especially to those more immediately connected with brother Grant in the capacity of a family, you have no cause for mourning, neither have we. True, we were very fond of the company and society of brother Grant; brother Jedediah was a man we all loved, and we would have liked to have had him stayed with us; we would have been pleased in longer enjoying his society here.

But this our place of abode is only temporary; we are on a journey; we have only to winter and summer, as it were. Brother Grant has got through here, and has gone to his spiritual place of abode for a season. Not that he has reached his journey’s end, nor will he, until he has again received this body that now lies before me. Every material part and portion pertaining to his body, to the temporal organization that constitutes the man, will clothe his spirit again, before he is prepared to receive the place and habitation that is prepared for him, yet he has gone to his spiritual home for a season.

I am aware of the feelings of families and friends on such occasions. Many times I can govern and control my feelings, at other times I cannot. When I can control my own feelings, I can collect my thoughts and express my ideas as clearly as my language will permit.

In the few remarks that I will make today, I will not go to the Bible, to the Book of Mormon, nor to the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, for my text, for I will give you a text which comprehends the sermon also, so that if I do not dwell directly upon it, I trust that what I say will be true, for it will be incorporated in my text, and the text alone will be a sermon.

On this occasion I will say, as on other occasions, blessed are they that hear the Gospel of salvation, believe it, embrace it, and live to all its pre– cepts. That is the text, and a whole sermon in and of itself.

Time will not permit me to tell, only in part, wherein they are blessed, how and with what they will be blessed, for it takes a lifetime to prepare for this blessing.

Some people would have to live to be a hundred years of age, in order to be as ripe in the things of God as was brother Grant, whose body now lies lifeless before us; to be as ripe as was the spirit which lately inhabited this deserted earthly tabernacle.

There are but few that can ripen for the glory, the immortality that is prepared for the faithful; for receiving all that was purchased for them by the Son of God; but very few can receive what brother Grant has received in his lifetime. He has been in the Church upwards of twenty-four years, and was a man that would live, comparatively speaking, a hundred years in that time. The storehouse that was prepared in him to receive the truth, was capable of receiving as much in twenty-five years as most of men can in one hundred.

Though we might say that the time has been short which he has had to prepare himself in the flesh for receiving all that is treasured up for the faithful, yet there are but few men in this Church that ever will be prepared to receive what he will receive, though they live thirty, fifty, seventy-five, or a hundred years or to the coming of the Son of Man; there are but few men that will be prepared to receive the same degree of glory and exaltation that brother Jedediah will receive. This may be attributed to the peculiar organization of man.

It is not every man that is capable of filling every station, though there is no man but what is capable of filling his proper station, and that, too, with dignity and honor to himself. When you find a person that is capable of receiving light and wisdom, one that can descend to the capacity of the weakest of the weak, and can comprehend the highest and most noble intelligence that can be obtained by man, can receive it with all ease, and comprehend it, circumscribe it, understand it from first to last, that is the man that can ripen for eternity in a few years; that is the individual who is capable of occupying stations that many cannot occupy.

Brother Grant we were well acquainted with, and there is no person but what laments his departure from this world. But what will we mourn for? I want to ask myself that question, as I have a great many times. What will you mourn for, because brother Grant has gone where he can do more good? No, we will not mourn for that. Will we mourn because he has overcome all his enemies here, all that are opposed to Jesus Christ and to his Gospel, because he has won the prize? Will we mourn for that?

He is prepared to dwell with Prophets, with brother Joseph, with the ancient Apostles, with Moses, with Abraham, and to dwell in the presence of Jesus Christ. We will not mourn for that. What will we mourn for? He has lost nothing, but has gained all.

Why do we mourn? Perhaps it will be difficult for me to tell you, yet I know. It is not the knowledge that God has given you or me, that causes us to mourn; it is not the Spirit of the Gospel that produces within us a mournful feeling; it is not the Spirit of Christ, the knowledge of eternity, of God, or of the way of life and salvation. Our mourning proceeds from none of those causes. What causes us to mourn? Neither more nor less, to me and so far as I can convey my idea by language, than the earthly weakness that is in us. It is not the knowledge of the Almighty, the power of God, the light of eternity, but it is the darkness, the weakness, the ignorance, the want of that eternal knowledge, so far as I can conceive, that makes any person mourn here on the earth. If this conveys the idea to you, as it does to me, it will satisfy me.

Mourning for the righteous dead springs from the ignorance and weakness that are planted within the mortal tabernacle, the organization of this house for the spirit to dwell in. No matter what pain we suffer, no matter what we pass through, we cling to our mother earth, and dislike to have any of her children leave us. We love to keep together the social family relation that we bear one to another, and do not like to part with each other; but could we have knowledge and see into eternity, if we were perfectly free from the weakness, blindness, and lethargy with which we are clothed in the flesh, we should have no disposition to weep or mourn.

Perhaps it is not proper for me to make a few remarks with regard to this day’s operations. Funeral ceremonies have often borne upon my mind with considerable, I will say, weight, and especially since I came into the vestry at the time appointed for the services to commence. I have often reflected with regard to paying particular respect to that which is useless, to that which is nothing at all to us. And while waiting in the vestry, I was pondering upon how many bands of music attended Jesus to the tomb, upon what the procession was, how many were crape, who mourned, and the situation of the mourners.

There are but few of us but what have been honored with as convenient a place for a birth as was Jesus, though I presume that his mother was comparatively comfortable while lying on the hay in the manger; there are but few of us but what have had the privilege of a house to be born in.

I was reflecting upon how many here were to lament and mourn for Him when he went out of the world; and the few that did mourn had to make their escape, like going on to Ensign Peak; they had to stand afar off to mourn, and durst not be seen near the place of the crucifixion. When the body had hung on the cross until eight, Joseph begged the privilege of taking it down and carrying it to the tomb.

I was reflecting further. Suppose brother Grant could speak to us this day, he would deprecate to the lowest degree the fuss and parade we are making. He would say, “Away with you; stop your blowing of horns, beating of drums, and hoisting of colors. Give my body a place to lay and rest, and do not consider me better than other men. Take my body and bury it deep enough, so that it can rest where the floods cannot wash it out, where it can remain until the trumpet sounds, when I may awake up and help you again.”

Perhaps it is not proper for me to make these remarks, yet I hope they will not injure the feelings of anyone. But I say to each and every one of you, whether I die in this city, or wherever I die, when my spirit leaves my body, know ye that that tabernacle is of no use, until the command comes for it to be resurrected; and I do not want you to cry over it, nor make any parade, but give me a good place where my bones can rest, that have been weary for many years, and have delighted to labor until nearly worn out; and then go home about your business, and think no more about me, except you think of me in the spirit world, as I do about Jedediah.

I have not felt, for one minute, that Jedediah is dead; I feel he is with us just as much as he was a week or a month ago.

The few words I say will perhaps be a consolation to you, and perhaps not, but I tell you some of my feelings and views.

I want you all to remember this; when I die, let your flags remain in their proper places, omit your parade, and lay me away where I can rest. And I do not wish any of you to cry and feel badly, but prepare yourselves to fight the devils while you live, and after you pass through the veil; and let me tell you, that there we will do a great deal more than we can here.

Another thing I want to promise you, every one of you, if you will be faithful; I promise it to myself. True, brother Grant was a great help to me; he stood by me, and was willing to come and go, and to do whatever was requested of him, in order to take the burden from me; but I tell you that we will have not only four, but an hundredfold for him, just as good, and so we will for every good man that lies down; I promise you that. Brother Grant we call a great man, a giant, a lion; but let me tell you that the young whelps are growing up here who will roar louder than ever he dare, and instead of there being two, or three, or four, there are hundreds of them.

Perhaps many of you will think I am not correct in my views, that I am enthusiastic, that I am mistaken; but let me tell you that the very sons of these women that sit here will rise up and be as great as any man that ever lived, and as far beyond Jedediah, or myself, and brother Heber, as we are in the Gospel beyond our little children. I am not going to gather the lions of the forest from the sectarian world, that is not where I am going to get them, but the mothers in Israel are going to rear them. They will raise hundreds and thousands that will know more about the things of God in twenty years than Jedediah did in his life– time, which was forty years. Will they know more than I do? Yes.

I do not make any calculation, and never did, but that my boys who are now growing up will be as far beyond me, at my age, as I am beyond the knowledge I had in my infancy. We will not mourn for that, will we? No. For one I am comforted, if I can overcome the weakness that is upon me, which is the result of ignorance; that pertains to the flesh—to fallen nature. The cause of mourning does not pertain to God, nor to the things of God, but arises from the weakness of human nature.

When we lose such men as we have since we came into the valleys of the mountains, such men as brother Whitney, brother Willard, brother Jedediah, brother Orson Spencer, and many others, it is a matter of regret.

Brother Grant can now do ten times more than if he was in the flesh; do you want to know how? He is in the spirit world, he has conquered death and hell, and will the grave, when he again assumes his body. He is no more subject to the devils that dwell in the infernal regions; he commands them, and they must go at his bidding; he can move them just as I can move my hand. Do you know how that is done? It is done by the principle in me that is called will, which principle God has planted in all intelligences according to the capacity bestowed upon them. That intelligence is in us; we may call it will; it is the power of life in every creature and in all intelligences, and by that power I stretch out my arm and bring it to me again at my pleasure, I look to the right or to the left, and I speak according to the dictates of my will. When I govern myself, I do this or that, I rise up to go to that city and return again, I sit down and rise up, and do what I please.

When men overcome as our faithful brethren have, and go where they see Joseph, who will dictate them and be their head and Prophet all the time, they have power over all disembodied evil spirits, for they have overcome them. Those evil spirits are under the command and control of every man that has had the Priesthood on him, and has honored it in the flesh, just as much as my hand is under my control.

Do you not think that brother Jedediah can do more good than he could here? When he was here the devils had power over his flesh, he warred with them and fought them, and said that they were around him by millions, and he fought them until he overcame them. So it is with you and I. You never felt a pain and ache, or felt disagreeable, or uncomfortable in your bodies and minds, but what an evil spirit was present causing it. Do you realize that the ague, the fever, the chills, the severe pain in the head, the pleurisy, or any pain in the system, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, is put there by the devil? You do not realize this, do you?

I say but little about this matter, because I do not want you to realize it. When you have the rheumatism, do you realize that the devil put that upon you? No, but you say, “I got wet, caught cold, and thereby got the rheumatism.” The spirits that afflict us and plant disease in our bodies, pain in the system, and finally death, have control over us so far as the flesh is concerned. But when the spirit is unlocked from the body it is free from the power of death and Satan; and when that body comes up again, it also, with the spirit, will gain the victory over death, hell, and the grave.

When the spirit leaves the tabernacle of flesh and goes into the spirit world, it has control over every evil influence with which it comes in contact, and when it takes up the body again, then the body also, with the spirit, will have control over every evil spirit that is in a tabernacle, if there is any such being, just as far as the spirit that has the Priesthood had control over evil spirits.

Perhaps you do not understand me. Take a spirit that has gone into the spirit world, does it have control over corruptible bodies? No. It can only act in the capacity of a spirit. As to the devils inhabiting these earthly bodies, it cannot control them, it only controls spirits. But when the spirit is again united to the body, that spirit and body unitedly have control over the evil bodies, those controlled by the devil and given over to the devils, if there is any such thing. Resurrected beings have control over matter as well as spirit.

Brother Grant’s body which lies here is useless, is good for nothing until it is resurrected, and merely needs a place in which to rest; his spirit has not fled beyond the sun. There are millions and millions of spirits in these valleys, both good and evil. We are surrounded with more evil spirits than good ones, because more wicked than good men have died here; for instance, thousands and thousands of wicked Lamanites have laid their bodies in these valleys. The spirits of the just and unjust are here. The spirits that were cast out of heaven, which you know are recorded to have been one-third part, were thrust down to this earth, and have been here all the time, with Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, at their head.

When a good man or woman dies, the spirit does not go to the sun or the moon. I have often told you that the spirits go to God who gave them, and that He is everywhere; if God is not everywhere, will you please tell me where He is not? The moment your eyes are opened upon the spirit land, you will find yourselves in the presence of God, for as David says, “If you take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, He is there; and if you make your bed in hell, behold He is there.”

You are in the presence of God, and when your eyes are opened you will understand it. Brother Grant’s spirit is in the presence of God; and he is with Joseph, when he is not required to be somewhere else. He is at work for the benefit of Zion, for that is all the business that Joseph and the Elders of this Church have on hand.

You and I have yet to deal with evil spirits, but Jedediah has control over them. When we have done with the flesh, and have departed to the spirit world, you will find that we are independent of those evil spirits. But while you are in the flesh you will suffer by them, and cannot control them, only by your faith in the name of Jesus Christ and by the keys of the eternal Priesthood. When the spirit is unlocked from the tabernacle it is as free, pure, holy, and independent of them as the sun is of this earth. Jedediah can now do more for us than he could by longer staying here.

Where do you suppose the spirits of our departed friends are? Where they ought to be; they are here, on the other side of the earth, in the East Indies, in Washington, &c.; they are controlling the fallen spirits here, or somewhere else. They could not control the spirits of evil men while here, only by faith, but now one of our departed brethren can control millions of disembodied evil spirits; while they were in the flesh they were afflicted by them. Is this not a great consolation to us? Someone may ask me for the proof for my statements, and may enquire whether it is in the Bible; yes, every word of it. I could prove it every word from that book, but I do not need to go to the Bible, my scripture is within me.

Brother Kimball could tell what I will now just touch upon better than I can, for he heard it; I will, however, say a few words about it. A short time before his death, brother Jedediah went to the world of spirits two nights in succession, and saw perfect order amongst them. He saw many of the Saints whom he was acquainted with, and saw his wife Caroline and his child that was buried on the route across the Plains, and dug up and eaten by the wolves. She said to him, “Here is my child; you know it was eaten up by the wolves, but it is here, and has taken no harm.” It was the spirit of the child he saw. He came back to his body, but did not like to enter it again, for he saw that it was filthy and corrupt. He also told how his brethren and family felt, when he told them what he saw in the spirit world. He said that his friends felt like saying, “Well brother Grant, maybe it is so, and maybe it is not so; we do not know anything about it.”

You know nothing about what I am telling you concerning the spirit world any more than brother Grant’s friends knew about what he told them. Why? Because we are encumbered with this flesh, we are in darkness; the flesh is the veil that is over the nations. When we go from the body, we have eyes to see spiritual things and understand them.

I have not answered my feelings, and cannot, owing to the lateness of the hour. It wanted but five minutes to twelve when I began to speak, and it is now time to bring the services to a close.

I hope you will remember what I have said, for it is true; and if you do not, I hope it will be told to you until you do. May God bless you. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 16, 1856.

I rise to make a few remarks, to satisfy the feelings of the people and correct their minds and judgment.

You have heard concerning the sufferings of the people in the handcart trains; and, probably you will hear the Elders, for some time to come, those who have lately returned from their missions and those now on the Plains, speak about the scenes they have witnessed, and I would like to forestall the erroneous impressions that many may otherwise imbibe on this subject.

Count the living and the dead, and you will find that not half the number died in brother Willie’s handcart company, in proportion to the number in that company, as have died in past seasons by the cholera in single companies traveling with wagons and oxen, with carriages and horses, and that too in the forepart of the season. When you call to mind this fact, the relations of the sufferings of our companies this season will not be so harrowing to your feelings. With regard to those who have died and been laid away by the roadside on the Plains, since the cold weather commenced, let me tell you they have not suffered one hundreth part so much as did our brethren and sisters who have died with the cholera.

Some of those who have died in the handcart companies this season, I am told, would be singing, and, before the tune was done, would drop over and breathe their last; and others would die while eating, and with a piece of bread in their hands. I should be pleased when the time comes, if we could all depart from this life as easily as did those our brethren and sisters. I repeat, it will be a happy circumstance, when death overtakes me, if I am privileged to die without a groan or struggle, while yet retaining a good appetite for food. I speak of these things, to forestall indulgence in a misplaced sympathy.

You have heard the brethren relate their trials through Iowa; it is a wicked place. Those regions of the country are the locality of the afflictions that have come upon this people. Take Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa, and they are the places where we have been afflicted and driven. What can we expect from those people? Anything but hell out of doors?

Not long since I was talking with one of the brethren, who has crossed the Plains this season, in regard to the propriety of companies starting so late. He argued that it was far better for the Saints to be striving with all their might, doing all they could to serve the Lord and keep His commandments, and traveling the road to Zion with intent to build it up and establish the kingdom of God on earth, even though they should lay down their lives by the way, than to stop among the Gentiles and apostates. I told him it was a good argument, though it was not exactly according to the will of the people and the will of the Lord, for He wishes to throw temptation and trial before His people, to prove them preparatory to their eternal exaltation; consequently, if the people have not an opportunity of proving themselves before they die, by the ruler of their faith and religion, they cannot expect to attain to so high a glory and exaltation as they could if they had been tried in all things. Yet I believe it is better for the people to lay down their bones by the wayside, than it is for them to stay in the States and apostatize.

I told the Elder that his argument seemed reasonable, but it made me think of the story about a Roman Catholic priest and a Jew. The priest was crossing on the ice, and on his way found a Jew, who had fallen through an air hole, clinging to the edge of the ice, and unable to get out. He begged of the priest to help him out, but he would not, unless he first professed a belief in Jesus Christ. “I cannot,” said the Jew. “Then I will let you down,” replied the priest, and let go of him. Still clinging to the ice, as the priest was about to leave, he again begged him to pull him out. “I cannot, unless you believe in Christ.” “I cannot believe,” said the Jew, and the priest let him go again. At length the Jew said, “Take me out, I do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all my might.” “Do you?” said the priest, “then I think it is best to save you, while you are a Christian and strong in the faith,” and he shoved him under the ice.

If we could have it so, I would a little rather the Saints could be privileged to come here and serve the Lord, or apostatize, as they might choose, for we surely expect to gather both the good and the bad. You recollect what I told you, last Sabbath, that we can beat the world at anything. If brother Willie has brought in some of the sharks, the garfish, the sheepheads, and so on and so forth, it is all right, for we need them to make up the assortment; as yet, I do not know how we could get along without them; all these kinds seem to be necessary.

I have seriously reflected upon the gathering of the people. They have all the time urgently pled and importuned to be gathered, especially from the old countries where they are so severely oppressed; and they are willing to come on foot and pull handcarts, or to do anything, so they can be gathered with the Saints. Well, we do gather them, and where do many of them go? To the devil.

In Nauvoo we had obligations, to an amount exceeding $30,000, against Saints that we had brought from England with our private means; and there is not to exceed two, of all the persons thus brought out, who have honorably come forward to pay one cent of that outlay in their behalf; and some of them were in the mob when it killed Joseph.

I knew all the time that it was better for many of these persons to stop in England and starve to death, for then they might have received a salvation; but they pled with the Lord and with His servants for an opportunity to prove themselves, and made use of it to seal their damnation and become angels to the devil. They had the opportunity, do you not see that they had?

If Saints do right and have performed all required of them in this probation, they are under no more obligation, and then it is no matter whether they live or die, for their work here is finished. This is a doctrine I believe.

If brother Willie’s company had not been assisted by the people in these valleys, and he and his company had lived to the best light they had in their possession, had done everything they could have done to cross the Plains, and done justice as they did, asking no questions and having no doubting; or in other words, if, after their President or Presidents told them to go on the Plains, they had gone in full faith, had pursued their journey according to their ability, and done all they could, and we could not have rendered them any assistance, it would have been just as easy for the Lord to send herds of fat buffaloes to lay down within twenty yards of their camp, as it was to send flocks of quails or to rain down manna from heaven to Israel of old.

My faith is, when we have done all we can, then the Lord is under obligation, and will not disappoint the faithful; He will perform the rest. If no other assistance could have been had by the companies this season, I think they would have had hundreds and hundreds of fat buffaloes crowding around their camp, so that they could not help but kill them. But, under the circumstances, it was our duty to assist them, and we were none too early in the operation.

It was not a rash statement for me to make at our last Conference, when I told you that I would dismiss the Conference, if the people would not turn out, and that I, with my brethren, would go to the assistance of the companies. We knew that our brethren and sisters were on the Plains and in need of assistance, and we had the power and ability to help them, therefore it became our duty to do so.

The Lord was not brought under obligation in the matter, so He had put the means in our possession to render them the assistance they needed. But if there had been no other way, the Lord would have helped them, if He had had to send His angels to drive up buffaloes day after day, and week after week. I have full confidence that the Lord would have done His part; my only lack of confidence is, that those who profess to be Saints will not do right and perform their duty.

You hear the testimony of the brethren with regard to the feasibility of the handcart mode of traveling; that testimony and their experience have fully sustained the correctness of the views and feelings of myself and others upon that subject from the beginning. It is the very essence of my feelings that the people in this house, if we wanted to cross the Plains next season to the States, could start from here with handcarts, and beat any company in traveling that would cross the Plains with teams, and be better of and healthier. These are my feelings, and they have been all the time.

I have argued the point before the people that they are not aware of their ability, that they do not know what they can do; that they are healthier when they live in the open air. What gives the people colds and makes them sick? You hear many say, “I had not had a cold this fall, until I came into our new house.” Brethren and sisters that have come into the city from living in the canyons, and those who have arrived from the States this season, have not been troubled with colds until they came into warm houses; that gives them colds, by depriving their lungs of the benefit they are organized to receive from the atmosphere.

It is a strange thought, but could you weigh the particles of life that you constantly receive from the water you drink and from the air you breathe, you would learn that you receive a greater proportion of nourishment from those sources than from the food you consume. Many are not aware of this, for they are not apt to reflect how much longer they can live when deprived of food than they can when deprived of air. When people are obliged to breathe confined air, they do not have that free, full flow of the purification and nourishment that is in the fresh air, and they begin to decay, and go into what we call consumption.

People need not be afraid of living out of doors, nor of sleeping out of doors; this country is much healthier than the lowlands in the States, or than many places in the old world. I recollect that in 1834, myself, brother Kimball, and others, traveled two thousand miles inside of three months, and that too in the heat of summer. We cooked our own food, carried our guns, got our provisions by the way, and performed the journey within ninety days. We laid on the ground every night, and there was scarcely a night that we could sleep, for the air rose from the ground hot enough to suffocate us, and they supplied musketos in that country, as they did eggs, by the bushel; they never thought of supplying less than a bushel or so at once to an individual. That journey was many times more taxing upon the health and life of a person, than this season’s handcart journey over the Plains.

You may take the rich and the poor, every person, and they can gather from the Missouri River, or from parts of the States where there are no railroads or steamboats, easier than they can with teams. And I am ashamed of our Elders that go out on missions, it is a disgrace to the Elders of Israel, that they do not start from here with handcarts, or with knapsacks on their backs, and go to the States, and from thence preach their way to their respective fields of labor. Brother Kimball moves that we do not send any Elders from this place again, unless they take handcarts and cross the Plains on foot. When the time comes, I expect that this motion will be put to vote.

It is a shame for the Elders to take with them from this place everything they can rake and scrape. I can go on foot across the Plains. As old as I am, I can take a handcart and draw it across those Plains quicker than you can go with animals and loaded wagons, and be healthier when I get to the Missouri River. Our Elders must have a good span of horses, or mules, and must ride, ride, ride; kill many of their animals, and get little or nothing for those left when they arrive at the Missouri River, besides taking four or five hundred dollars worth of property from their families. And some ride so much that they do not know how to preach, whereas, if they would walk, they would be in far better condition to labor in the Gospel.

As to the expediency of the handcart mode of traveling, brothers Ellsworth, McArthur, and Bunker, who piloted the three first handcart companies over the Plains, can testify that they easily beat the wagon companies. Brother Ellsworth performed the journey in sixty-three days, and brother McArthur in sixty-one and a half, notwithstanding the hindrance by the baggage wagons. If brother Willie’s company could have had their provisions deposited at Laramie and at Green River, and had been free from wagons, they would have been in this valley by the time they were in the storms.

We are not in the least discouraged about the handcart method of traveling. As to its preaching a sermon to the nations, as has been remarked, they are preached pretty nigh to destruction already. We do not care whether the handcart scheme preaches to them, or whether it be by the teachings of the Elders of Israel. They are so bound up with their friends and so priest-ridden, that they cannot burst through those chains; and they will have to remain so until Jesus devises some other means to save them, for the great majority will not hear and obey.

There are a few who are sufficiently independent to obey the truth when they hear it. We will gather them up, and let the devils howl and let all hell be moved in striving to overthrow this people. We will gather the faithful, God being our helper, and we do not care whether the rest hear and believe or not. The sound of the Gospel has gone to the uttermost parts of the earth, as I have told you already; and I know not a people, and hardly a nation, but what it makes them quake from center to circumference. If they do not believe the sound that has gone forth, let them disbelieve; we ask no odds of them.

We do not expect that all the people will believe, and wickedness will increase while the Saints are gathering together. If those who profess to know what right is, will do right and live to the Gospel of Christ which they understand, there is no danger but what the elect will be saved, and that the devil cannot get them. All that Jesus designs to save he will save; all that are disposed to believe and obey, he is disposed to save, and will do it. And those that will falter and hearken to the teachings and seductions of the world, the flesh, and the devil, he can save upon the principles he has established.

Men act upon their own agency; we do not expect that those who will not hearken and obey will be saved by the Gospel; and many that obey the first principles of the Gospel will not live their religion.

Let this people live their religion here. We cry to you all the time to live your religion. Let every man and woman forsake their evil ways, and turn unto the Lord with all their hearts, that He may have mercy on us, that the light may shine, and the nations feel its influence, and the honest in heart rejoice therein and be gathered to Zion.

As I told the brethren the other evening, if the candle of the Almighty does not shine from this place, you need not seek for light anywhere else. If this people have not the light and power of God with them, the Elders that go forth cannot have the light and enjoy the power that we do not have here; they must be lower than we are; they cannot attain to the light that we can here.

Shall we forsake our wickedness? I say, thank God, that I see a spirit of repentance in a degree; but I want to see so thorough a reform that sin and wickedness will be done away. Live your religion; that tells the whole story. If you live your religion you have the Holy Ghost in you, it abides with you; you shun evil, and put forth your energies to do all the good you can; you will refrain from everything that is evil, and do everything you can to promote the cause of God on the earth.

It is all embraced in the three words, live your religion; that is what I wish to say to all good people. That the Lord may help us so to do, that we may be accounted worthy to be saved in His kingdom, is my constant prayer, brethren and sisters, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 9, 1856.

I rise to explain one principle to Elders who are in the habit of preaching the Gospel to the world. Not but what their views coincide with mine, not but what they fully comprehend the matter, but all have not the power and faculty to develop what is in them; some are at a loss to explain that which they understand.

I wish to refer more particularly to a remark made by brother Benjamin L. Clapp, who has just been speaking to us concerning men coming to him in Texas, and saying that things were thus and so in Utah. What can they tell about Utah? To begin with, they do not know any evil of this people; the sins of this people are with themselves and their God. I defy all hell and all the devils in and about the inhabitants of the earth to substantiate permanent acts of wickedness against the Elders of this people.

Suppose that men came to brother Benjamin in Texas, and told him that I was the biggest scoundrel in the world, do not this people know better about that than they? And even Benjamin himself knows it to be a falsehood. We know that is falsehood, and I should have taken the liberty of telling them so.

I never preached in Texas, but I have preached in places as wicked; and when a man told me that which was not true about this people or about the leaders of this people, I would take the liberty of telling him that he was not telling the truth. I preached during twenty-four or twenty-five years among the wicked, and I never yet saw a man that I was afraid to tell that he was saying that which was not so, when I knew better; frequently they would turn and say to me, “You had better tell me that I lie,” and my prompt reply would be, you do, sir, and that before God.

What fault could the world justly find with this people? Some have passed through here to California to dig gold, but they have received nothing at the hands of this people but kindness. What do they know about us? They cannot charge us with one evil. Suppose there are wicked men here, I say the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that gathers fish both good and bad, and I say this because it is true.

We have in our community the worst creatures that the world can produce; the Gospel net must gather them of necessity, or the saying of Jesus, and what he knew of the kingdom in the last day would not come to pass. There are as bad men and women within the pales of this Church as there are upon this earth, and the Gospel being preached to them prepares them to become devils. As you have frequently been told, that is the only way men can become devils; they must have the knowledge to sin against the Holy Ghost, or yet the day of redemption awaits them, one or the other.

Suppose I was preaching in the world, and they should allege that some of the people in Utah swore, stole, and were wicked in many ways, I would acknowledge it to be the case. They might then inquire, “Why do you say that you have got the Gospel of salvation? And why do you come to us to preach, seeing that your own people do wickedly?” I would reply that the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that gathers fish of all kinds, therefore we must have the good and the bad in Utah, or else it cannot be the kingdom of heaven.

We have some of the bad, and those who pass through our settlements, or sojourn in our midst for a brief period, become familiar with those who are wicked, but do not become acquainted with the righteous. The great majority of this people are righteous, but the worldlings seek out and mingle with the few wicked here, because both those classes love the spirit of the world.

As to the great argument against the kingdom of God, because there are some evildoers in the Church, I will take the principles and doctrines taught by Jesus and his Apostles, and show that these go to prove and substantiate the fact that this is the kingdom of God. Why? Because we can produce the meanest curses there are on the earth, those who take all the revelations given by the Almighty, and every influence and revelation they can get from the devil, and make use of them to add sin to sin. This fact is also another proof that all hell is against this people, for there is not a person in the world, that gives way to wickedness, but what has antipathy against this people.

Now hearken, O ye Texans; do you say there are people here who are wicked? So we say. Could I wish things to be otherwise? No, I would not have them different if I could. We can produce the best men and the worst, the best women and the worst, and thus prove, according to the sayings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, that this is the kingdom of God, or at least answers to the Savior’s description of that kingdom.

Were I in Texas I would say, let me tell you that I have not embraced any man on this earth, in my faith, but I have embraced the doctrine of salvation, and it is no matter what the people do in Utah. Here is the doctrine of salvation, talk against that, prove that to be false, or find a flaw in it, if you can. As for the people, they cannot save you. Never embrace a man in your faith, for that is sectarianism.

There are many of the men and women now before me who have looked for a pure people, and have supposed that that was a proof of the truth of our doctrines, but they will never find such a people until Satan is bound, and Jesus comes to reign with his Saints. The doctrine we preach is the doctrine of salvation, and it is that which the Elders of this Church take to the world, and not the people of Utah.

Some of the Elders seem to be tripped up in a moment, if the wicked can find any fault with the members of this Church; but bless your souls, I would not yet have this people faultless, for the day of separation has not yet arrived. I have many a time, in this stand, dared the world to produce as mean devils as we can; we can beat them at anything. We have the greatest and smoothest liars in the world, the cunningest and most adroit thieves, and any other shade of character that you can mention.

We can pick out Elders in Israel right here who can beat the world at gambling, who can handle the cards, cut and shuffle them with the smartest rogue on the face of God’s footstool. I can produce Elders here who can shave their smartest shavers, and take their money from them. We can beat the world at any game.

We can beat them, because we have men here that live in the light of the Lord, that have the Holy Priesthood, and hold the keys of the kingdom of God. But you may go through all the sectarian world, and you cannot find a man capable of opening the door of the kingdom of God to admit others in. We can do that. We can pray the best, preach the best, and sing the best. We are the best looking and finest set of people on the face of the earth, and they may begin any game they please, and we are on hand, and can beat them at anything they have a mind to begin. They may make sharp their two-edged swords, and I will turn out the Elders of Israel with greased feathers, and whip them to death. We are not to be beat. We expect to be a stumbling block to the whole world, and a rock of offense to them.

I never preached to the world but what the cry was, “That damned old Joe Smith has done thus and so.” I would tell the people that they did not know him, and I did, and that I knew him to be a good man; and that when they spoke against him, they spoke against as good a man as ever lived.

I recollect a conversation I had with a priest who was an old friend of ours, before I was personally acquainted with the Prophet Joseph. I clipped every argument he advanced, until at last he came out and began to rail against “Joe Smith,” saying, “that he was a mean man, a liar, money digger, gambler, and a whoremaster;” and he charged him with everything bad, that he could find language to utter. I said, hold on, brother Gillmore, here is the doctrine, here is the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the revelations that have come through Joseph Smith the Prophet. I have never seen him, and do not know his private character. The doctrine he teaches is all I know about the matter, bring anything against that if you can. As to anything else I do not care. If he acts like a devil, he has brought forth a doctrine that will save us, if we will abide it. He may get drunk every day of his life, sleep with his neighbor’s wife every night, run horses and gamble, I do not care anything about that, for I never embrace any man in my faith. But the doctrine he has produced will save you and me, and the whole world; and if you can find fault with that, find it. He said, “I have done.”

It is the fashion in the world to embrace men in their faith, or a fine meetinghouse, or a genteel congregation, thinking, “O, what perfect order, and how pretty they look; how straight they walk to meeting, and how long their faces are during the services; how pretty that deacon looks under the pulpit; the people are so pretty, the meetinghouse is so nice, that we want to join such pretty people.” Such feelings will take a people to hell. Embrace a doctrine that will purge sin and iniquity from your hearts, and sanctify you before God, and you are right, no matter how others act.

I wish you all to understand that no Elders go to any place among the world, but what the wicked find fault with the people of God. They found fault with Joseph Smith, and at length killed him, as they bare a great many others of the Latter-day Saints. What for? Because of his wickedness? No. But the cry was, “Away with him, we cannot do with this man nor with his people.” Did they hate him for his evil works? No. If he had been a liar, a swearer, a gambler, or in any way an evildoer, and of the world, it would have loved its own, and they would have embraced him, and nourished and kept him. If he had been a false prophet they never would have lifted a hand against him, because he could have spread still more delusion through the world around him.

We are hated, because we are righteous. If we have sinned, the people in Texas know nothing about it; they cannot in truth find a word of fault with the character of this people, except with the few we have on hand ready to beat them at their meanness. The Lord wants those few here to fulfil His words and purposes, and they are fit for no other place. The sheep and the goats, the calves and the pigs, are all good in their places. The Lord will make use of us to His glory; and though a good many of those who now profess to be good Latter-day Saints may meet condemnation, even their course will finally result to the glory of God. Are these ideas correct? Judge ye.

Now, brethren, let me say a few words to you. Let us repent of our backslidings and tell the people of Texas that we ask no odds of them, nor of anyone else but our Father and our God, and those we are associated with in His kingdom. As brother Benjamin has exhorted you, confess your faults to the individuals that you ought to confess them to, and proclaim them not on the housetops. Be careful that you wrong not yourselves. Do you not know that if a good person is guilty of committing a crime he thinks that everybody knows it, and is ready to confess here, and there, and everywhere he has an opportunity?

I do not want to know anything about the sins of this people, at least no more than I am obliged to. If persons lose confidence in themselves, it takes away the strength, faith and confidence that others have in them; it leaves a space that we call weakness. If you have committed a sin that no other person on the earth knows of, and which harms no other one, you have done a wrong and sinned against your God, but keep that within your own bosom, and seek to God and confess there, and get pardon for your sin.

If children have sinned against their parents, or husbands against their wives, or wives against their husbands, let them confess their faults one to another and forgive each other, and there let the confession stop; and then let them ask pardon from their God. Confess your sins to whoever you have sinned against, and let it stop there. If you have committed a sin against the community, confess to them. If you have sinned in your family, confess there. Confess your sins, iniquities, and follies, where that confession belongs, and learn to classify your actions.

Suppose that the people were to get up here and confess their sins, it would destroy many innocent persons. Does Texas know about it? No, nor you about one another, if you will be wise and confess your wrongs where they ought to be confessed, and keep the knowledge of them from every person it ought to be kept from. In this way you will have strength against the enemy, who would otherwise buffet you and say, “Here is your wickedness made manifest,” and would overcome you and destroy all the confidence you have in yourselves and in your God.

If the Lord has confidence in you, preserve it, and take a course to produce more. If the Lord had a people on the earth that He had perfect confidence in, there is not a blessing in the eternities of our God, that they could bear in the flesh, that He would not pour out upon them. Tongue cannot tell the blessings the Lord has for a people who have proved themselves before Him.

That we may have confidence in Him, and He in us, let us take a course to create it, that He may open the heavens and pour upon us the blessings and power of the Holy Ghost.

Fathers, reflect for yourselves. Suppose that a father had thirty thousand dollars to distribute among three of his boys, and that one of them was a spendthrift who would prodigally sow his share to the four winds, and cause his wife and children to come on his father for support. Would that father have confidence to bestow ten thousand dollars on his spendthrift son? No, but he would deal it out to that son’s wife and children as they might need, and the rest he would preserve for him to another time. Our Father has to deal in that manner with us, for He has not confidence to know that we will do the things we ought and economize His blessings, if He should bestow them upon us.

We are like children who want the looking-glass to play with, and who cry for the sharp razor and for the moon they see reflected in the water, desiring them for playthings. Let us take such a course that God will have confidence in us, and then we shall receive all we need, all we desire and ask for.

Take a wise course; do not be foolish. I want you to reform, for there is need of it; though the world knows nothing about it. They hate us for the truth’s sake, and seek to destroy us; and I say to them, go it ye cripples, while you are young; for the day is coming in which you will find yourselves as badly crippled as ever the “Mormons” were.

May the Lord bless you. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, November 9, 1856.

I wish to say to the brethren, as many as are here today, who have come across the Plains with the handcarts, that I feel to bless you, and you may be sure that you have my best feelings all the time.

While brother Ellsworth was speaking about the Spirit, and the spirits that were around them, the spirit that he seemed to have to contend with, and the spirit that the people had to contend with, I wanted to tell one secret. While those brethren and sisters were faltering, and did not know whether to stop or go along, there was faith in this valley that bound them to that journey and they were obliged to perform it, they could not help performing it. Who had that faith? The people here; and the Spirit of the Lord was all the time prompting them, and the brethren who led them. They were, as many are now, they were prompted to do as they did; they could not do anything else, because God would not let them do anything else. The brethren and sisters came across the Plains because they could not stay; that is the secret of the movement. But let the devil have his will, and do you suppose that any of them could have crossed the Plains? No, not a person ever would have started. But they did start, and they performed the journey.

We are doing a great many things, and Joseph did a great many things, because the Spirit of the Lord prompts us to do them, as it prompted him. Joseph could not do anything else than what he did; it is the same with us all the time. The Lord prompted the handcart companies all the time, in the midst of their afflictions, to prepare for and start upon their journey, and they only had faith and power for the day, and on the morrow it seemed as though they certainly had to stop. But when tomorrow came they had faith and power to perform the journey of that day, and so they have been prompted day by day, to this point.

God is at the helm of this great ship, and that makes me feel good. When I think about the world, and the enemies of the cause of God, I care no more about them than I do for a parcel of musketoes. All hell may howl, and they may run up and down the earth and seek whom they may destroy, but they cannot move the faithful and pure in heart. Let those apostatize who wish to, but God will save all who are determined to be saved.

Brethren and sisters, I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.