Remarks by Elder Erastus Snow, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, October 8th, 1867.

In relation to matrimony—one of the texts before the Conference—perhaps there is not so much a lack of disposition on the part of the ladies as there is on the part of the gentlemen. The latter sometimes feel themselves unworthy or unprepared, and in many instances, perhaps, they are so. And if you ask why they are unprepared to assume these responsibilities as husbands and heads of families, it is mostly because they have neglected the word of the Lord which they have heard from this stand. They have not given their hearts to prayer sufficiently; they have not read the scriptures and educated their spirits; they have not drunk in the spirit of the Gospel. Every young man who has been taught by his parents to pray in secret, to mingle with the family in devotion, to attend meeting and receive the counsels of the servants of Lord, has grown in the spirit of the Gospel, and this has given them a disposition which has impelled them, as soon as they arrive at a suitable age, to move forward in the duties and responsibilities that they have been called upon, during this Conference, to assume. And they will meet with a like response everywhere from the opposite sex who are living their religion. If there is any lack of disposition on the part of the ladies it is because they are not living their religion, for the neglect of one duty leads to the neglect of another, and if our young men and women fail to make themselves acquainted with the law of God they are liable to be led away. Young men or women seeking the society of the wicked are soon befogged and led to destruction. If the young men of Israel are not alive to their duties, the young ladies may be left to wander in the society of the ungodly. This happens many times through the neglect of parents to impress on the minds of their daughters the value of the kingdom of heaven and the value and importance of salvation, exaltation and glory. Through the neglect of parents in properly educating their children many of them are now, perhaps, unable to discern between saint and sinner, and they would as soon associate with the wicked and unbelieving as with the righteous. It is a grievous sight to those who have labored twenty-five or thirty years traveling over the world to preach the gospel and to gather the people to see the rising generation without that culture they so much need to develop within them a love of righteousness, truth, and every holy principle. There is as great a field for missionary labor in Utah, as in any part of the world. There is as great a necessity for preaching here at home in our settlements, even in some parts of Great Salt Lake City, as there is in any part of the world. There are those here who neglect the opportunities offered them and they need to be felt after personally.

The subject of education is another of the texts given by our President for the elders of Israel to preach upon. I have already touched on it in a few words. I will say that our school teachers should not only be men qualified to teach the various branches of education, but they should be men possessing the spirit of the gospel, and who, in every look and word, and in all their discipline and intercourse with their pupils are influenced by that spirit. They should govern and control, not by brute force, but by superior intellect, sound judgment and the wisdom that the Gospel teaches that they may win the hearts of their pupils, and so be able to impress their minds with those principles they present before them.

I cannot speak too highly in favor of those good books that have been recommended to our schools—the Bible, Book of Mormon, Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and all other good books; but especially those that contain the history of the dealings of God with his people from the beginning of the world to the present time, as well as the teachings of the prophets and apostles; for the foundation of all true education is the wisdom and knowledge of God. In the absence of these, though we obtain a knowledge of every art and science and acquire what is termed by the world a first class education, we but obtain the froth and lack the foundation on which to rear a proper education.

In relation to the missionaries south, I will say that I have heard some say when referring to this subject, “What is the use of the southern mission? What good can result from our going or sending there?” I will say to all such querying, grumbling, faultfinding, growling spirits, just wait a few years, and we will show you the good of the southern mission. I do not know but time would fail me to bring argument in favor of it, but I will say just wait and by the help of God we will show you.

The subject of home production and becoming a self-sustaining people is another text, and this will probably guide me right back to “Dixie.” I will ask the question, How are we going to become self-sustaining unless we avail ourselves of the elements around us and provide ourselves and families with what we need to eat, drink and wear, and our implements of husbandry and other things of like nature? We need ironware and machine shops. Our sons need teaching in the various mechanical arts. Instead of raising them all to be farmers or mule drivers, we want a goodly portion of machinists, painters, artists, smiths, school teachers, and all other useful professions. We shall also need lawyers. I do not mean dishonest contemptible pettifoggers; but statesmen-lawyers in the true sense of the word who understand the principles of justice and equity, and who make themselves acquainted with those general principles of jurisprudence, that wise statesmen have recognized throughout the civilized world, that they may not only be competent judges in the land, but be able to thwart the wicked efforts of this ungodly set of pettifoggers. The southern country affords us facilities for raising many things that cannot be successfully raised in the north. We have had one four years of internecine war that has almost entirely prevented the raising of cotton—perhaps the most essential of all productions for articles of clothing. Will we as a people be blind to this fact, and now, that the first woe is past, lull ourselves to sleep and forget that there is another coming. Saint George, though the center of our present operation in cotton raising is only on the borders of the cotton district. From three hundred to five hundred acres is the most that we can water from one dam and canal in that district of country, while lower down, the same labor would encircle a field of six or eight thousand acres of better land; but a little handful of people cannot grapple with so great a labor. We have commenced some small settlements on the Muddy. The settlers there were mostly substitutes—Bro. Henry Miller calls them destitutes. Most of them got discouraged and came back, the rest stick and hang like a dog to a root—but they scarcely know what to do. The question is shall we allow this little handful to be worn out, or shall we strengthen their hands, and so keep moving and progressing, and hold what we have and get more.

I like the idea of sending young men down there. It struck me as a decided hit when I heard the names read out yesterday. We can do with a number of young men who have small families or who are about to get them, and I say God bless them, and speed them and their wives on their way and by the help of God we will help them.

Remarks by Elder Erastus Snow, made in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, August 26, 1860.

It is so seldom that I address my brethren and sisters from this stand, that I find my bow unstrung, figuratively speaking. (President B. Young: Is your harp upon the willows?) Perhaps I may say that my harp is upon the willows, so far as public speaking is concerned. But, notwithstanding, I sing but little and pray but little, and use the bow but little. I have not altogether lost the power of discernment, or the power to appreciate the sweet sounds of the heavenly music; and I oftentimes feel that it were far better to exercise upon those gifts and callings of God whenever we are called to act; and to use one of brother Kimball’s phrases—“It is far better to wear out than to rust out.”

If I understand myself correctly, I feel this morning, as I have felt the greater part of my life, to be devoted mentally and physically, as far as duty requires and circumstances permit, and as the Lord and my brethren call, and as the Spirit of the Lord shall dictate, to the happiness of my fellow men and to the advancement of the kingdom of God upon the earth. I will say further of myself, that it is not a lack of willingness and disposition on my part to labor and to do good; it is not from a lack of desire to magnify the Priesthood—to honor my God—to promote his cause—to build up his kingdom—to increase the happiness of his subjects; but it is ignorance or weakness.

When I reflect upon the past and contrast it with the present so far as I myself am concerned, I can occasionally discover the weakness of my faculties and perceive hindrances to their exercise. I do not know that this is anything peculiar or strange, but I can say that my heart rejoices in the things of God. When I hear the things of the kingdom and the truths of the Gospel—those that are old to you and me—though we have heard those truths sounded in our ears at different times in our lives, they are still precious and cheering to our hearts, refreshing to our intellects, brightening up our hopes, encouraging our spirits, awakening in us charity and love towards our God and towards his creatures, stimulating us to love our religion, and render ourselves worthy of that everlasting Father who has produced us, and who has sent us forth upon this earth to gain an experience and to prove ourselves here in the flesh.

When we contemplate these things that have been revealed, the purposes of our Father in heaven concerning his creatures, his magnanimity, his extensive preparations for the happiness and the exaltation of those intelligent beings, to give unto them all that they are capable of receiving, and to stimulate them by every possible inducement to faithfulness, to glory, and to exaltation—when we reflect upon these things, they are calculated, if we are able to appreciate that which is sublime, that which is ennobling, that which is Godlike and glorious, they are calculated to inspire in every heart a good degree of affection and love to our Heavenly Father, and also obedience to his will, and at the same time to inspire in us a love for each other, and to all that part of his creatures who are created in the image of our Father, and who are called and destined to inherit eternal life, or, in other words, to preserve their identity forever and forever; and the whole subject of the Gospel of salvation and the principles which are revealed for the guidance of mankind here in the flesh are designed and calculated in their nature to cement the hearts of the children of men together, to make them see and feel that they are one family—that their duties to each other are those of common brotherhood. We must learn to know that in serving each other here in the flesh, we serve our God, promote his glory; and in that we promote the happiness, glory, and exaltation of his children, our brethren and sisters.

It is by mental improvement and spiritual advancement that we increase our happiness, and by the enlargement of our understanding we increase in light, virtue, and intelligence. So, by bringing before the understanding of men the truths of heaven, we inspire them with love for the truth—a love of goodness and integrity; and thus, by our mental efforts, by wholesome counsels, kind examples, and affectionate regards, spiritually and physically we are the means of bringing them into closer communication with the Lord; or if our labor be in promoting the comfort and welfare of the tabernacles of men, aiding and assisting them physically and temporally, doing that which adds to the comfort or supplies the wants of the body, we are doing good and promoting the happiness of the children of men. To be sure, this is and ought to be secondary with us; for as the life we possess and enjoy is more than meat and the body more than drink, so is the spirit, being first created, of paramount im– portance, and consequently the body is secondary. The body was not first created and afterward the spirit formed in the tabernacle, but we are informed in the revelations that God has given, that we were created and organized in the spirit world, in the image and likeness of our Father in heaven, and consequently our physical tabernacles were formed for the benefit and in behalf of the spirit and adapted to the use of the spirit prepared for its habitation and dwellingplace; not to be the master and controller of the spirit, to govern and dictate it, but, on the contrary, to be for the spirit, to be subject to it, under its control, dictation, and guidance in every sense of the word. And it is with this view and for this purpose that the Lord has revealed unto us that those spirits will be held accountable for the acts of the mortal tabernacle; for it is understood that the deeds done in and by the tabernacle are done by and with the consent of the spirit. Notwithstanding, Paul may have said, “When I would do good, evil is present with me;” and he excused himself by saying, “It is not I that sinneth, but the spirit that is in me; for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Now, I am willing to let the Apostle Paul excuse himself in this manner, for I should think he made a bad selection of words if he were to represent things otherwise; but as for the deeds or actions I am so far from excusing the spirit in any sense of the word that I should entirely condemn it on the ground that every man is responsible for the deeds done in the body; and therefore it can only be taken at best as an apology or palliation for the dereliction of duty, caused by the weakness of the flesh and its liability to temptation; but not in the least degree can it be regarded as justification. The Lord has said that he cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, and that he has not placed the spirit subject to this tabernacle, and will not justify it in being dictated or governed by the body. He has required of us to study to understand our true position before Him and before each other as the offspring of the Almighty here upon the earth; and as we study our own positions, and study ourselves properly, we shall at the same time comprehend measurably, the condition of those of our fellows around us with whom we are surrounded; and in comprehending our true position and the position of our fellow creatures about us, we shall understand our callings and destiny and the purposes of our Heavenly Father.

This will lead us to the comprehension of the duties we owe to each other. Through our ignorance, we may oftentimes do things that will operate both against our own interest and happiness, and against the interests and happiness of those with whom we are associated, and whose interests and happiness we desire to promote. These things occur in our experience, and are faults and weaknesses in mankind, occasioned through ignorance. Are these excusable? Yes, I understand that our Heavenly Father excuses them. We all have a great desire to excuse ourselves, and we desire to be excused by our friends and by our brethren and sisters, and in turn we try to excuse their faults and imperfections in like manner. But are we justified in these things? No; I understand that it is useless for us to talk about being justified in our ignorance or dereliction of duty—at least, so long as light is placed before us, and we have the privilege of becoming acquainted with the things of God and doing our duty.

We are very differently situated from the world of mankind, who are without the Gospel, without the light of truth, and who have not received the Priesthood, who have not received the revelations of the Holy Spirit to teach and guide them: they possess not the advantages of acquiring this understanding and of perfecting themselves in the knowledge of God as do the Saints. With the Latter-day Saints, who are favored with the light of the revelations of heaven, with the voice of Prophets, with the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, with the privilege of walking in the light of Christ, and the privilege of obeying the everlasting Gospel, in all things it is vastly different. It is their privilege to learn themselves and their position before God, and to study the interest and happiness of those with whom they are associated, to do all they can to fit them for that higher position and order of intelligence and glory which has been referred to this morning by our President and which are touched upon in the vision which God gave to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon in February, 1832.

We are called upon by the revelations that are given to us, and by the living oracles, to be Saints of God and heirs of celestial glory. Are we heirs to celestial glory? I understand that every son and daughter of Adam who hear the sound of the everlasting Gospel when it is proclaimed by a servant of God having authority, and who yield obedience to that Gospel, and who retain the Holy Spirit and offer themselves in humility as candidates and receive baptism for the remission of sins—such persons become candidates for celestial honors—for that inheritance which is eternal and fadeth not away, and eventually become prepared to enter into the glory and presence of the Father and the Son. This is the promise to the Saints, if they continue faithful, and in all things abide the law of the Lord, and keep sacred and holy the cove– nants they made in baptism. It is faith in the first principles of the Gospel, faith in the first testimony that is presented, and repentance of their past sins, and baptism for the remission of sins, laying on of hands by the Elders for the gift of the Holy Ghost, that they may receive the remission of sins and the blessings of the Holy Spirit, and that they may be endowed with power to prophesy, to speak in tongues, to interpret tongues, to heal the sick, and rebuke evil spirits, and cast them out from those possessed; yes, that they may even have faith to raise the dead, and exercise the power of God in every case of necessity.

Does this prepare them for the celestial kingdom of our God? If they have in reality taken upon themselves the name of Christ and kept sacred their covenants, and the Almighty should take them to himself, and thus cut short their mortal career, I understand that they are saved. But so long as they remain upon the earth in the flesh, they remain under the same obligation to serve the Lord today as much as yesterday, and then continue the next day and the next week as they were at first to repent and be baptized for the remission of their sins, when the commandment of the Lord comes to them in England, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, and the islands of the sea, to gather up their substance, come to the gathering place, and assist in building up the Zion of our God, and to assist in establishing his kingdom in the tops of the mountains. Until then, there is another commandment binding upon them, which is a part of the law of the Lord; and if they are required to contribute to feed the poor, clothe the naked, and assist this people in the great work of the gathering, and donate for the building up of the Zion of our God, this is a part of their duty, and it is included in the com– mandments of the Lord to them as heirs of celestial glory.

If they then begin to say in their hearts, “I have served the Lord for a little season; I have been baptized; I have received the Holy Ghost and have become some great one; I have received the gift of tongues, and have prophesied; I have received the power of healing the sick, and other manifestations of the power and mercies of the Almighty; I think I can remain where I am and do well in disregarding the counsels of the Almighty respecting gathering together and dividing my substance for the gathering of the poor and building up of Zion.” It will be said to them who speak and act thus, as it was said to Nebuchadnezzar of old. If they cling to that which is given, and set their hearts upon the things of this world, and love them more than they do the kingdom of our God, those blessings will be withdrawn, the Holy Ghost will be taken from them, and that light received through obedience to the first principles of the Gospel will flee away; that love which they possessed will leave them, and they will become weak as before and darker than ever, unless they speedily repent and turn unto the Lord with all their hearts. Then, if there is sufficient integrity left in them; the Lord may have forbearance and patience to try them a little longer; but it will be by leading them in such a path and such a line of experience as to altogether strip them of the idol of their hearts, and leave them in poverty and wretchedness. And when they have experienced wretchedness until, like Nebuchadnezzar, they have learned that the Most High reigns, and that he gave them all they have, and that they are nothing but his stewards, then they may peradventure receive again the favor and blessings of Heaven.

This lesson we have all got to learn—that we and all that we possess is the Lord’s, and that continually, and that we must forever hold ourselves subject to his counsels and ready to obey his will.

If we are called upon to bear the vessels of the Lord, to be witnesses of those things that we have seen and heard, and to go forth to a gainsaying and reviling world, we have got to lay aside personal considerations of selfishness, lay aside the ties of home, and go forth trusting in God, and have all confidence in him, taking our lives in our hands, like the disciples of Christ went as lambs in the midst of wolves, and bear witness of the truth, nothing wavering or flinching; and whether it be to those of our native tongue, or to individuals of other tongues, or to the islands of the sea, they are all our kindred and the offspring of our Father, heirs of the same grace and life; and we are bound to extend the same blessings that we have received. As we have received freely, so we should be willing to freely impart, and as God had mercy and regard for us and our fellow creatures, so we should give to those who are waiting to receive, who are of our Father and heirs to all his blessings.

These Elders of Israel before me today should feel continually; yes, all the Elders, Priests, and Apostles, and all the people of God should feel this saving, heavenly feeling; and every woman should feel this to her husband who may be called and found worthy to bear a portion of the holy Priesthood and be a witness for the Lord and of his word. And every true, faithful Latter-day Saint—yes, every mother and wife in Israel do feel this, and under no consideration would they throw an impediment in the way of their father, husband, or brother, to prevent their going to bear this message of life, or, if required to build up the temples of our God, to establish the cities of Zion, to cultivate the earth, and make it produce that which is necessary for the sustenance of the people of God; and if their duties are to labor physically while in this tabernacle, they should be willing to do it, and do it with the same missionary zeal and the same good feeling that they would preach the Gospel.

Finally, we should all feel that all we possess is the Lord’s—that he adds to our labors and gives us our reward, whether we deserve much or little; and when we have this feeling, and acknowledge the hand of the Lord in all things, we are right—we are in the path of duty and of safety.

May God bless you, brethren and sisters, in the name of Jesus! Amen.

A Discourse by Elder Erastus Snow, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, January 5, 1860.

I have lately held certain conversations which have caused a train of reflection in my mind this morning, and a few passages of Scripture to float across my mind, which, unless I should be led in another train of thought, I will give to my brethren and sisters: but I desire not my own will, but the will of my Father who is in heaven. That which is meet to me might not be to a mixed multitude of people. God knoweth best that which is suitable unto our circumstances.

If we would do the most good, we must feel the most passive in the hands of our heavenly Father. We must be like a musical instrument in the hands of a skillful performer. Shall the instrument say to him that performs upon it, Why do you play thus? Or shall the law say to him that speaketh it, Why dost thou use me thus?

True, every individual intelligence is possessed of a will, which is a propelling power within himself. Good and evil are placed before us, and we have to choose between them. Light and darkness exist; and if we are not influenced by the one power, we shall be by the other. When we entered into the fulness of the Gospel—into a sacred and holy covenant with God, we virtually agreed to surrender our will to him; we agreed to place ourselves under his direction, guidance, dictation, and counsel, that our will should be merged in his. Hence we are in duty bound, and it is for our best interest to strive to attain to that state of mind and feeling that we shall have no will of our own, independent of the will of our Father in heaven, and say in all things, “Father, not mine, but thy will be done.” Let me speak, therefore, not according to any selfishness that is in me—not to speak simply my own feelings, but that the mind of Christ may be in me, that I may speak as he would, were he in my place this morning, and act as he would if he were in my circumstances. Nor have we the promise of our Father that he will dictate in us, unless we arrive at this state of feeling.

If our spirits are inclined to be stiff and refractory, and we desire continually the gratification of our own will to the extent that this feeling prevails in us, the Spirit of the Lord is held at a distance from us; or, in other words, the Father withholds his Spirit from us in proportion as we desire the gratification of our own will. We interpose a barrier between us and our Father, that he cannot, consistently with himself, move upon us so as to control our actions. He may set bounds around us and hedge us in round about, that beyond a certain point our will cannot be gratified. When he cannot influence our wills in any other way, by bringing a combination of circumstances to bear upon us to circumscribe us, he may eventually bring our wills into subjection, like we would corral a wild horse, or one that has grown cunning and is unwilling to be caught and bridled, and keeps out of the way of his pursuers. They are under the necessity of taking him by guile, by alluring him into some large field or corral, to gradually hem him in, until he is brought into a small compass, where, before he is aware of it, he finds himself taken. Our Father operates in a similar way.

I might say also that our Adversary profits by a similar example, understanding the same policy to a degree. When he would involve us in his snares, he is careful to do it in a way we shall not know it until our feet are in. This arises from our limited capacity—from our weakness, and the weaker power becomes a prey to the greater.

Our Father in heaven is laboring for our exaltation; his work forever and ever is doing good: good is the part he has chosen; evil he escheweth. He seeks to unite and concentrate the faith and feelings of intelligent beings to improve them, to teach them the benefits of doing good, and the consequences resulting from doing evil, that the one principle tendeth to dissolution and to eternal death and disorganization, while the other principle tendeth to life, to perpetuate the organization which has already been effected, and bring it to the highest state of perfection; or, in other words, to secure to intelligent beings the boon they most earnestly desire—namely, the continuation of lives.

What desire has been planted in the human breast that is equal to the desire of life? What will a man not give in exchange for his life? To us, the words of the Savior—“For what is a man profited, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” What man under the sentence of death for a breach of law that would not give all he possessed of earthly substance to atone, if his life could only be spared? How few there are that would not be willing to give the whole world, if they possessed it, for their lives.

Why is this universal desire planted in the human breast to live? It is a law ordained in nature for good. We may call it instinct, or by what name we please—it is a universal law in all intelligent beings to seek to retain the organization they possess. Hence when sickness assails us, an enemy appears in deadly array with a show to lay us low in death; every faculty of the soul is aroused to repel it, and we use all the means in our power to stay the progress of disease.

The Scriptures inform us that the greatest gift of God is eternal life. Is this a gift of God in deed and in truth? Yes; I understand it to be, to all intents and purposes, the gift of God. Yet eternal life is not attained without compliance on our part with those principles that lead to the attainment of it. I will illustrate this by what we see daily in our natural life. We understand, by what we learn daily, that there are certain things that tend to destroy this tabernacle; and there are other things which, if we deserve, have a tendency to prolong the organization of this tabernacle and our temporal existence.

For example, we have learned, by numerous observations and examples, that if an individual cast himself into the sea, without having any means of floating, he will sink in the water and under it, and he cannot live. A certain thing is necessary to his existence, which is the pure, wholesome air inhaled into the lungs. Anything that cuts us off from this supply terminates our earthly existence: the machinery of this tabernacle cannot be kept in motion without it. We have also learned that excessive heat or excessive cold will stop this machinery of life. There are various other causes which stop the machinery of life in our mortal tabernacles. If we would prolong our organization for any certain number of years, we must carefully guard against those evils that endanger our tabernacles. Excesses of every kind have a tendency to weaken, and ultimately to destroy the tabernacle of man. An excessive appetite, if encouraged with rich viands, and this persisted in, will make the possessor a glutton, and shorten his mortal career.

If a person having a strong desire for stimulants, such as spirituous liquors, tea, coffee, tobacco, opium, &c., that stimulate the nervous system to excess, and continues to gratify this appetite, will soon destroy the elasticity of his nervous system, and become like a bow that is often bent almost to breaking. If a bow be kept strung up to its utmost tension, it loses its power and strength, until it is of little or no use.

So in nature: the more any powerful stimulant is made use of in the human system, the sooner the human machinery will be worn out. It follows, then, if we will secure life and preserve the organization of this tabernacle, we must observe the laws of life—we must abstain from intemperance of every description. We must neither indulge in excessive eating, excessive drinking, nor in excessive working, whereby to overtax our physical energies or our nervous system. Perhaps no kind of labor will so rapidly weaken the power of life within us, or strength of these tabernacles, like excessive mental labor, because it has a more direct influence upon the nervous system. The nervous system seems to be a sort of connecting link between our spirit and our tabernacles. Yet a proper amount of labor, physical and mental, be– comes necessary to the proper development of the faculties of both body and soul.

The child that has never faith to attempt to walk, as a matter of course, will never learn to walk. When he first begins to exercise his feet and legs to walk, they are weak, and scarcely capable of supporting his little frame; but the more he exercises them, the more he receives strength. And so with every other portion of the tabernacle. The same may be said of all mental gifts and endowments. The mind that is naturally stupid, dull, and inactive, and no outward circumstances are brought to bear upon it, to impel it to exercise—that mind remains comparatively undeveloped; that spirit does not improve, nor increase in strength and capacity.

The more the mental faculties are brought into exercise, if it is not immoderate exercise, the more these faculties receive strength, and the greater powers of research are developed in that spirit; and where shall the end thereof be?

There is no end to its increase of knowledge and truth, unless we turn round and go the other way; in other words, unless we persistently pursue the path of death and violate every law, both physical and mental, until we become dissolved.

If we cease temperate habits, and give ourselves up to the gratification of our lusts and appetites, and pursue this course from year to year, we shall find ourselves steadily going down to the chambers of death, and no power can hinder it: it is a fixed law of our physical existence. Can the Lord change it? I will not stop to inquire whether he can or not. I will say, however, I never heard of his doing it on any other condition than that individual repenting of his evil course. When he does this, and observes the laws of life and health, God will add his blessing to his efforts, and he will begin to ascend the hill again, and he may regain in some measure that which he has lost. But as long as he continues that course of evil, no power can redeem him.

What I say, therefore, in regard to the mortal body is equally applicable to the eternal life of the soul.

There is no such principle as saving a man in his sins, neither physically nor spiritually. Our Savior has never offered himself as an atonement for mankind to redeem and save them in their sins. I regard this as an utter impossibility.

Some of my friends who may have been reared up in the old straightjacket school of modern theology may be startled with the idea of anything being impossible with God. But I conceive it to be a fixed axiom that two and two make four, whether the addition is made by man or God.

It is just as impossible for God to add two and two together and make ten of it as it is for me or you. Mathematical truths are as true with God and angels as they are with man. I understand that what has exalted to life and salvation our Father in heaven and all the Gods of eternity will also exalt us, their children. And what causes Lucifer and his followers to descend to the regions of death and perdition will also lead us in the same direction; and no atonement of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ can alter that eternal law, any more than he can make two and two to mean sixteen.

One may ask wherein the atonement of Jesus Christ has affected us. Through his atonement is granted unto us repentance and remission of sins. He came from the Father to sojourn in the flesh among men, to take upon him the infirmities of the flesh and the weaknesses of human nature, subjecting himself to the contradiction of sinners, exposing himself to all the physical ills that prey upon the human system, and to all the powers of darkness that prey upon the intellectual faculties of man, exposing himself to the temptations of the hosts of hell. He had to combat all these contending powers, to resist Satan and all his armies, and to resist every other evil flesh is heir to, and set forth an example of purity and perfection to the human family. In the language of sacred writ—“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”

Thus he demonstrated to human beings that it is possible for them to live without sin, that our God might be just in condemning sin in every form, and in every place, and in every being; so that in truth he might say, as he says in the preface of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, that he cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. We can understand also why he is of a merciful and forgiving spirit, exercising a fatherly tenderness over us, to pardon our follies and weaknesses; yet he cannot justify them in the least degree.

Should we seek to become like him, to be actuated by the same principle, striving to ascend to the same glory? We should: we should imitate his example. And while we exercise the same unbounded mercy and compassion over the weakness of our fellows, yet in no case whatever should we look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, or in any manner justify it. However much may be said in palliation of the faults of mankind, nothing can be said in justification of them. The Scriptures say that our Savior was tempted in all things like we are, yet without sin. And in order that he might be tempted in all things like we are, he was born of a woman as we were, possessing like passions with ourselves, and was exposed to the same kind of temptations to which we are exposed in life. Yet he withstood them all.

The Scriptures say he tasted death for every man. Did he taste death for every man with a view that every man should be saved from death? No. If so, it would destroy the principle I have been speaking of, and would save the children of men in their sins. But while death had passed upon all mankind because of sin, there was no power that could avert it; yet, by offering himself an offering for sin, he opened a way for mankind to be raised again from the dead, and forever afterwards be set free from its power.

His death has also opened up a door of repentance unto us, giving unto us a hope of redemption through his blood. Has it given us a hope of salvation in our sins? Not to me. I hope not to be able to eat fire with impunity, and still prolong my days. I have no such promise that I can have melted lead running down my throat instead of wholesome diet, and expect it is going to be converted into lifegiving food in my system. I have no better grounds to hope that I shall, by the death of Christ, be saved from the consequences of persisting in a wicked course of life.

The consequences of our transgressions must fall upon us. Yet Christ has placed before us the principles of faith, hope, and charity. If we will exercise faith in him, we may have hope of redemption through his blood, on condition that we repent of our sins and turn about and pursue the path of life. We and our fathers before us have so far partaken of the elements of death that we cannot save our mortal tabernacles from that change that awaits them.

This promise we have—that when the time comes that is written of in the Scripture, that Satan shall be bound, and shall cease to exercise his power and dominion over the hearts of the children of God for the space of a thousand years, the children that shall grow up unto the Lord shall not taste of death; that is, they shall not sleep in the earth, but they shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and they shall be caught up, and their rest shall be glorious.

I thus distinguish between them and us, because at that time they shall grow up with a more complete and perfect understanding of the laws of life and health, and they will observe them. And the temptations and evils that surround us on every hand shall be removed from them. The elements that are now under the control of the prince and power of the air, and charged with death, which we are constantly brought in contact with, will then be removed; the elements will be sanctified, the curse will be removed from the earth and its surrounding atmosphere, and the powers of darkness that rule in the atmosphere will be confined to their own region, and the tabernacles of the children of men shall grow up without sin unto salvation.

Hence their tabernacles shall not be subject to pain and sickness like unto ours. There will be no pain and sickness, because there will be no breach of the laws of life and health. There will be no intemperance of any kind, because there will be no evil spirit at the elbow continually ready to allure and draw into sin. But the Spirit of the Lord will be with every person to guide him constantly, and the law of the Lord will be written in his heart, so that one will not need to say to another, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” There will be no Devil to tempt on the right hand and on the left, saying, “This is the way, walk in it.” Thus having this good influence continually around them to keep them in the straight path, they will grow up without sickness, pain, or death.

There will be a change wrought in their tabernacles, which is equivalent to death and the resurrection; but they will not sleep in the dust of the earth. Their tabernacles shall not molder back into corruption; but they shall be like Jesus Christ’s most glorious tabernacle, who never knew sin; and he is the only being we read of whose tabernacle did not see corruption, except a few who obtained beforehand the privilege of translation.

We read—“Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” The Apostle Paul says he was translated. The revelation given through Joseph Smith teaches that a great many others in Enoch’s day obtained the same blessing.

We read in the Book of Mormon of three Nephites, upon whom the Lord wrought a change, that their bodies should not see corruption; but that change was in itself equivalent to death and the resurrection. Whether the complete change took place in that day, or whether a still greater change remains to take place with them, we are not informed positively. But Mormon, writing about it, gives it as his opinion, and says it was so signified to him by the Spirit, that there remained for them a greater change in the great day when all should be changed.

Suffice it to say that because of the fall of Adam, the elements of the earth of which we partake have sown the seeds of mortality in the earthly tabernacle, so that it becomes necessary they should all undergo the same change, whether by returning to the dust, and being raised again, or by that change which takes place in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

The principle to me is inevitable, that the penalty of our transgressions must fall on us, and that salvation and full redemption from our sins is only to be obtained by ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well—by turning from the path that leads to death, and taking the road that leads to life. In this way we secure to ourselves the blessings of the atonement, which opens the door of salvation to all such, and points out the way of life which he himself has entered.

Let us follow him. As it is written, “I am the true shepherd. The true shepherd entereth in at the door, but a thief climbeth up some other way.” He is also denominated “The captain of our salvation,” “The Great Apostle and High Priest of our profession, to show our feet the way.”

There is one precious privilege which the Gospel of Jesus Christ has extended to those that believe and obey it—their sins go to judgment beforehand. It is written, “Some men’s sins go to judgment beforehand, while others follow after.” Who is it that has the privilege of being judged beforehand? And who is it whose sins follow after? All who repent of their sins and turn to the living God, their sins go to judgment beforehand. “What, immediately at the time they repent?” Yes. When they repent and pursue the course that is marked out to them by which to obtain pardon, their sins go to judgment beforehand; that is, they obtain pardon to the extent they are capable of receiving it.

Do I obtain pardon for my transgressions, so that I shall escape the penalty of death? No, I do not. I may so far obtain forgiveness by faith in Christ that the sentence of death may be commuted, and life prolonged, like it was with Hezekiah of old, whose life was lengthened out fifteen years.

There are hundreds and thousands before me here and in this Territory who have had their lives lengthened out through obedience to the Gospel of peace, who were languishing upon beds of death, under the sentence of death, and they were on the verge of the grave; but, through repentance, and the Elders of Israel administering to them, the power of death was stayed, and their lives were prolonged: yet the sentence of death was not revoked, but it must pass upon all mankind. Through the exercise of faith we may gain a reprieve for a few days longer, or at the farthest for a few years, to live and do good. And some might possibly attain to that glorious privilege Enoch and others obtained, that they should not sleep in the earth, but be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and pass from mortal to immortality, by which means the penalty is executed and the law satisfied.

But it pleased God our Father that the Savior should be subjected to all the temptations and pangs to which flesh is heir. I will say that his grief and sorrow was not that which is unto death, but it sprang from his sympathies for his blood relatives; I mean his Father’s family that is here on the earth, for whom he came to suffer. He bore our sorrows and carried our griefs. He took upon him the sicknesses of us all and felt our infirmities. No blind man or leper cried to him for help in vain; but he felt their infirmities, and stretched forth his hands and helped them, and exerted himself to ameliorate their sufferings. Did he suffer hunger and fatigue? Yes. And when his hour was coming, and he felt his end was nigh at hand, all the infirmities of the flesh, as it were, crowded upon him, and he felt even to shrink from drinking that bitter cup; and said three times, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

It pleased our Father that he should be clothed in mortality, that he might be subjected to all these sensations and feelings of our infirmities, that he might fully comprehend them all to the extent that henceforth, in his mediatorial services for mankind, he might of a truth be touched with the feelings of all our infirmities, understanding them most perfectly, in order that he might be filled with compassion, not to justify our sins, but to have mercy and compassion upon our infirmities. Thus, by his atonement, he has opened a door, that, after we have paid the penalty, which is death, we may be raised again from the dead.

This is the salvation that is wrought out for us; this is the hope which was begotten in the disciples of Jesus Christ by his resurrection from the dead, which Peter alludes to in his Epistle, 1st chapter, wherein he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.”

Here is a promise that the faithful should receive immortal tabernacles—an enduring inheritance in the world to come. But they were never authorized to hope that the penalties of their transgressions should never be inflicted upon them: but after they had suffered the penalty of the law, then they might find redemption, that the eternal death should not pass upon them.

“Blessed and holy are those that have part in the first resurrection,” saith the Scriptures; for “on such the second death hath no power.”

“The second death,” what is that? In this we are more directly interested, for this mortal tabernacle must die; and we have a sure and certain hope it shall be raised again from the dead. I can endure this: I can pass through the momentary afflictions I am called to suffer in this life; and I will try not to complain, if I see there is a prospect of not being again subjected to that second death. What is it? There are some sayings in the Revelation of St. John in reference to the lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched, where there is no end to their torment. There are a great many sayings in the Scripture of the same import, which is denominated, “the second death.”

There is a revelation in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, which, to my mind, is more explicit than any I find in the Old and New Testament on this subject. It is in that revelation in which our Father speaks unto us concerning the transgression of Adam, and death that passed upon him because of his transgression. He partook of a spiritual death. That which was spiritual was first, and afterwards that which was temporal. Again, says the revelation, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.”

The spiritual death is that which shall be passed upon the wicked when he shall say unto them, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” You can read this revelation in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants when you go home.

I understand that the second death is a spiritual death. Is it meant that the spirit shall die? Each of you can draw your own conclusions as well as I. Your traditions may be such that your thoughts do not run in the same channel with mine in this respect. But I can conceive of no other spiritual death than dissolution. I understand, when applied to the mortal tabernacle, it alludes to the dissolution of that tabernacle: it ceases to act in its functions, being dissolved, to return to its native element.

I conceive that the same term is applicable to the spirit in like manner. Whether it be a dissolution, or whether it be an eternal preservation of that spirit in a state of torment and misery, which I do not admit, one thing is certain—that the hope of redemption and eternal life is past forever from those who are the subjects of the second death.

I understand this to be a curse upon those who give themselves up altogether to work wickedness and abominations, who have sinned so far that they have no longer any part in life: they have sinned that sin which is unto death, for which there is no redemption or forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come.

Some people entertain the idea from the sayings in the Revelation of St. John, that those wicked ones are to be preserved in a literal liquid lake of fire and brimstone, to suffer the torments of fire forever and ever, without the possibility of being consumed or changed. I do not so understand the meaning and intention of the sacred writers. The Savior says—“Fear not him that is able to destroy the body only, but rather fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” “Hell” may be an analogous term, and applicable in different places to different things; but in this passage it is evident he implies the destruction of the soul as well as the body.

These reflections of mine I do not teach as doctrine, binding your consciences, but as views which I have of the sacred Scriptures, referring to the second death.

One thing is taught clearly in all the revelations, ancient and modern, that there is a class on whom the second death shall pass; and the thought of their returning to their native element is the thought which all intelligent beings shrink from. The instinct within us is to cleave to life—to cleave to our organization; and the greatest joy we feel is in the certain hope of a resurrection from the dead. The idea of the second death, or dissolution of the spirit, is that which is the most terrifying to the soul. But our Father has so ordained that our spiritual organizations, as well as our tabernacles, can only be maintained and perfected through obedience to the laws of eternal life.

Blessed is the child that is corrected, for he shall learn wisdom. Blessed is the man who is called to an account for his sins from day to day. Blessed is the congregation of the Lord and all Saints who are permitted to have the Holy Ghost manifested on them, and through the servants of the Lord, to call them to account for their sins, reproving them for their transgressions, that they may be corrected. This is far better for us all, that our sins be brought to judgment in this life, than to have them put off to a future day.

May the Lord help us to repent day by day, and to receive the chastisements of the Almighty, that we may attain to everlasting life. Amen.

Remarks by Elder Erastus Snow, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, September 18, 1859.

While brother Liljinquist has been addressing the congregation, I thought of the saying in the Scriptures—With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.” This was spoken in reference to ancient Israel. It would seem that anciently as well as in modern times, the word of the Lord that went out from Israel to the surrounding nations came back to them. And even Israel themselves refused to hear the testimony of men of other tongues and other lips the Lord sent to them in the days of Jesus Christ and his Apostles.

I remember having read in the Book of Mormon instances of a similar kind among the ancient Nephites, when the spirit of apostasy was creeping over them. The Lord raised up Prophets and righteous men from among the Lamanites, and sent them to reprove the Nephites, to prophesy unto them, and to warn them of impending destruction, if they did not repent. Alma says, “For I am persuaded that the Lord deals out his word unto all the nations of the earth according as he will, and raises up men to bear witness of him, and to carry his word unto all people as they are capable of receiving.”

The way and manner the Lord has sent forth laborers with his Gospel among the nations in the latter days has made me often think of these words of Alma. Even among the remnants of Israel who are roaming through the continent of America—the Indians, the Lord manifests himself in various ways as they are capable of receiving those impressions he wishes to impart to them. It has pleased our Heavenly Father that the great work of the latter days which has been spoken of by all the holy Prophets, the establishing of his kingdom upon the earth, setting to his hand the second time to restore the house of Israel, should commence on the land of America, and under the auspices of the Government of the United States. This work he has commenced by the hand of his servant Joseph Smith, and those whom he called to be his associates and fellow laborers.

The land of America was a promised land to the pilgrim fathers, and an asylum for the oppressed of all nations. To this land people from all nations flocked, and the Lord inspired them to establish a free government preparatory to the establishment of his kingdom in the latter days. It was in this land he sought out and raised up his servants in their weakness to be the messengers of eternal life to the children of men, that it might go from this land to other nations.

I believe it fell to my lot to be among the first who went to nations of other tongues. Elder Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, and others who accompanied them, opened the door of the Gospel of salvation first to the nation of Great Britain. But, if my memory serves me, at the time Elder Taylor went to France, Elder L. Snow to Italy, myself and Elder Hanson to Denmark, and divers Elders to different nations, it was the first mission of Elders to people of other tongues. This is about ten years ago.

It was after we located in the valleys of these mountains, and this city had become a resting place for the Saints who had been scattered from Nauvoo. On our journey from this place, in the fall of 1849, to visit the nations of Europe, we met large emigrating companies of our brethren and sisters who had been scattered and driven from their possessions in the East. It is marvelous to see the working of our God among the nations of the earth, in gathering out his elect from time to time from those nations. It is marvelous in the eyes of those who understand not the Gospel. They have striven all the day long in their blind zeal to hedge up the way of the servants of God and hinder the spread of his Gospel. Still they perceive it steadily progressing, and the Saints gathering home like doves to their windows. Every effort they make to destroy the people of God, to scatter, divide, and weaken them, seems only to advance their progress and consolidate them in one. We have explained to them why it is they cannot hinder it; but they cannot comprehend. They think it is all accomplished by the talent, ability, ingenuity, and wisdom alone of those who direct the affairs of this Church. They speak of Brigham Young and his Counselors, and other leading Elders of “Mormonism,” as being smart, cunning, shrewd men, who deceive, cajole, blind, and lead the people astray. So far from this being the truth, it is in reality the reverse, to all intents and purposes.

Let any man undertake to dictate, govern, control, lead, and gather together this people by his own wisdom alone, and the result will be like what we have seen within the last two years in this Territory in regard to the endeavors of our enemies to break us up and scatter us to the four winds. Their union is like a rope of sand, and every plan they devise comes to naught, until they are discouraged and say, “Damn it, let us quit and go home.”

Judge Black says, in his explanation in reference to the officials sent to this Territory, that the Government sought the whole country over and sent the best men they could find to administer the principles of equity, justice, and truth to this people. But, in addition to these, let them send special missionaries, the most gifted and talented there are on the earth, to draw off and lead this people by their own cunning, shrewdness, and wisdom, and would they produce the results we now see every day? Would they see a people that move and act in almost perfect harmony and oneness? Let them try it. Let the smartest Elder that can be found in this Church try it.

In bygone days Elders have imagined in their hearts that their wisdom, talent, and ability had something to do with it—that the kingdom of God could not move unless their shoulder was at the wheel—that if they held back in the breeching, they would stop the onward motion of the car. But the Lord left them covered with their own shame and folly, after he had suffered them to try the experiment; and the great car of truth still rolled steadily forward.

Some are inclined to find fault with the Latter-day Saints because of the murder, rapine, theft, adultery, and abominations that are practiced in Salt Lake City and in Utah Territory. Are the Latter-day Saints to blame for this? No. The Latter-day Saints have better business to engage themselves in, which is serving the Lord, working righteousness, doing good to themselves and to all people who will receive good at their hands. Nobody has anything to do with this shooting and killing one another, stealing, breaking into houses, whoredom, running off horses and mules and cattle, and all such sort of abominations—getting drunk and screaming in the streets, but just such as love it. They are not Latter-day Saints who do such things; but, on the contrary, they are those who are striving to destroy “Mormonism,” and they are destroying themselves in answer to the prayers of all the faithful Latter-day Saints.

The Latter-day Saints pray, if the wicked must kill somebody, they may kill those that ought to be killed. You may perhaps think it is wrong to pray that they may kill anybody. We would rather pray that they may be saved. There are various ways of saving men, simply because they will not all be saved in the same way, as there are various ways of making men happy.

There is a class of men who are always miserable only when they are making everybody else so, and their happiness consists in doing all the mischief they can, and injuring everybody around them.

We teach them the principles of the Gospel. Can they hear it? They hear with the ear, but they hear not; they have eyes, but they see not; hearts have they, but they understand not; and they go backward, and fall and perish. When the truth is told to them, they will not believe it; but hand them out a pack of infernal lies, and they will gulp them down as a thirsty ox drinks water. How can such persons learn and understand the truth? As Jesus said to the Scribes and Pharisees anciently, “How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only.”

How can your Judges judge in righteousness and shut their ears to the voice of truth and to the testimony of innocence, and look around in all directions to find some mean scoundrel to come up and testify lies? How can any people be instructed in the things of God and receive light, while they are laboring diligently to shut out every particle of light from their tabernacles?

If you wish to know why the simple testimony of the humble servants of God gathers together this people from the nations of the earth, it is because there was place found in their hearts for the word.

When I went to Denmark, I could not speak the first word of their language, or know the first letter of their alphabet. I was to all intents and purposes a barbarian to them, and they were barbarians to me. I went there because I was sent, with an intention to do the best I knew how, as the Spirit of the Lord might direct me. You may ask if I received the gift of tongues, that I could begin and speak to them in their own language by the power of the Holy Ghost without studying. I answer, Yes, when it pleased the Lord to give it to me; and when it did not, I remained silent. I did not have any special anxiety to preach to them in their own tongue anymore than the Lord wanted to have me do.

I did not do a great deal of preaching in that country, but I did whatever the Lord put into my heart to do as near as I knew how; and I learned the language as fast as the Spirit of the Lord enabled me to do so, that I might bear my testimony to them in their own tongue, and that I might understand what they said to me when they asked me questions and required explanations; and when they wished to correspond with me, that I might be able to write an answer. I had to learn to read and write, and talk to them in their own language. Did the Spirit of the Lord assist me? Yes. I learned their language, and became so familiar with it as to write and speak with them in six months’ time.

The Holy Ghost was with me to assist me. In twenty-one months I published the Book of Mormon, the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and the Hymn Book, and eight or ten pamphlets.

A gentleman upon the vessel, on my return home, having been informed in how short a time I had learned the language, declared it was impossible for any mortal man to become acquainted with the Danish language and use it as I did in so short a time; and pronounced me an impostor to some of the Saints on board who were traveling in company with me to this place, for palming upon them some miraculous thing; and expressed himself as having no doubt that I familiarized myself with the language in college in some other country by years of study.

I was there comparatively alone, and the harvest great and the laborers few, and the Spirit bore testimony that the Lord had much people there. I saw, if they were all to be sought out and gathered home by the labors of men sent from America, and after traveling so long a journey to learn their language, that it was a great work; and the words of Alma came forcibly to my mind, that the Lord raises up men among all the nations of the earth, to give them that portion of his word which they are capable of receiving. And I cried unto the Lord, saying, “O Lord, raise up laborers and send them into this harvest—men of their own tongue, who have been raised among them and are familiar with the spirits of the people.” He has done it. Before I left, there was quite a little army of Elders and Priests, Teachers and Deacons, laboring in the vineyard; and thousands have rejoiced in the testimony of the Gospel borne to them by their fellow countrymen.

Do any of you ask how this came to pass that so many thousands have gathered from that land, and are now in these valleys of the mountains; and why thousands more are longing to come here who are rejoicing in the testimony of the Gospel in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, &c.? I answer—It was not done by the wisdom and learning of man, or by any influence that man himself could exert over that distant people. If any person thinks so for a moment, he thinks so because he knows no better. It is a mystery to them; and they would not believe, if it were unfolded to them.

We testify and bear witness that it is not of man, but of God—that it is the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—that it is the gift and influence of the Holy Ghost that bears witness to the hearts of this people. When in the simplicity of my heart I could speak but little unto them with stammering lips, I said more with my eyes and fingers than with my tongue. The power of the Holy Ghost rested upon the people; and when I asked them if they understood me, “Yes,” said they, “we understood it all.” It was not because I spoke it fully with my tongue, but God made them understand me. If I asked them if they believed it, “Yes,” would be the reply; “we have the testimony of the Holy Ghost bearing witness within us that it is true.”

I laid my hands upon the men that were raised up around about me, and sent them to preach the Gospel; and they were just such men as the Lord sent me; no matter if they were shoemakers, carpenters, chimney sweepers, or any other kind of trade. I told them to go forth and bear witness of what they had heard, and of what they knew; and every time they opened their mouth, a stream of light would flow from them to the people, who were melted before them. This is the experience of every man of God upon all the earth.

You ask the people who are in these valleys who profess to be Latter-day Saints why they are here, and they will tell you they could not keep away; and many will say that if they could have kept away, they would. Say they, “Mormonism is true: We know it.” They feel like Almon Babbitt: he said he would give ten thousand dollars if he could only know “Mormonism” to be untrue.

It troubles those who do not exactly love it, because it interferes with some of their favorite desires: it will not exactly allow them to gratify every wish and desire of their hearts. It curtails them in some of their wickedness, pride, selfishness, and idolatry; and because of this, they do not like it, and they wish it were not true, that they might escape an awful condemnation. Because they know it is true, they cannot get off the hook, and must be drawn in. Ask them if they were so influenced by the wisdom, learning, shrewdness, or cunning of those who taught them the principles of life and salvation, and they will answer you that they know better. There are but few religions you can name, or preachers of any denomination, that have not been heard by the chief bulk of the Latter-day Saints. But did their eloquence, learning, cunning, intelligence, and experience govern and control them, or influence them in any uncommon way? No. But when the simple, naked truth was told to them in childlike simplicity, if it came from a babe, they understood it: it went to their hearts. This is the reason why they are here, and why they stay here. And those who go away are they who come flouncing all the way like a fish caught by the gills, and they keep it up until the gill breaks, when they return again to their native element. I have no objections to this: it is all right.

If men want to fight, and drink whiskey, and roll in the mud, and spue in the gutter, I have no objections. The only objection I have is, that it hurts my feelings to find one of the Seventies, one of the Elders, or one of the High Priests lying on my sidewalk or under my fence in a state of intoxication, and I am obliged to pass by and call him brother. I am obliged to have it thrown to me that I fellowship him. I wish every person to understand that I do not fellowship any such conduct. Still they will plead, and plead, and plead to be forgiven and tried again. Yes, try him again until he reaches another whiskey shop.

I think if those who keep the shop, who hang out the sign, who gather the poison by the pailfull, and keep it to retail out by the dimes’ worth, want that occupation in time, they ought also to have it in eternity, and sell it to Pharaoh and his hosts in hell. I am ashamed of all such Elders. They excuse themselves by saying, “People will have the liquor; and if I don’t sell it, somebody else will; and I might as well have the money as anybody else.” They might as well say, There is a herd of cattle, horses, or mules on the range that will be stolen, and I might as well steal them as anybody else.

The principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do not countenance such conduct. It is Gentilism—Devilism.

It may be asked, Why do not the “Mormons” put a stop to this cheating of one another? I do all I can towards it. When they wish to quit their wickedness, I will try to help them do it. I would not care to see burned down that row of buildings where whiskey is kept and drunkenness encouraged. I do not wish the buildings burned up, but I say I never would occupy one of them. I would rather go and live on the top of one of those mountains than have any of my family occupy one of those cursed houses where all kinds of corruption is practiced.

In years gone by, it has been considered awful oppression here because the Saints in the community did not feel to approve of these things, and there were no army—no federal officers to hold out protection to men when they violated every acknowledged rule of a well-regulated society.

Now, let me say to all such characters—federal officers, the army, Saint and sinner, Jew and Gentile—that instead of being protected in wickedness, they will find the sword of justice that hangs over them will soon fall heavily upon them, and when they least expect it. Do you ask who will wield it? I answer, The Lord Almighty. He will not always look on and see this land polluted by such curses. And those who have professed the name of Jesus Christ, and have had the testimony of Jesus, and depart from the way of the Lord, to pursue covetousness and idolatry, will be the first to feel his wrath in the day of the Lord, when he has borne with them sufficiently. Every man’s works will speak for him, and they will be weighed in the balance, whether he be Jew or Gentile. Every man’s works will make manifest whether he is for law and order—for the principles of the Constitution of the United States and the rights of man, or whether he is here to ride over everybody that will not be influenced by him. The man that does this will find himself in snag harbor, and he will run against snags when and where he least expects it.

The Lord says the wicked shall slay the wicked, and he orders it so. I pray God that he will preserve the righteous, and endue his people who love the truth with grace, that they may let their light shine, and be able to bear testimony of the Gospel to all nations. Amen.

Remarks by Elder Erastus Snow, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 29, 1857.

I am satisfied that that portion of the citizens of Utah who first sought out this mountain retreat have seen and experienced enough of the actions of State Governments and of our National Government—have suffered enough at the hands of officers of State, and by the treatment they have received from mobs organized to operate against them, independent of all law, or nominally under the color of law, to discern clearly the tendency of that spirit which pervades this people and the spirit of opposition which pervades our enemies.

The unbelieving world, which have rejected the Gospel revealed unto us, and a large portion of this people—those who have immigrated to this Territory within a few years past, have not had the benefit of the experience which the minor portion of this people have had; consequently, they have not had forced upon them that series of reflections so well calculated to mature their minds and enable them to contemplate with great precision the final result of all efforts brought to bear against us by our enemies for the overthrow of the work of God in the last days. I presume there is not one of the early members of the Church but what fully anticipated the crisis which has now come upon us. The spirit of prophecy and revelation has been in the midst of this people from the beginning, and has continually foretold this event; and one who was no more than the son of a Prophet, with the benefit of past experience and an observation of the spirit of this people and that of our enemies, could not fail to see that such must be the result, sooner or later.

At every step this kingdom has advanced, the opposition of the ungodly has also advanced. Their hate of the truth has never been laid by. It has seemed to slumber at times, only to wake up with renewed vigor and fresh determination and strength to operate against the truth; while on the other hand the Lord has given this people seasons of rest, that they might take breath and have an opportunity of sending their missionaries to preach the Gospel, that the honest in heart might be gathered out from among the wicked, who are struggling to crush out of existence the last vestige of truth and righteousness upon the earth.

That portion of the citizens of this Territory who were personally acquainted with the history of this Church and with the Prophet Joseph Smith in his last years are now able to view, in the present movement of the United States troops, in the measures of the General Government and Governmental officials, and in the spirit of the people at large, an attempt to carry out, if possible, the same policy that was enacted in the last days of Joseph, which resulted in the expulsion of this people from Illinois.

There is, however, some little difference. Since that period this people have grown a little more numerous; and, instead of being within two hours’ ride of Carthage and Warsaw, they are a thousand miles from the frontier settlements of their enemies. Instead of a military encampment in a cornfield just on the outside of the city of Nauvoo, it is now on the other side of the mountains, about 115 miles from the City of Great Salt Lake.

The pretended designs of our enemies towards us remind me of the speech of Rolla in the play of “Pizarro.” Descanting upon the promises of the bloody and treacherous Spanish conquerors of his countrymen, he says, “They offer us protection. Yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs, covering and devouring them.”

To their unsought and uncalled for protection, our answer should be—“When the State of Missouri, in obedience to her own laws, shall have hung up by the neck ex-Governor Boggs, Austin A. King, old Generals Lucas, Clark, and Wilson, and about twenty-five hundred of her citizens, who were engaged in murdering the Saints, plundering them and driving them from their homes—when they have repudiated the acts of their corrupt Legislature and returned fourfold to all whom they have robbed, with the lawful interest thereon until the time of payment, reinstating those who have been driven from their homes and possessions, making good, as far as money and means can do it, their losses—when Illinois shall have done the same, and the General Government shall take action to maintain the citizens of this Territory in the rightful possession of all the land they have purchased of them, from which they have been driven by the force of mobs, and then admit this people, without a groan or complaint, but with brotherly love, kindness, and fatherly care, to the free and undisturbed enjoyment of life, liberty, and all those political rights that belong to American citizens in common, of which the chief is the right of being governed by men of their own choice and of worshipping God according to the dictates of their own consciences, the principle thing for which our fathers fought—when our Government shall do all this and cease their threats and menaces to intimidate free men, call home their “dogs of war,” and set them to administering justice on the scoundrels at home, and keep away their mean, dirty sycophants, whom they wish to force on this people for their rulers at the point of the bayonet—then we may begin to think of having a little confidence in their high pretensions; then they may talk to us about their boasted protection and their regard for the rights of mankind.”

Until they have done all these things and are willing to pay this Territory some portion of the few hundred thousand dollars which it has expended to preserve peace with the savages around us, we shall have no reason to think that they are honest or sincere in their intentions. Otherwise, we shall be compelled to regard them and their armies as we now look upon Governors Ford of Illinois and Boggs of Missouri, and their murderous clan of mob forces, even as whited sepulchres, fair without, but within full of dead men’s bones, rottenness, and all uncleanness. Until then, we shall have no guarantee for trusting one particle to them or their promises.

When we have trusted in the Lord our God, kept his commandments and revered his laws, he has not betrayed us nor forsaken us in trouble; but he has ever stood by us and led us forth out of affliction, and has given unto us Governors and Judges and Counselors after his own heart, to feed this people with knowledge and understanding—to lead them forth in the paths of peace, unity, and love.

We are satisfied with our present rulers. When we have trusted in our God and his servants, we have been happy and blessed; but when we have trusted to the enemies of our God, we have been pierced with many sorrows.

If any of the citizens of this Territory have not as yet experienced enough of the tender mercies of this generation and the promises of corrupt officials of the United States Government, and they wish still to trust in them a little further, they have the privilege. The way has been kept open for them to leave. Although martial law has been declared in this Territory, and persons are not allowed to pass through, into, or out of it, without a permit from the proper officer, yet it has been declared by our Governor, published abroad, and has been repeatedly acted upon, that all persons feeling dissatisfied, unwilling to remain in their present position, and wishing to go to our enemies, and place themselves under their protection, and accept of their proffers, shall forthwith be furnished with a passport and escort. If they wish to leave for other climates, and will pay their honest debts, and not steal their outfit, they can have the privilege. Two or three small parties have started this fall, embracing the few remains of our Gentile traders who remained in our midst for purposes of speculation; and I have heard that one or two small families who once counted themselves Saints went with them. The road is still open for others to follow who wish to do so.

My own feelings, and I believe the feelings of all the authorities of this people, are, that we want no disaffected or indifferent ones to remain among us. We will not lay a straw in their way, if they will depart in peace, if they do not wish to remain with the people of God and share with them in their joys and sorrows.

The principles of our holy religion claim from us the exercise of our own judgment, and inculcate the largest degree of freedom of soul, and will extend to every soul of man like privileges. The union which exists in the midst of this people, and of which our enemies have ever complained so much, has never been the result of coercion. It has not been created by iron bands placed around the outside of this people, only so far as the Lord has made use of the wicked to persecute and drive them together. That union has been the legitimate result of the principles of truth revealed unto us from heaven and adopted as the guide of their conduct by the people.

Although many of those who have left this people and returned, like the dog to his vomit, and like the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire, and who have gone down again to the filth and degradation of Babylon, have reported that they narrowly escaped with their lives—that efforts had been made to prevent their departure; yet all this people do verily know that they were of their father the Devil, who was a liar from the beginning, and that their tales were base and wicked falsehoods, as an excuse for their own mean and traitorous course. The only tyranny and oppression that ever existed among this people (if, indeed, any virtuous person would call it so), has been the sharpness of the word of God reproving the wickedness of the people, holding the vile and wicked from riding over and trampling under foot the weak and innocent, saying to the people, “If you wish to do wickedly—to oppress each other—to bite and devour each other—if it is your nature to gouge out your neighbor’s eyes, to purloin his property, seduce his wife and daughters—in fine, if you wish to practice wickedness and abomination after the order of the Gentile world from which you have been gathered, retire from the midst of the Saints, return to the hole from whence you have been dug, and wallow again in the filthiness from whence you have been taken, and not attempt to carry on your wickedness in the midst of this people, who love righteousness and desire to put away all unholiness from them.” This is the only oppression which any individual has been able to complain of, in truth and justice, in the midst of this community.

“Mormonism” does not coerce, but all the time persuades, teaches, enlightens, instructs, and invites by the beauty, excellence, and virtue of those holy principles which God has revealed to us, gradually drawing the people together, cementing their feelings, and bringing them, by common consent, to act upon the principles of truth and righteousness.

There is but one alternative for this people: it is our religion, our God, our liberty, or slavery, the Devil, and death. There is no drawing back. The wedge has been entered. Our God has led us forth and directed our course from the beginning to the present hour. “Shall I cause to come to the birth,” saith the Lord, “and not bring forth?” No. Although the woman in travail and in pain to be delivered suffers anxiety, mingled with fear, yet soon her sorrow is forgotten, for joy that a man child is born into the world. So it will be with this people, and our enemies cannot hinder it. The Devil and all the hosts of hell cannot prevent the consummation of the desired object that God has in view.

The kingdom of God is established, no more to be thrown down; and in it we shall live and reign, and every righteous man and woman who love God and his truth more than their own lives and the treasures of this world shall be exalted in the kingdom of God: they shall see the triumph of truth and righteousness, and the kingdom of God shining on the earth as the sun in the firmament. But the time will come when the fainthearted and the wicked, whose knees tremble and who cannot endure the contradiction of the ungodly world, and choose rather to hide their heads and retire, making lies their refuge, will lift up their eyes in hell, being in torment: they will look back, and they will try to repent as it were in sackcloth and ashes: they will seek repentance carefully with tears, but will not find it, because there will be no chance left for them to regain what they have lost. If the Lord has compassion upon them and hears their cries, their weeping, and their bitter lamentation in the day of their degradation and misery, it will be to give them the privilege of becoming, in a future day, the servants of those who maintained their integrity.

The state of my lungs is such that I shall be under the necessity of closing. I pray to God to bless all Israel and help us to keep our covenants to the end. Amen.

Remarks by Elder Erastus Snow, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Wednesday Afternoon, October 7, 1857.

I have listened during the progress of this Conference with very great satisfaction. Everyone that speaks bears testimony to us that our God has not forsaken us, and that the prayers of this people are still acceptable before him, and, notwithstanding our weaknesses and our sins, that we are a blessed and a happy people, and that our God is near at hand to multiply his blessings upon us.

I have rejoiced in listening to my brethren who have recently returned from their missions. I feel that I am one of them, and I thank my heavenly Father for that good Spirit which has so bountifully attended their labors and returned with them.

I do not believe that it has ever fallen to my lot, since we have been a people, to hear, at any one time, so large a number of our returned missionaries stand forth before the people to give in their testimony and speak of the dealings of God with them, as we have heard during this Conference. They universally bear the same testimony, rejoicing in their labors, manifest the goodness of our God upon them and upon the people where they have labored; and it is evidence to my mind of the increased favor of God upon this people, and that it is the faithful prayers of this people that sustain our sons and our brethren who are sent forth by the voice of this people as their representatives to preach the Gospel to the nations.

It appears that there is no one who lifts up his voice to speak in the midst of this people but is constrained to speak good for Israel. There seems to be no doubt upon the minds of the people—no forebodings of distress in the hearts of the Elders of Israel. What there may be lying in our path—I was going to say, we neither know nor care; but we do know that the straightforward path is strewed with blessings, glory, honor, exaltation, and eternal lives. Let us not, therefore, turn either to the right or the left from the path our God has marked out, whatever there may be of trial alongside of the path.

I feel firmly convinced of this, whatever may be by some accounted trials, that when we reach them, if the light of the Lord is in us, we shall pass them without stopping to consider whether they are trials; and we shall look back upon them and count it all joy. To us it will be glory, honor, and exaltation, and steppingstones to that which we are seeking for—the very means, in the hands of God, of preparing us to receive all that he has in store for us.

Is it not enough for us to know that our Father in Heaven will suffer nothing to come upon us, only that which is to prepare us to receive the good he has in store for us? Ask this people, Are the soldiers coming in here? Are we going to have a fight this fall? Are they coming in on our Emigration Road, or going round by Fort Hall? What will the United States do? Will they raise 50,000 volunteers next spring? Shall we burn up what we have got and take it Indian fashion? What is to be the result of all these things?

Ask anybody to tell you; and who is there that will describe the course God will mark out before this people and the course our enemies will take towards us, or the precise details of the program that is before us. Who is there that can tell us?

Ask this or that Elder if he has any revelation on the subject, or appeal to the congregation of the Saints; and who is there that can answer it? I confess I cannot answer it, nor have I ever heard it answered by anybody else in detail; and I conclude the Lord will take his own course; and doubtless he will show us the program as fast as we are prepared to act it, and that will be fast enough.

The Lord hath shown us both ends of the drama. As to the particular scenery of the different parts of the drama, it will be made manifest from time to time. When the curtain is raised, we shall see it, if we are on hand to play our part. I am fully persuaded we have a good manager, and he is our God: it is he that is moving upon the checkerboard of nations, and he understands the game and will make the right moves.

Go back and take a retrospective view of this people and the dealings of God with us from the time of the organization of this Church, the persecutions through which this people have passed in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and the various places where we have been located; and when has the Lord beforehand made known all the particulars of the scenery through which we were destined to pass? He has always given us general items and sufficient to encourage every faithful man to do his duty and trust in him for the result. But if all the details were made known unto us—if we could see every minutia portrayed, would there be a chance for the exercise of our faith in the same degree as now? Would there be a chance for the faith of this people to be shown in the same degree?

For my own part, I feel perfectly satisfied to leave it in the hands of our God, where it is, and where it should be, to make manifest unto us just as much from time to time as he sees is necessary to bear up and sustain this people.

It is through faith that the Lord performs his wonders among his people; and in enduring that trial of their faith he gives a blessing; and often the Lord shapes trials in a manner different from our expectations. We, in our limited capacity, may mark out in our minds a program; and when he moves upon the checkerboard, he does not move the men we have in our minds, but he shapes and moves in another way; and we should be satisfied with the result. He will get the game, and in the end will move into the king row and be able to move both ways,

I feel first-rate. All is right with the Lord; all is right with his kingdom, and with everybody that is right. And may the Lord help us to keep his commandments forever! Amen.

Remarks by Elder Erastus Snow, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, October 4, 1857.

I feel like offering a few of my reflections in connection with those remarks we have heard this morning from Elder Hyde. I feel that they are timely and good for the congregation of the Saints to reflect upon and treasure up. I would not say anything to draw the minds and reflections of the people from those sentiments which have been presented by Elder Hyde this morning, but rather to enforce and impress them upon the minds of the congregation, that every person capable of understanding may be able to treasure them up, that these principles may abide in our hearts; for, says the Savior, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, they shall be in you as living water, and ye shall bear much fruit.”

Now, this people are not perishing for lack of knowledge: they have not a lack of the words of the Lord. But if this people perish for lack of knowledge at all, it is because they do not retain the word of the Lord which is delivered to them: it is not because it is not planted in our hearts, but because our ground is not properly broken up. The ground of our hearts is not prepared, that the word that is sown may bring forth fruit. This is the trouble and the reason why we do not advance and bring forth more fruit, and grow more thrifty in the work of the Lord our God, and increase in faith, in power with God, in unison with him and with those whom he has set over us, and with one another.

The trouble is not in our God, neither is it in our fellowservants—those whom he has set to be our leaders, our teachers; for God is with them, and he would be with them much more abundantly, if we as a people were more ready to listen to them, and there was place found in us for their words, and their words take effect in our hearts. Then his Spirit and power would increase upon us, and there would be no lack. The lack is in us—in the people, and always has been, and is not in our God. He is waiting and anxious to pour out blessings, and glory, and honor, and exaltation upon his people, far more than we have ever received, and far more than we are capable of receiving; and the only reason we have not received it long ago is because there was no place found for it.

The great labor of the Lord and of all his servants is to prepare the hearts of the people, to concentrate the feeling of the people, to concentrate their faith, and to make them one, and to prepare their hearts to bring forth the fruits of the kingdom of God. This is the labor of preaching and praying, of exhorting, inviting, and beseeching all the time—to move upon the hearts of the people and convince them of the necessity of union—to impress it upon them, that they may remember all those principles which alone can exalt them. And, as was said by Elder Hyde, the responsibility of our conduct rests upon ourselves, and not upon our leaders. The responsibility that is resting upon our leaders is alone the responsibility of doing what the Lord wants them to.

The responsibility of what befalls this people is no more upon brother Brigham than it is upon me, and no more upon me than it is upon you; and every individual soul in all Israel has his own responsibility to bear, and he cannot throw it off. Whether it be good or evil—whether it be joy or sorrow—whether it be affliction or blessings, the responsibility thereof rests upon us individually.

Brothers Brigham, Heber, and Daniel, who are they but our fellowservants—those that the Lord has given us to be our leaders and the mouthpieces of the Lord unto this people—the legitimate channel through which to lead, govern, and control this people? But are they responsible any more than you or I? No, not one whit. When they have discharged their duties, they are as free from responsibility as you or I. When they have done what lies in their power to do, they are exonerated before their God, although they feel as no other men on earth can feel, because there are no others placed in their condition; and it is impossible for any others to feel as they feel and have the same interest they have for the welfare of this people.

It is God who rules and leads; it is God who controls the destinies of all men. Every man is in his hands, to be used as he will. Whithersoever this people are led, they will be led through that channel he has intended; and whether they go to the east, west, north, or south—whether they burn their dwellings and flee to the mountains, or remain here—whether they fight the Gentiles, or turn their backs upon them—whatsoever they have to do, it will be the Lord Almighty that does it; but he will do it through the channel he has appointed.

But will the responsibility of thousands be upon those men that are set over us to lead us? No, it will not. I am well aware that there are a great many people who in their childish simplicity feel that any act that they do is nothing to them.

So far as taking thought or having trouble in our spirits about what is to come or what will be the result of things, it is well that we should set our hearts at rest and be at ease and feel quiet, and our spirits calm as a summer’s morning and resigned, and our feelings prayerful and peaceful. But as far as feeling indifferent and like throwing off the responsibility from our shoulders upon our leaders, this should not be; neither should we claim exemption from the responsibility of anything in Israel. Everyone should have a share of that responsibility, and they cannot throw that responsibility off; for upon my head devolves the responsibility of directing my hands and my feet and other members of my body in their exercises. It is equally the duty of every other member of the body to administer to the head. The hands have to feel the head, and the head has to be properly guarded and shielded, that it may be active and the brain vigorous, that every movement may be wisely directed and every energy of the body directed in proper channels.

Our God deals with us as a people. He does not deal with brother Brigham, brother Heber, or brother Daniel separately and distinctly from this people, or the people distinct from them. We cannot be separated; we are one. We are the Twelve Apostles, the High Priests, the Seventies, the Elders, the Priests, the Teachers, the Deacons, the Bishops. Every quorum of the Priesthood, every man in Israel, and every woman in Israel are members of the same body—branches of the same vine, and partake of the same spirit, unless they are branches that are withered and dried up. God will deal with us as a whole all the time.

How was it with Israel of old, as has been referred to by Elder Hyde? They were led by the hand of God all through the wilderness. God led Moses. Sometimes they were led in one direction, and sometimes in another. They were brought up against the Red Sea; and did not they, in their blindness, chide with Moses because he had led them thus? Looking at things naturally, they could say, “You might have gone round and avoided this snare: we might have taken another road, instead of running right into this canyon, between these two mountains, and against the Red Sea, where there is no chance to dodge; and so we are to perish by the armies of Egypt close in our rear and the sea before us.” These were the feelings of a great many weak in faith and ignorant people among them; and they were ready to pick up stones to stone Moses because he had done it.

There are a great many instances of the same kind during their forty years’ sojourning in the wilderness. Sometimes they were led into the wilderness when they might have followed some streams of water, had the Lord have led them in that channel. And when they were led into different circumstances there were always some who complained and threw the responsibility upon Moses, exonerating themselves.

Some wished to turn back unto Egypt, and a great many plans were in view to extricate themselves from difficulties; except fleeing to the Almighty, who had led them into those difficulties; and time and again the Lord rebuked them and manifested his power to deliver them. But who led them? Did Moses lead them? No. The Almighty led them. Moses was his servant, and led them as the Almighty directed him.

Why did not the Almighty direct him to lead them round the Red Sea instead of through it? And why did he not lead them to follow the streams, instead of taking them across the desert? Why did he not lead them a straight course from Egypt to Canaan, instead of keeping them forty years in the wilderness? Who was most to blame for it? Was the responsibility upon him, or was it upon the people? Why was it upon the people? Because they were a stiffnecked people, a hardhearted people, and an ignorant people.

We read in the Scriptures that they were so stiffnecked as to provoke the Lord, and he came out upon them in his wrath and consumed them from his presence—sometimes by fire that came forth from his presence, at other times by causing the earth to open and swallow them up by thousands, at other times by pestilence, and at other times by fiery flying serpents which came among them and bit them that they died.

Why was the anger of the Lord kindled against them? Because of the hardness of their hearts and the stiffness of their necks. It was not because of Moses. Only in one instance did Moses offend. That was not in any of his movements in leading and controlling Israel, but because he did not sanctify the Lord God of Israel before their eyes when he smote the rock of Horeb. This was the only instance in which the Lord condemned Moses; but he directed Moses how to lead Israel, and Moses led them in the way he was directed; and they were tried forty years in the wilderness, until most of them were worn out and perished.

Were they a wicked people above all other people, that their carcasses should thus fall in the wilderness? What think you, brethren and sisters—ye that are called Latter-day Saints, were they, as a people, more wicked than the rest of mankind, that God should have dealt with them thus? I answer, No. But of a truth they were the best people upon the face of the earth, and the only people that had the Priesthood of God among them.

They were the people whom God had delivered from Egyptian bondage with an outstretched arm; and by his power, they were the only people God could make use of. They had faith sufficient that he could govern and control them; and so far from being the worst, they were the best people upon the earth; but upon them rested the responsibility, and they did not improve upon their privileges and appreciate their blessings as they ought to have done; and for this reason were they set forth as examples to all who should live after; and the responsibility of their carcasses falling in the wilderness, the responsibility of their being led into the desert, the responsibility of all their trials and troubles was not upon Moses and their leaders, nor upon their God, but upon themselves; for, had they been pliable, submissive, willing, and obedient, and had their spirits been pliable before the Lord, willing to be molded and fashioned, they could have been led forth conquering and to conquer, and been planted in Canaan just as well in two years as in forty. And if this people were capable of receiving it, the Lord could as well give them the kingdom today as forty years hence. And if the people of the United States would have hearkened to the voice of the Lord, given through the Prophet Joseph, they might have been a more prosperous and powerful nation today.

The history of all religious generations and dispensations is similar, and shows this fact to us, that human nature is the same in every age of the country, and among every country, and among every people—that all men are subject to like weaknesses and have to be taught gradually.

Children grow from infancy to manhood; and whether God leads our footsteps in correct paths or not, he is only leading us to school: he is only directing our course in a round of experience by which he trains us, and makes us one, cements our hearts together, and rids our spirits of iniquity and abomination. He wants to teach men and women how to walk together in union and be great—to teach this people how to be bound to him and to those that he sets over them, and to teach his Saints how to reign in the house of Israel as his servants.

I do feel conscious that if the men of Israel do their duty and live their religion, reformation will go forth from them through their families, and it cannot be stayed; and every branch of every family in Israel will feel the effects of that reformation: every woman and all her children will feel it.

If a man of God lives his religion and is controlled only by the Spirit of Zion in his family, and if he has a turbulent, disobedient spirit in his family, that spirit will be subject or that individual will be separated from his family, upon the same principle that turbulent persons that repent not are severed from this Church by the vote of this people; and when that turbulent person is severed, he will dry up and wither, and will be gathered and burned with the ungodly.

It may be that heretofore the fanning-mill has blown out more of the men than it has of the women; but if it has done this, it is because the sieve is not quite fine enough. But as the work of reformation goes forward, it will sift to the very bottom; and every member of every family in Israel will feel the effects of the driving element that will sanctify them for the Lord Almighty or separate them from this people.

Every man in Israel is responsible in a certain degree for the conduct of his wives and children. He has covenanted that he will assume that responsibility; that is, he will assume the responsibility of the sins of his wives, if he fails to discharge his duties towards them in teaching and leading them in the ways of life and salvation.

I assume the responsibility of the acts of my wives and children so far as they are obedient to me; and when I discharge my duties to them, reprove them in their transgression, set a godly example before them, live my religion, and show forth the spirit thereof in my course with my family, and they will not drink into the same spirit and receive good at my hands, those consequences shall roll from me upon them; and it becomes my duty to separate myself from those sins and from the rebellious members of my family, that we may not all be cursed because of the transgression of one or two individuals.

But if I do not discharge my duties towards them, admonish them when they are out of the way, instruct them in their duties, and walk as a man of God before them, the consequences and responsibility of every individual’s transgressions, even those of every wife and every child I have, and of every evil that is done in my house, shall rest upon me. God has laid it upon me.

Sometimes we may err by being remiss in duty—too lenient in our families, and some of us may be under condemnation by being too careless about transgressors in our families; for if we hold fellowship with transgressors and spirits that are in rebellion against God and that will not repent and humble themselves—if we close our ears to it and go to sleep while wickedness is stalking unrebuked through our habitations, we become partakers in that transgression, and the consequences thereof will stick to us.

But if the head of a family reproves iniquity and seeks to purge it from his presence—from his family, then his hands are free from stain of guilt; he is not a partaker in the transgression, and by his doings he says he will no longer hug to his bosom that individual—he will no longer eat and drink with him or her as a member of the body of Christ—he will no longer be held responsible for their sins.

So should every man and every family rid themselves of evil and transgressors in their midst; for God deals with every family as a whole, as he deals with this people as a whole; and every man in Israel is responsible, and that responsibility he assumes when he assumes the responsibility of a family.

If there is no sieve fine enough yet to separate the dross from the wheat of the female portion of this community, I tell you, in the name of Israel’s God, there is a fine one preparing, and it will separate the chaff from the wheat from every family in Israel, as sure as there is a God in Israel, until the families of Israel shall be sanctified before the Lord—until they shall be one, even all the families in Israel, that the Lord God shall accept and not be ashamed of them.

There are many ways by which this may be accomplished; but the Lord in his own due time will bring it to pass. We naturally cling to our families, loving and cherishing them; so does every man that feels the weight of his responsibility—that is set over this people to administer in any department thereof: he feels his heart full of compassion, and he desires the salvation of every member thereof. So does our Father desire the salvation of every member of his family.

Many among us, in their ignorance, manifest a weakness of soul in training up their offspring. Their weakness is such that they cannot administer chastisement unto their children; but they love them with a foolish, blind, ignorant love, that gratifies every desire and allows them to have their own way and pursue the channel of their own inclinations unrebuked, unchastened, until they grow up wild, as it were, without any proper impulse being given to their minds. If I feel satisfied in thus allowing my offspring to follow the bent of their own inclinations, God will hold me responsible for their evil acts.

If any man have members in his family whom he cannot control by the principles of the Gospel, far better were it for him, if they want to go to the States or to any other country, to give them a good outfit and send them off, get them out of the way, and let them go their own way: far better this than to harbor them where they were like a viper in his bosom, corrupting and corroding in the midst of his family.

The female portion of this community have to bear their share of this responsibility; and we know they are the best set of women that exist upon the earth; and that all the world will bear witness to, when they talk about plurality.

Men of some discretion in the Gentile world ask questions about the operations of the plurality of wives among us. “How many wives live in each house? How do they get along in their associations? Are they all the time quarrelling and fighting?” A man said to me once, “My wife would not stand it five minutes, if I should bring a woman into my house to have a share of my company and my affections: I should have a hell upon earth, and no house that I could build would be big enough to hold my wife. It is marvelous to me how you can live, and how it is you are not killed.”

They cannot understand it, because they are governed by their passions, and not by principles; and it is the hardest thing in the world for them to be convinced that this people are governed by principle. This is the doctrine we have been preaching abroad, and it is the very thing the Gentiles will not receive; and they marvel and wonder that we do not tear each other’s eyes out. They say this would be the case with them: in a little while they would be bald and blind and full of wounds, bruises, and putrifying sores; or, like the Kilkenny cats, use each other up all but the tails, and then the tails would jump at each other. So it would be among them indeed; for there is no law of the Lord that would keep the people together a minute in the peace and order that exist here.

Existence among this people is of itself one of the greatest privileges. The world of mankind may soon know that God is with us, and that he is at the helm, that he is the founder of this work, and that the women as well as the men are the best upon the earth, and that we are determined to live and be governed by principle and not passion.

Have we all learned to be altogether thus governed? No, we have not. But we are learning it: the men and women of Israel are learning it; but some of them are very dull scholars, and would a great deal rather go off and play than take a lesson; and they whine and cry over it, and sit on the dunce block rather than study and learn their lessons; and they will be dunces, because nothing but foolishness is bound up in their hearts. But many of us are learning to be governed by principle, not passion, and learning that we must become one—that there is somebody else that has feelings besides them—that there is somebody else worthy of respect and love besides them—that there are some good qualifications in some other being—and some other woman’s children have some claims as well as mine; they are learning to let principle rule them.

Well, go on: let the good work continue. This is my prayer all the time. Are all the families of Israel and every woman striving herself to play well her part and reverence her husband as her lord; for he is her lord. Will she ever have another? No, never; and if she ever expects to have another, she has not learned “Mormonism” aright. She may tear herself loose from him and attach another, but she may have a worse one: she ought to have a worse one. If she cannot learn to honor him, the next one she gets, if she is permitted to have another, ought to be a worse one. How shall women honor their husbands? Just as we honor brother Brigham in his place, and the authorities of the Wards in their places; because upon him is laid the responsibility of that family, and he cannot get rid of it. He is in duty bound to purge them of their follies, and they are in duty bound to listen to his reproofs and honor him and pray for him, that he may be led aright.

Do the women, when they pray, remember their husbands? Do you pray for brother Brigham? Yes, you should always pray for him. But when you pray for him, do you pray also for your own husband, that he may have the inspiration of the Almighty to lead and govern his family as the lord? Do you uphold your husband before God as your lord? “What! My husband to be my lord?” I ask, Can you get into the celestial kingdom without him? Have any of you been there? You will remember that you never got into the celestial kingdom without the aid of your husband. If you did, it was because your husband was away, and someone had to act proxy for him. No woman will get into the celestial kingdom, except her husband receives her, if she is worthy to have a husband; and if not, somebody will receive her as a servant.

We have one God, the Father of us all, who is graciously kind to us; and those who call upon his name receive his Spirit; but the spirit we have got to be in is for every woman to be one with her husband, and every man to be one with those that are set over him in the Lord. Thus we become as branches of one vine, partaking of the same spirit.

Does every woman pray for her children and with her children? Does she teach them to reverence their father and honor him ? If she does not teach them thus to honor him in her own words and examples, her children learn disobedience from her. Show me disobedient children, and I will show you disobedient parents, the world over.

Where there are disobedient and rebellious children in the midst of Israel, tell me who their father and mother are, and I will point out to you disobedient, rebellious, disaffected parents; and if there is a woman in any family whose children dishonor their father, I will show you a woman that dishonors her husband and shows him disrespect, from which the children take their example.

We do not want such women in Israel: we do not want their offspring, nor anything that pertains to them, except they repent. If they will have their children learn righteousness, let them seek it themselves, and pray to God in their apartments for their little ones. It is the mothers in Israel that have the charge of chil– dren; the men of Israel are abroad among the nations of the earth to preach the Gospel and fight the battles of Zion, to go abroad and return once in a few years, perhaps, to visit their family and become acquainted with their children. God wishes the mothers in Israel to assume that responsibility, and assume it by the Holy Ghost, that there may be a generation raised up that shall be fit for the Lord to use.

Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, ye mothers in Israel, and fast, and hunger and thirst after righteousness. Pray for and with your little children in your apartments. Is it enough for a father to gather together his wives and children when he is at home, and pray with them? That is his duty; and every mother should take pattern by his example, and with their own offspring follow his example and call down the blessings of heaven upon them, and they will learn from her. While they listen to her prayers, they will learn to lisp from her mouth the words of prayer and thanksgiving to God; and faith will rest upon them, and the Holy Ghost will rest upon them, and they will be inspired with faith and power, and draw down blessings upon her and upon their father; and the blessings of God will rest upon them from their mother’s womb, if they pursue this course.

May the God of heaven help us to pursue this course, one and all, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.