Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, July 24th, 1881.

The speaker read the 18th chapter of the Revelation of St. John, and said: This chapter which I have read in your hearing, contains a series of important predictions concerning Babylon. It is found four chapters after another prediction concerning the restoration of the Gospel. The sixth verse of the 14th chapter of the same book says: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” The next verse says—“And there followed another angel saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” We would infer from this that one consequence of the preaching of the Gospel, or the declaration of it by this angel that should fly through the midst of heaven, would be the downfall of Babylon. We are not left in doubt, as Latter-day Saints, respecting the application of this name Babylon. Commentators have been puzzled to explain what this meant, or to what city or people it applied, but in the records that have come to us this is made so plain that I suppose there is no Latter-day Saint who entertains any doubt respecting this matter. One consequence which should follow the preaching of the Gospel, as I have said, should be the downfall of Babylon; but in the first verses that I have read it appears there should be a cry go forth before Babylon should fall. “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” There should be, it appears from these passages that I have read in your hearing, several events connected with the preaching of the declaration of the Gospel by this angel that should fly through the midst of heaven—there should be a cry go forth among the people to come out of Babylon, out of this system which had made all nations drunk with her fornications, and no doubt this would be done in a manner that would be so remarkable that all the inhabitants of the earth would have the testimony concerning it.

There have been a number of predictions made concerning the gathering together of people from various nations and from the midst of various peoples, Isaiah and Micah, two ancient prophets, have left on record their plain predictions concerning certain events that should take place in the last days connected with the gathering of people together. Their predictions concerning these events are among the most remarkable that are contained in their books, and as Latter-day Saints we fully believe these events are taking place and have been taking place for a great many years. Isaiah, in speaking about this matter, uses very much the same language as Micah. He says in the 2nd chapter, commencing at the 2nd verse: “And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

Now this is a remarkable prediction concerning the gathering together of the people in the last days. I have often thought in connection with this latter-day work that one of the most remarkable features of the divinity of the work is to be found in the gathering together of the people called Latter-day Saints. As we firmly believe, the prediction that I read concerning the coming of the angel with the everlasting gospel has been fulfilled in the establishment of this Church. The Elders of this Church have testified of this for many years, in fact since its first organization—that it was necessary for the everlasting gospel to be restored in its primitive simplicity and purity from heaven, there being no Church in existence upon the earth that possessed it, and, therefore, God the Eternal Father, in fulfillment of his designs and the predictions of the Holy Prophets, condescended to send angels from heaven to restore the primitive Gospel with its accompanying gifts and powers from heaven.

The Elders of this Church have often been questioned as to the necessity of such a revelation; for the Gospel, as they believe, was in existence upon the earth. “Why,” it, has been asked, “do you mean to say that we do not have the Gospel? that we do not have churches organized by the will of heaven? that the Christian religion as believed and practiced by us is not divine?” These queries have often been propounded to the Elders of this Church when they have testified that God has restored through the ministration of holy angels the everlasting gospel in its original purity. There has been but one answer to these queries; that if the Church of Christ existed in its original purity upon the earth, then which out of the numerous sects was that Church? How shall we distinguish it? Hundreds of sects exist upon the earth that profess to be the Church of Christ. The ministers of these various sects claim that they are the ministers of Jesus Christ, yet in many instances contend concerning doctrine, concerning methods of Salvation, concerning ordinances concerning many matters that in the mind of the great majority are deemed essential unto salvation. For instance, there are Christian churches today which believe in at least three forms of baptism. Now Paul has expressly declared that there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Yet, as I have said, there are churches which are considered orthodox in christendom, that have three different forms of baptism. One believes in sprinkling, another in pouring, and another in immersion. And they differ as to the methods of immersion and the preparatory steps to be taken before being immersed, and before being sprinkled, and so with almost every cardinal doctrine of the Christian religion. There being this diversity, a man with the Bible in his hand going forth in the midst of the Christian sects with an anxious desire to know which is of God, would be puzzled beyond expression to find out which of the various churches laying claim to being divine, and to being the authentic church of Christ, was the true church. He, if he could not obtain knowledge from God, or some communication that would satisfy his mind, would be compelled to give up in despair, or to content himself with the idea that he would join that which suited him best and risk the consequences, hoping that he would fall into the hands of a merciful God. It is on this account that the Elders of this Church have constantly testified that there was a necessity for divine revelation; that in these days, God being the same yesterday, today and forever, those who sought unto Him to obtain knowledge from Him in the proper way, could obtain that knowledge, and could receive some communication that would satisfy them as to the course which they should take.

The Church of Christ—which is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—has been organized as we testify according to the original pattern, with Apostles and Prophets, with Evangelists, with Pastors and Teachers, and the various officers that were contained in the ancient church, having all the essential features of the primitive church. But not this alone. The Gospel as taught is claimed to be the same Gospel in every particular as was preached by the Savior while upon the earth, and committed by him to his Apostles to declare unto all nations; the same doctrine, the same ordinances, the same gifts and the same blessings. The Latter-day Saints are distinct from all other denominations which claim to be Christian in this respect: that they claim that if they obey the same form of doctrine that was taught by the servants of God anciently, and have the ordinances administered by those having authority from heaven, that the same results will follow, that the same gifts, the same blessings, the same supernatural manifestations will attend the believers in those doctrines today that attended believers in ancient days. Numerous testimonies have been borne that these have been the results. In every land where the Elders of this Church have gone to preach the Gospel, hundreds have embraced it, and after having embraced it have testified that they have received the gifts as promised by the Savior, and as promised also by those who have gone forth to declare this Gospel. I suppose that when these declarations have been made thousands of persons have said—“If this be true, and if the supernatural gifts that Jesus promised unto his disciples follow the preaching of your Gospel, or that which you call ‘Mormonism,’ then why cannot you give us a sign, that we may see for ourselves and be convinced that it is divine?” This is a very easy way of appealing to the Elders and, as many believe, of cutting them off from any further statement respecting their claims until they show a sign. But those who ask this forget that Jesus himself gave no signs to convince unbelievers. When applied to himself to give a sign, he said it was a wicked and an adulterous generation that sought for a sign, and no sign should be given them. And on one occasion, when he visited a certain place, it is recorded of him that he did no miracle because of the unbelief of the people. Now it would seem that if signs had to be given to convince the people that would have been the best place Jesus could have labored, a place where unbelief was most prevalent, and when he himself was appealed to. But he refused to do so. He did not come for the purpose of giving men signs. They were told in the Scriptures that “these signs shall follow them that believe,” they should not come to convince men and to make them believe. Now in this respect the Latter-day Saints have had considerable experience. We know very well that the Lord has not given signs for any such purpose, and yet I suppose in this congregation, were liberty given to speak and to bear testimony, there are hundreds and perhaps thousands under the shade of this roof who would testify that they have seen the mighty power of God follow the administration of the ordinances of this Church. But I think myself that God has given unto us greater evidences and more convincing than the working of miracles. In these days when there are so many materialists, as they are called, when the senses of men are appealed to, to convince them of supernatural power, it seems to me that this is about one of the weakest evidences that could be brought forward to establish the divinity of the work. If men were to work miracles before me, to convince me of the truth of any system, I could not be convinced by any such evidence. My mind is of such a character that I could not accept miracles as evidence of the divinity of the system with which the men were connected who worked these wonderful powers. In fact we are told in the Scriptures, that the day would come when miracles should be wrought by false prophets, and men would be deceived by false evidence of this character. It is an easy thing to deceive the senses, we see it every time our theater is occupied by a magician—we see things done that hoodwink our senses. Our eyes are deceived, our ears are deceived; all our senses are deceived by shrewd, cunning men, by men who are expert in manipulating various articles, and if they were to set themselves up as the apostles of some system, and declare that these were the evidences of the divinity of that system, and we should believe this sort of evidence, we might be converted to error. All those who are familiar with the Bible know the experience of Moses before Pharaoh. There was scarcely a miracle that Moses wrought that the magicians of the king did not imitate, and every miracle that was wrought only tended to harden the heart of the king, and make him determined that he would not let the children of Israel go, so that we see that miracles in and of themselves are no evidence of the divinity of any system, nor of the power and the authority from God of the men who work them.

But did the Lord ever have a people upon the earth at any time whom he called his own who did not have power from God? If there ever was such a people the Bible has failed to give us any account of them. From the days of Adam down to the days of John the Revelator—a portion of whose writing I have read this afternoon—he made manifest his power unto his servants, and through his servants unto the inhabitants of the earth. He has communicated his mind and His will in great plainness whenever he had a people upon the earth; there is not a single exception. John the Baptist, it is said was a mighty prophet. Jesus said no greater prophet had been born of woman. Yet did no miracles, but he was attended by great power. One reason why he was called the greatest prophet ever born of woman was that he had the privilege of baptizing the Son of God, a privilege that no other human being had, and it was so great a privilege that doubtless it distinguished him above all the prophets that had preceded him or that followed him. But he had revelation from God, though he did no miracle, yet he was a prophet. He was filled with the spirit of prophecy and of revelation, and he declared in great plainness to the people who lived in Judea, that the coming of the Messiah was near at hand, and when he baptized him, he bore testimony that he was the veritable Son of God, the Messiah, and he was greatly endowed by the Almighty, as were all his servants of whom we have any account in the Scriptures. But as I have said, there are evidences connected with the Church of God at all times which are greater than those manifestations to which I have alluded which are called supernatural and which men seem to greatly desire to behold. I believe that if it were to be told to the inhabitants of the earth that a man that was nigh unto death was about to be administered to by “Mormon” Elders, and that he would be raised up from that bed of sickness, that people would flock by thousands to witness that manifestation. And if God would consent to do such a thing, do you think they would believe any more in the divinity of the work of God or in the mission of the men who had thus administered than they did before? I do not believe that men can be convinced as they should be convinced by such manifestations. It has been a matter of remark among those who have had experience in this Church, that where men have been brought into the Church by such manifestations, it has required a constant succession of them to keep them in the Church; their faith has had to be constantly strengthened by witnessing some such manifestations; but where they have been convinced by the outpouring of the spirit of God, where their judgment has been convinced, where they have examined for themselves and become satisfied by the testimony of Jesus in answer to their prayers and to their faithful seeking unto the Lord for knowledge—where this has been the case they have been more likely to stand, more likely to endure persecution and trial than those who have been convinced through some supernatural manifestation of the character to which I have alluded.

Now, this Apostle, whose writings I have read, has borne testimony that a cry should go forth after the declaration of the everlasting gospel to all the inhabitants of the earth to come out of Babylon. It is a very remarkable fact connected with the preaching of this Gospel, that wherever it has been preached, in every land to which the Elders of the Church have gone, though nothing was said unto the people for years after the Church was organized, concerning the doctrine which had been revealed to the Church, that is, the doctrine of gathering—though nothing had been said concerning that doctrine, the spirit of gathering together took possession of the converts of this Church. There are thousands of people throughout this Territory, who, before they received this Gospel, never expected to leave the land of their birth. Some born in the Eastern States, some in the Middle States, some in the Southern States, some in the Western States, some in Canada and in Europe, and in various parts of the earth—they had not the remotest idea in their minds before they heard the preaching of the “Mormon” Elders that they would ever leave their homes; they never thought of it, it never entered into their minds. And yet it is a very remarkable thing that when they heard the Gospel and became convinced by its truth, directly afterwards, or simultaneously with the hearing of it they were seized with an intense desire to leave the land of their nativity, break up their old associations, and gather with the people of God. I look upon this as one of the most remarkable phenomena that has ever been witnessed. There is nothing we read of in either sacred or profane history that approaches this work in being remarkable. It is true that Moses led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. But they were one people, they were only sojourning in the land of Egypt. The traditions which had come down to them from their fathers were that they should leave that land and go back to the land which God had promised to their great ancestor Abraham. When Moses came to them he came to fulfil preconceived ideas; he came to carry out traditions that had come down to them and which were sacred in their memories; they were looking for some such event as the leading of them forth from bondage in Egypt to the land of Canaan. On this account, therefore, it is not a parallel case. But we see in these mountains from north to south, extending some 600 or perhaps 800 miles north and south, a string of settlements built up by people of various nations who have not come to this land because of the desirableness of the land; who have not come to Utah because it is rich in minerals, who have not come to Utah because it abounds in agricultural resources; who have not come to Utah because it is a healthy climate, or because of some advantages of this character. If we visit the settlements in Idaho, and converse with the people who live in these settlements, and travel from there through Utah, down into Arizona, and converse with the people in their settlements and ask them the motive that prompted them to come to this land—why are you here? Why did you leave your former homes? Some of you are eastern people, some southern, some western, some from the middle States, some from the various countries of Europe, some from far-off Australia and New Zealand, and some even from Africa and from the East Indies—you ask these people why did you come here? What motive had you in view when you came to Utah to settle? And the universal reply would be from every adult member of this Church, “I came here because I believed it was the will of God I should do so. I was prompted by a feeling I could not resist to leave my former home, to dissolve my connection with my kindred, to break my old associations and to travel and cast my lot with the Latter-day Saints.” This would be the universal response if the people were interrogated upon this point. Some have left pleasant homes, which before hearing and obeying the Gospel they never expected to leave, it was a matter they had not contemplated. Now to my mind, my brethren and sisters, this is one of the most remarkable features of this work to see a people moved, upon as this people have been in various lands, all taking up their line of march and gathering together into one place. As I have said, we fail to see anything in his– tory that corresponds with it. In the days of the Apostles, such a doctrine was not taught. The Apostles built up branches of the Church in various places where they could get opportunity. They baptized the people and organized them and left them, and they were overcome in time. There was no gathering place. It was so in previous ages. But in these days, in conformity as I firmly believe, and as the most of you doubtless believe—in conformity with the prediction that I have read, the prediction of Isaiah, and in conformity with the prediction of the Apostle John, when he said there should be another voice calling upon the people to come out from Babylon—in conformity with these predictions these things have been accomplished. Now if I were to ask you, could I or could any other man induce you by any human reasoning to have done this unless you yourselves had been moved upon? I know very well what your response would be. You would say that it would be impossible for any human influence to have operated upon your minds to have brought this about. You are witnesses in this respect of the power of God upon you. You know whether it was the inducements held out by the Elders; you know whether it was the preaching of the Elders, whether it was the arguments of the Elders, or whether it was any other influence of this character that operated upon your mind in this matter. If the thousands that are numbered in this Church had the opportunity of testifying, they would say, “I was moved upon by a power that I could not resist. I had enjoyed the society of my friends, I had intended to live with them all my life before I heard this Gospel; but when I heard it a greater love sprang up in my heart, than I had ever before known. The love of kindred became feeble as compared with it. I felt as though I could not be happy away from the society of those who believe as I believe and who had embraced the same truths that I had embraced. I therefore dissolved my connection with my kindred. I bade them farewell, and I went forth a stranger to cast my lot among a strange people whom I had learned to love because I had received the same spirit that they possessed.” And we all know—every one who has had any experience in this Church—how strong that feeling is. Why, to keep the Latter-day Saints from gathering together you would have to put them in dungeons, you would have to deprive them of their liberty. The most powerful magnet never attracted towards it a substance for which it had affinity with any greater influence than this Gospel has attracted the people who comprise the Church. I look upon it as I have said, as one of the most remarkable phenomena connected with the latter days that we behold anywhere among the human family at the present time. It is a most wonderful spectacle. Here are people of almost every nationality known to Christendom, people speaking almost every variety of language—that is, the language of every Christian nation—not trained alike, not educated in the same schools, not brought up in the same religion, with varied traditions, and varied knowledge, yet they are drawn from the various nations of the earth, into one place impelled by one common impulse; for it is not the least remarkable fact connected with this that those who come from every land seem to possess the same influence. I have had the opportunity myself, at least on one occasion, of seeing nine different nationalities leaving Europe on board one ship. They sang songs composed of the same truths in their various languages, all bore the same testimony, all were moved upon by the same influence, and all dwelt together as if they were of one family. Now, it might be supposed that people coming from various nations would be hard to control, would be quarreling, would have feelings of national jealousy, and that strife and contention would grow up amongst them. But the contrary is the case. Someone may say that this is brought about by the influence of the “Mormon” leaders; “You ‘Mormons,’” says one, “have shrewd leaders; Joseph Smith was a shrewd man, a man of wonderful magnetic power, as also was Brigham Young.” But Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are dead. Yet it is said that the leaders are shrewd men still, and that they control and influence the people. What a wonderful thing! What a wonderful power that men by delusion—for it is said to be a delusion—can accomplish such great works without the aid of truth and light and intelligence! Let any number of intelligent men with all the advantages that they may possess attempt to do what the ignorant, unlearned Latter-day Saints have done; let any body of men in Christendom go to and attempt to establish such an organization as we witness in Utah Territory, and what will be the result? If any doubt this let them try it. Let any sect try it. Take the best and most enlightened, the most powerful church that contains the greatest purity and the greatest truth—let them attempt to do anything like what has been done by these unlearned, illiterate, ignorant “impostors,” as they are called, and see what the result will be. Let the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Methodists, or any other denomination, or let any combination of scientific men attempt anything of the kind, and see what the result will be. For fifty years the Elders of this Church have been preaching the Gospel. We have traversed the whole of the United States and the Canadas, and nearly all the nations of Europe, and this people have been gathered out from these nations, and there is no failure connected with the labor. Men have apostatized, as we see; they have denied the faith; men and women have left the Church, and they have used all their influence against the Church, yet the work is still onward, and every hour has brought acquisitions from abroad. Wherever the Elders have gone to preach this Gospel they have found men and women who were willing to receive the truth and rejoice in it, and to cast their lot with the people of God and to endure all the consequences attached thereto. Now, until there can be something of a similar character to this accomplished, I think that men ought to be careful about charging the Latter-day Saints with being impostors, and this work as being the work of imposture; unless there is found something that is parallel to it, unless there is a power exhibited by somebody else that is equivalent to it, or at least will bear comparison with it, I think men and women should be modest in their statement that it is all a delusion and humbug. You, my brethren and sisters, know very well it is no such thing. You know that no body of men could have convinced you by their human power to have done what you have done, and no human power could have blended the people into one, as they are throughout all these valleys.

There is one thing that distinguishes the Latter-day Saints from every other people that I know anything about—and I have traveled considerably—and that is, they love one another. It is not in name, it is not a profession of love, but they fire a people that love another so strongly that they are willing to die for each other if it is necessary, and it is that deep and abiding love that binds them in union. Travel among the “Mormons” wherever you will, north or south, east or west, at home or abroad, in the United States or in foreign lands, this love is a distinguishing characteristic of the people, you behold it everywhere. Men may never have beheld each other’s faces and yet they will love one another, and it is a love that is greater than the love of woman. It exceeds any sexual love that can be conceived of, and it is this love that has bound the people together. It has been a cement that all the persecution, all the tribulation and all kinds of trial could not dissolve or break; and the extraordinary feature of it all is, as I have said, that this people who are thus bound together are not a people of one township, not a people of one nation, not a people of one language, but they are as diverse as it is possible to get the human family to be. It would not be so strange if all were Americans, or all eastern men, born in New England, brought up with the traditions of New England; it would not be so strange if all were men of the middle States, or of the northern States or of the western States. But who is there that asks among the “Mormons” or Latter-day Saints as to a man’s nationality? Who is it asks where a man or woman came from? Here are Danish, French, German, Italian, English, American—northern, southern, eastern and western men—all living together as brothers, full of love for each other; none of that rancorous feeling that exists between nationalities is to be witnessed in Utah Territory. This entire people can be moved by a hair when it is in the right direction. Men say it is priestly influence, and it is something that should be broken to pieces. It is dangerous, they say, to America. Why it is all folly. Let anybody try to drive this people, and it will be found that they will die in their tracks before they will be driven. There is no more independent people lives upon the face of the earth than the Latter-day Saints in this mountains. A more determined and unyielding people I never met with. The men whom I associate with, why you might as well try to bend a bar of steel as to bend them; they will not bend, and yet they can be led by a hair. But they must know that what they are advised to do is right. Here are men and women who have sacrificed their all, who have been willing to give up their homes, who have had their homes burned over their heads, their cattle shot down, every piece of property taken from them, and then were driven out ruthlessly and cruelly by mobs. Yet they endured all rather than forsake their religion; they could not be driven—that is, they could not be driven into apostasy; no, they would have died before they would have yielded. If there is one characteristic, one peculiarity that the Latter-day Saints are noted for more than another it is for their unyielding tenacity to principle, and any man that would drive them in any capacity, be he Priest, Elder, Apostle or President, would find that he had undertaken a job that he could not carry out.

What is it, then, that makes this people united? It is the outpouring, as I testify, of the Spirit of God. Others will say it is something else, but I say it is the Spirit of God, and these are the fruits of that spirit as borne testimony to by ancient Prophets and Apostles. They said it would be so, Jesus prayed in the last great prayer that he offered unto his Father that his disciples might be one even as he and his Father were one. This was the great distinguishing character of his Church; and we learn from the Scripture record that they were one in heart and one in feeling. They would suffer persecution, they would go to prison, they would suffer death, for the sake of their religion. The Latter-day Saints have exhibited the same qualities. They have been patient, long-suffering, forbearing, and averse to quarrels and litigation. There is no disposition to go to law and quarrel with one another, and yet every man is tenacious of his rights. The people who have embraced this Gospel have had to think for themselves. It is no light matter to become a “Mormon.” It involves serious consequences. Our people may be ignorant in certain directions, but they are not ignorant about the Gospel and about the Bible. They understand the Bible and know upon what their faith is based, and they have clear conceptions of duty and personal rights, and yet in this Territory there is little or no litigation among the Latter-day Saints. Who ever hears of “Mormons” going to law with one another? It is a rare thing. They have a way of settling their differences as brothers and sisters should and as all christian men and women should.

What is going to be the result of all this? Why, this work will go on. This work which the world call “Mormonism,” but which I call the Church and Kingdom of God, will roll forth. It will draw to itself everything that is honest and pure. Despised today, looked upon today with contempt, it will evince qualities in the eyes of the world that will yet wield a power in the earth. As I have often said a people who are frugal, temperate, industrious, peaceable, united, who do not blaspheme, who do not commit outrages, but attend to their own business, must make their mark in the world. They must live in the struggle for existence. They will live; the qualities that they possess cannot die, they cannot be extinguished very readily. Wherever Latter-day Saints have control good government prevails, honesty prevails; you do not find people heavily taxed; you do not find officers consuming all the taxes for their salaries. No; you will find peace, good order and honesty. We are lied about! Yes, all manner of lies are circulated concerning us. I have heard men say that when they came to Salt Lake they were actually afraid of their lives because of the falsehoods that had been sent abroad. Why, from some of the stories that have been circulated one would think that a “Mormon” Apostle ate a man for breakfast every morning; that he was never satisfied unless he breakfasted upon somebody not of his faith. I do not think that to look at the Apostles and the leading men that they would give anybody such an idea. They do not look very savage nor very ferocious. Yet, these lies are being told and circulated, and they have their effect upon certain classes. But like all the lies in the past, we shall outlive them. It would be amusing to read all the lies that have been used in days past and gone. But there is a new batch in process of incubation all the time, and when the old ones get stale the new ones come forth adapted to the change of the case. Yet notwithstanding all this we continue to live. Lies do not hurt us. I do not think they cause us to sleep any the less. They do not cause us to enjoy any the less our pleasant homes, our fruit, or these beautiful streams that come from the mountains. We have learned that we can live and be lied about. We will continue to live and increase.

Now, my brethren and sisters, I am exceedingly thankful myself that God has revealed the truth, and that he has commanded his people to gather out of Babylon, that they may be free from the corruption that exists therein. We know there is a condition of society at the present time on the earth, which corresponds exactly with that which the Apostle John predicts, and which I read. You read it at your leisure and you will find that everything in modern society is represented in the 18th chapter of John’s Revelation. Now, God has commanded his people to come out of Babylon. We are trying to do it. We are trying to establish a new order of society, not to tear down the old, but to establish a new order that will grow and increase, and be better than the old one. Everything connected with this people has for its design the renovation of the earth from the evils which exist at the present day. I am thankful there is a prospect for myself and my children in this respect; for when I look at society as it exists, its hollowness, I confess if I had no hope only in that to be found in such society, I would have no desire for life, and I certainly would not care about having a family. But when I think of the society that the Latter-day Saints are trying to establish, every man having his rights, every woman enjoying her rights, I have hope for myself and for my children. I believe that they can live and not be preyed upon. I think with pleasure about the future, the union and the love that I hope will continue to grow and increase among the people. There is a desire to feel after and help each other, to care for somebody else besides ourselves. I notice a disposition of this kind, and I think in many breasts it is growing and increasing.

I pray God that we may continue to develop in this direction; that we may humble ourselves before God and call upon him in mighty prayer to aid us in our endeavors; that when we are disposed to be lifted up in pride that we will go to God and ask him to show us our true condition. We get the idea occasionally that we are a very good people; individually we get lifted up by vanity and pride; we forget who we are. Why, in the sight of our God, in the sight of his purity we can imagine how impure we are, and how far we are from being what we should be. Let us, therefore, go unto him and call upon him in the name of Jesus for his blessing. We believe in God. We believe that he is today, as he was in ancient days; a God who hears and answers prayer; who is well able to hear and answer the prayers of his children today as he was 1,800 years ago. Let us go to him and implore his blessing upon us, upon our children, upon the honest in heart in all the earth who desire to serve God. May God bless you in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Remarks by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, July 3rd, 1881.

We have been traveling this last week through the settlements of Davis and Weber counties, meeting with the Saints in their various wards and visiting the people at their homes. It has been one of the most interesting trips I have taken for several years, and I think this is the general feeling of all who were of the party. A visitor to our settlements at the present time is impressed with the evident increase of the numbers of the people and of comfort and, it may be said, wealth. The land is being rapidly taken up and occupied, and places where a few years ago it was thought that no one could live, we now find farms and orchards and good substantial dwellings, and all the evidences of thrift. The water is being taken out, and large sums are being expended in the formation of canals and water ditches; but the most pleasing feature which presented itself to my mind was the contentment of the people and the spirit which they enjoy. Our meetings were excellently attended and were of a very spirited character, the people turned out in large numbers and crowded every meetinghouse to overflowing, so much so that in most places seats had to be arranged out– side, and the windows thrown open, so that those who could not get into the houses could hear. In several places we met under bowers constructed for the purpose of holding meetings in the open air.

It is truly marvelous when we look at it—that is, those who have been familiar with the early settlement of the Latter-day Saints in these mountains—the great changes which have been effected in the condition and circumstances of the people. God has abundantly fulfilled the promises which were made in the early days, after the Latter-day Saints settled here. Some questioned in those days whether we should be able to find suitable places outside of this valley where the Latter-day Saints could live. And many of those who first came here had grave doubts whether we could, in this climate, be able to raise a variety of fruits. But God has tempered the elements; He has ameliorated the condition of the soil; He has blessed the labors of the people; and with the experience of the past confidence is felt that their is scarcely a valley in these mountains, however elevated, in which fruit cannot be raised, and all the grains and vegetables necessary for the sustenance of man be produced. Of all people who live upon the face of the earth, it seems to me, the Latter-day Saints should be the most thankful to the Most High for His kindness and mercy manifested unto us. We came here as weary pilgrims, fleeing from persecution, glad to find a place where we could rest for a little season, and be free from violence and mobocracy. And though I, myself, at that time, was but young, it seemed to me that I would be content to live here the remainder of my days, and subsist upon the most meager fare—bread and water—if we could only enjoy peace and freedom from the annoyances to which the people had been subjected, and especially if our leading men could be free from those harassing persecutions which they had been compelled to endure. While but a youth I had helped, with others, to stand guard at nights at their houses, that they might sleep with some feeling of security; for there were months, and it may be said years, before we left Illinois, when the lives of a number of the leading men were threatened. Some of the most painful recollections of my boyhood are the scenes of persecution and affliction through which the Prophet Joseph Smith had to pass. When his martyrdom, with that of his brother, the patriarch of the Church, was accomplished, it seemed as though the rage of mobs ought to have been satisfied; and the people, being bereft of their leaders, might be suffered to dwell in peace. For it had been repeatedly stated, that if Joseph Smith were put out of the way, there would be no trouble with the Mormons. He was the object of hatred; he was the target at which all the arrows of malicious envy were shot; he was accused of em– bodying in his own person everything with which the people were charged, and it was claimed that if he could be disposed of, then they could be managed and there would be no difficulty. But this spirit of persecution is not exhausted by success; it derives strength therefrom, and the more victims it has the more it craves. Instead of the people being left unmolested after the martyrdom, the violence of mobs was redoubled; they were emboldened by the impunity with which they had performed this bloody deed, to make more cruel attacks upon the people. The Apostles who stood forward to take the lead after the death of the Prophet Joseph, became in their turn the objects of hatred. Charges of every kind were sworn to by men who were determined to frame some pretexts for bringing them into difficulty; and the most absurd falsehoods were circulated concerning them. Numerous writs were issued and officers frequently came to Nauvoo, to take the leading men into custody; it being the aim of the men who had banded themselves together in secret combinations for the purpose of taking their lives, to get them into their power as they had the Prophet. On this account there had to be a constant guard kept over the residences of the Twelve Apostles. As for myself, I never left any place with more gladness than I did Illinois. To launch into the wilderness, to grapple with all the difficulties incident to such a life, and even to run the risk of famine, or any other evil which might have to be met, seemed small in comparison with the evils we had been and were subjected to. It was with great gladness the entire people who took up their line of march, left what is termed civilization, to go among the red men of the plains. To dwell among them and to take chances among them, seemed preferable to being exposed to attacks having the form of legal measures, and claiming the authority of law, but which, in the most of instances, only furnished a covering for violence and the most deadly schemes of vengeance.

Although the Prophet Joseph Smith, during his lifetime was brought upwards of forty times before tribunals, upon one pretext or another, in every instance when he had a fair trial he was acquitted; none of the accusations were ever substantiated against him. And when at last he surrendered himself, after receiving the pledge of the governor of the State that he should be protected—he having pledged his own honor, and the honor of the State to that effect—those who were his persecutors, who claimed to have grounds of charge against him, were well aware that the treason of which they accused him, could not be sustained; and because of this they said, “he is likely to be acquitted again and escape us; but if the law cannot reach him, powder and ball can.” With blackened faces, banded together and led by a preacher, they made an attack upon the jail, and the few men left there to take charge of it, fired upon them with blank cartridges to make a show of resistance in order to cover up the bloody deed, as one done without their connivance.

The last time the Prophet addressed the people he predicted that peace should be taken from the earth, and that terrible calamities would come upon its inhabitants, and particularly upon our own nation. He predicted what the results would be of the spirit of mobocracy which then raged, and which had caused our expulsion from our homes, if allowed to prevail. Already, the prediction had been recorded by him, twelve years previous to his death, that there would be a rebellion break out in South Carolina, and a fratricidal war commence between the South and the North. The revelation upon this subject had been written; it had been published. It was well known to the great bulk of the Latter-day Saints years previous to this. I, when quite a child heard it, and looked for its fulfillment until it came to pass. And this was the case with the body of the people who were familiar with the predictions which had been uttered by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

If the voice of this man could have been heard and his warnings listened to, the evils which have fallen upon our nation might have been averted. To many, doubtless, such a statement as this may seem presumptuous, because of the views they entertain respecting this Prophet. But whether it be admitted that he is a Prophet or not, it cannot be denied by anyone who is familiar with the tone of his teachings, with the character of his expostulations and warnings, with the manner in which he protested against the spirit of mobocracy, it cannot, I say, be denied by any of these, that if his counsels had been followed, many of the evils which have afflicted the nation might have been averted.

There is no form of government upon the earth under which so large a degree of liberty can be enjoyed as that under which we dwell; it is the best form of government ever devised by human wisdom for mankind. Larger liberty, greater freedom of expansion and development to man in every direction can be at– tained under it, than under any other form of government. Every man and woman who professes the faith of the Latter-day Saints, must love it, because, under it the development of the Kingdom of God is possible; for believing as we do that God inspired the founders of this government to perform the work which they accomplished; that He raised up men for the express purpose of achieving liberty upon this land, building up this grand fabric of free government, we must of necessity admire and have a deep attachment to its principles. While the people are pure, while they are upright, while they are willing to observe law, the best results must follow the establishment and maintenance of a government like this; but, on the other hand, if the people become corrupt, if they give way to passion, if they disregard law, if they trample upon constitutional obligations, then a republican form of government like ours becomes the worst tyranny upon the face of the earth. An autocracy is a government of one man, and if he be a tyrant, it is the tyranny of one man; but the tyranny and the irresponsibility of a mob is one of the most grievous despotisms which can exist upon the face of the earth. And it is from this which we have suffered; it is this which caused us to take our flight into the Rocky Mountains; it is this which caused the founding and peopling of Utah Territory. When attacked, despoiled, and driven by mobs, the Latter-day Saints appealed to the authorities of the States where they lived; but their appeals were in vain, because the authorities were only the creatures of the mobs from whose cruel attacks we suffered, and whom they dare not offend. Hence our appeals were in vain. When we appealed to courts, the courts dreaded the power of public opinion, which was adverse to dealing justly with us, and they dared not do anything to favor us for fear of offending the mob who persecuted us. When appeals were made to legislators, the same result followed; when governors were appealed to they were in the same position; and when the case was carried to the President of the United States, he dared not face the issue, but declared that Congress had no power to deal with a sovereign State for its treatment of the Latter-day Saints, though they had been expelled from the State by violence. And even when Joseph Smith was barbarously murdered while under the pledged honor of the State, there was no redress; his murderers went scot-free, one of them a senator of the State in which he lived, and others well-known to the general public. There was no disposition to punish those men, although they were red-handed with the blood of innocence, and although it was well known that they were the men who perpetrated that cruel deed.

We have suffered enough from this spirit of violent lawlessness to feel profoundly moved in our hearts at the dreadful occurrence of yesterday. It comes to us as it does not to any other people, for we have suffered from this as no other people have. The men whom we loved better than we loved our lives, for whom this people would have been willing to lay down their lives, if by so doing they could have saved them, were stricken down by the hands of assassins, while they were helpless like sheep in a pen. They were slaughtered by a band of ruffians, who knew that they had the power if they could break into the building where the victims were confined, to take the lives of those men, for they were defenseless.

When the leading man of our nation is stricken down, as General Garfield was, it arouses emotions in the hearts of the Latter-day Saints—those of them especially who were participants in the scenes to which I have referred—which language cannot describe. There is something so abhorrent, so horrible in this method of curing evils, that as one of this community I cannot think of it with any other feeling than one of horror. General Garfield, I may say, was my personal friend, we having served eight years in Congress together. I have been intimately acquainted with him during that time, and I know him to be one of the greatest men of the nation. He may not be a strong man in every direction; I do not think he is strong enough to follow his convictions upon our question. He knew better concerning us than any man in public life, that is, he knew more of us. He was brought up in Ohio, near where our people had lived in early days, in the days of his childhood. He was familiar with men who had been members of our Church, and I believe was connected remotely by marriage with some of our people; and while he had no sympathy with some of our doctrines, nevertheless he had opportunities of knowing many things concerning us which others did not know. He had visited this city twice; he had become acquainted with the people, seen them at their homes, and had frequently conversed upon our doctrines. I know therefore, he understood our question probably better than any man in public life. But for fear, as I fully believe, that he would be suspected of cherishing sympathy for us, he uttered expressions which I thought were exceedingly unwise and unstatesmanlike in his inaugural address. But notwithstanding this, I must bear testimony to the man and to the largeness of his soul and the breadth of his mind. He is a man of broad intellect, of wide experience, and naturally of a good heart; and I cannot imagine any reason which could justify an act of violence towards him. There has nothing occurred during his administration to provoke such an attack as that made upon him.

But the word of the Lord has gone forth concerning all such matters as these. Deeds of violence will become more common, whether the world believe it or not. The Lord inspired His servants to predict these things, if the spirit of mobocracy were permitted to reign unchecked and unpunished. Innocent blood has been shed in our land, the blood of innocent men, the blood, as we believe, of Prophets and Apostles and Saints of God; and their blood stains the escutcheon of the States where it was shed, and it has not been atoned for. There has been no voice of protest against those deeds; on the contrary, today, notwithstanding the horrors of the past; notwithstanding our track is lined with the graves of our people who fell by the wayside, whilst fleeing from their persecutors, religious denominations all over the land meet together in public conventions, and appeal in the strongest manner to the government to review the old scenes of persecution against a people, who have done them no harm, and who fled as far as they could from their confines, and from their civilization. Today there are those who call themselves ministers and followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, who, if they could, would stir up every feeling of hatred and animosity and bloodthirstiness in the human breast, and bring down anger, vengeance and destruction upon a people whose only crime is they will not worship according to their dictation—a people who have come into these mountains and reared themselves homes, and made this once desolate land beautiful; a people who have created wealth here for the nation; who have offered an asylum to all; who have fed the strangers and travelers as they passed through here, administering comfort and relief to them, and who have been inspired by Heaven to impart blessing and benefit, and exert an influence for good upon the hearts of their fellow creatures.

Now, as much as I deplore such acts as that of yesterday, I look upon it as one of the consequences which must follow. General Garfield, the President of the United States, innocent of any act which can be tortured into a justification for a deed of violence, now falls a victim to this spirit of lawlessness and personal revenge. When men permit the spirit of mobocracy and violence to prevail, when they suffer crime to go unpunished, when innocent blood is shed and is not atoned for, the time must come sooner or later, when the evil results will become widespread. As men sow, so will they reap. It is an eternal law and can only be avoided by deep repentance. Every nation which commits a crime must atone for that crime. God holds nations responsible as He does individuals. When a man sheds innocent blood a crime is committed by him, and he must atone for it either in this life or in the life to come. God will visit them in His own time and in His own way, until these things are atoned for. He will leave men and nations to themselves, when they abandon themselves to evil, and His spirit cannot abide with them.

It may be said that the Latter-day Saints were an insignificant people, and that therefore their treatment was a matter of little or no consequence; so it might be said respecting the disciples of Jesus. Jesus himself was an obscure Being on the earth—His persecutors at least thought him such; but He was the divine Redeemer, he was the Son of God. His disciples were obscure men; they were poor fishermen, yet they were disciples of the Lord Jesus, and because of the cruel killing of the Son of God, and the persecution inflicted upon His disciples, Jerusalem was overthrown, the Jewish nation was broken in pieces, and scattered among all nations.

My brethren and sisters, we, of all people upon the face of the earth, should be the last to rejoice in calamity of any kind, or to indulge in any feeling which would have the appearance of rejoicing over anything that may appear like vengeance. There is only one feeling which ought to have a place in our hearts, and that is one of deep sorrow when men do wrong, when they commit crimes, even though we ourselves should be the victims of the wrong. There ought to be no feeling in our hearts to wish or desire vengeance to come upon those who commit those acts. Our Savior has given us an example in this. He said after He had been lifted up upon the cross, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” This ought to be an example to us. The man who indulges in any other feeling grieves the Spirit of God, and is not worthy the name of Latter-day Saint. He certainly is not one; because any other spirit than this is in opposition to the Spirit of God; and there ought to be no feeling in our hearts excepting one of deep sorrow that our fellow beings do anything which would bring down the anger of God upon them. And I pray God the Eternal Father to bless us and fill us with the Holy Spirit to enlighten us, and lead us into all truth, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Remarks by President George Q. Cannon, delivered at Hooperville, Monday, June 27, 1881.

It affords me great pleasure to travel as we are now doing. It is a number of years since I had the opportunity of thus traveling in this county, visiting the people in the various settlements, and witnessing the changes and improvements which have taken place, which indicate the growth and development of the people.

It is only a few years ago that our enemies, in speaking of us, said, that we were a miserable, decrepit, weakly, dying-out people. They described us as very poor, miserable-looking creatures, all bearing the impress of our polygamic practices upon our faces; and our children as being weakly, with poor intellect, etc. And this description of us went the rounds of the press, and was believed in by a great many. And some people were so credulous that they supposed that as soon as they came into a “Mormon” city they could easily tell the “Mormon” women by the sad, depressed expression of the countenances which they wore. For a few years this idea prevailed, having been voiced by the press generally; and lecturers, in speaking about us, dwelt upon this peculiarity. Of late, however, the tone has changed, and instead of entertaining the idea that we are about to die out, the feeling concerning us is one of fear, lest we should spread out and take possession of the surrounding country.

It has been the case for many years, in fact, from the beginning, that our Elders have been proclaiming to the world that we are a growing people, and predicting that God has a great destiny in store for the Latter-day Saints; that “the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the Saints of the Most High,” etc. And this and other predictions of a like import were testified to by the Elders of this Church wherever they went; but the people generally, who heard our brethren preach such doctrine, were reluctant to believe it, and did not believe it, in fact. Of late, however, there has been a great change; people who have all the time looked upon the “Mormons” as a lot of fanatics, whose race could not be otherwise than a short one, already begin to fear that there is some truth in these predictions.

During this last winter I found myself in a rather peculiar position —a position I had never occupied before—of being under the necessity of endeavoring to calm the fears of the public respecting our growth and increase, they had such ideas about it they were apprehensive lest we were not only going to possess Utah, but going to take possession of Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, and cross into Colorado. And I myself was under the necessity of calming their fears in regard to the growth of the people, and of saying to them, we were not increasing so fast as to give cause for any reasonable apprehension. This shows a change that has taken place in the mind of the public with regard to the Latter-day Saints. And this morning while sitting under the cool shade of this bowery looking upon the faces of these children and young people, I thought that I never saw healthier children. And every countenance is cheerful; every one bespeaks health and our young women show that they have been born of healthy parents, and brought up and trained so as to develop their physical natures; I am glad to see this; I am thankful that we live in a healthy country, and that we have the Word of Wisdom given unto us by revelation from God; and by observing it we are very likely to have an exceedingly healthy race of people, who will also be long-lived. I think it a matter of great importance to endeavor to train ourselves and our children so as to have health, and not only health but long life on the earth, so that we may accomplish that which God has given unto us to do. For there is an immense amount of labor to be performed in connection with this work. With good health we also have plenty. These fruitful farms; these teeming orchards; with flocks and herds of cattle, of sheep, of horses, with the dwellings and everything else to show how comfortably situated the Latter-day Saints are. They have honey, they have butter and milk, and their bins are overflowing, so to speak, and in many instances actually so, with wheat the finest that is grown on the earth. And there is nothing to prevent our becoming physically perfect. But there are great responsibilities resting upon the parents among the Latter-day Saints; and not only upon the parents but upon the leading men in our settlements and cities and stakes.

There is one thing that you who reside here—and in fact it may be said about every settlement in these mountains—that you should be particularly careful about, and that is, the education of your children. I hope in your general prosperity you will not overlook your educational interests. It is of the utmost importance to us and to our children and to the work of God which is entrusted to us, that we should give our children every advantage of education, including the training of them in the principles of the Gospel; for it is of the first importance that all should have laid the foundation in their hearts of faith in God and confidence in the Holy Priesthood, and in the ordinances of the house of God. This is of the first importance, more important than anything else; more important even than teaching them to read and write. Train them in the faith of God and in the knowledge of God, so far as it can be imparted to them, until they can find out God for themselves, seeking him in earnestness in their closets and private places. And when we have laid this foundation in their hearts, then impart to them skill in education to read and write perfectly, so that every boy and girl in our community can read and write his and her tongue perfectly. Do it so that no one can find fault with it, that it may be ready for the press, if they should wish to address a communication to the press, without having to make a single correction. Our children have the brightest intellects of any I have ever met. God has given them this blessing; all that they require to develop themselves is the opportunity, and this they should have. God has given unto us means. There is no necessity for us to keep our children out of school, as was the case in early days. I think it a matter of the greatest importance that parents should impart to their children these facilities. Place them within their reach so that the talents of our boys and girls may be developed, for there is an abundant field for its exercise throughout our land, and also beyond, and in the countries to which they are being sent. We are spreading out, and we want men who are cultured; we want women of culture who can train their children in the spirit of true education, so that when visitors come to our land, or our children go to other lands, those who see them will feel there is a superiority about the Latter-day Saints that they did not look for. Great pains should be taken in this direction. Parents, school trustees and educators should exercise themselves in behalf of education; nothing should be left undone to give every one, no matter how poor, an opportunity to obtain it. You know the difference between a well cultivated field and one that is poorly cultivated. You know the difference between carefully selected and bred cattle, and cattle that are allowed to run at large on the range without attention. You know the difference between fruits that are well selected and cared for by the hand of the skillful gardener, and those that are allowed to grow as they please. The lesson that may be drawn from these plain practical things is applicable in the rearing of these little ones. You need not think, you parents, because you have got through life with little or a meager education, that your children ought not to expect more than you possessed in starting life. You do not know anything about the future that lies before them. The boys and girls of today, if they are prepared for it, will have opportunities of moving in the higher circles of society; boys will be required to go among the leading men of the nations; and how embarrassing it would be for them if they should not be qualified for it. But they should be. Every day the prospect is widening, the field is opening up before us, and men of this kind are needed all the time. We need them for legislators; we need them for Apostles, Presidents, Bishops and Counselors; we need them for every department of life. They should be cultivated so that they will be capable of discharging these duties and filling any position.

The Lord has bestowed upon us the temporal blessings which we have for a wise purpose. We should use them aright and not set our hearts upon these perishable things. We should hold them as the gifts of God, subject to his counsel. The man who sets his heart upon riches cannot serve the God of Israel. No man can serve two masters, Jesus said. He said it 1,800 years ago; it is true today. Whenever you see a man serving Mammon, you may know he cannot serve God as well. There cannot be a division in these services; half-hearted service cannot be acceptable to the Lord. We must serve God with all our hearts, our love and affections reaching after Him, and the things of this world must be looked upon by us as secondary considerations. They are good enough in their place; right enough to be attended to; but subordinate always to the love of God. That should be the first love, greater than every other love. A man that loves a wife, a man that loves a child, a man that loves anything upon the earth more than God, is not a true Latter-day Saint. He may have a lovely wife, he may have a lovely child; he may have a rich farm, he may have stock, elegant residences, horses and carriages, together with an abundance of wealth to command all the comforts of the earth; but I tell you, as a servant of God, if he loves these things more than he loves God, he is not a true Latter-day Saint. He cannot serve God and mammon together. One love must predominate; it must be superior to every other love, and that is the love of our Heavenly Father; the keeping of his commandments and attending to the ordinances of salvation which he has revealed to us.

While Brother Woodruff was speaking about what President Young had told him in Winter Quarters, respecting the Prophet Joseph’s teachings, with regard to cultivating the spirit of the Lord, a thing came to my mind that I was taught in the same way in the beginning of my labors on my first mission, and the impression it made upon my mind has been a lasting one; I have never forgotten it; and through taking that lesson to heart I feel that I have been exceedingly prospered in my life.

There were ten of us, of whom I was the youngest, wind-bound in the Bay of San Francisco, and we had been thus delayed for nearly a week near the Golden Gate in consequence of head winds. I dreamed one night that this party of brethren were heaving at the windlass, having a rope attached to it reaching forward to the anchor at the bow of the vessel. We were working with all our might endeavoring to raise the anchor, but seemingly we made but little progress. While thus engaged I thought the Prophet Joseph came from the after part of the vessel dressed in his temple clothes, and tapping me on the shoulder told me to go with him. I went, and he climbed on to the forecastle which was higher than the main deck and on a level with the bulwarks, and there he knelt down, also telling me to kneel down with him. He prayed according to the order of prayer which is revealed. After prayer, he arose upon his feet. “Now,” said he, “George, take hold of that rope”—the rope we had been pulling on with all our might. I took hold of it, and with the greatest ease and without the least effort, the anchor was raised. “Now,” said he, “let this be a lesson to you; remember that great things can be accomplished through the power of prayer and the exercise of faith in the right way.”

I would like to impress this, with what Brother Woodruff has told you, upon the minds of the young, also upon the middle-aged and the aged of this congregation if they choose to take it; great is the power of prayer when properly offered to the Lord. Whatever success I have had upon my missions in battling with the adversaries of this people, in being able to hold my position, when warred upon—and it seemed that nothing in the world but the power of God could save me or prevent legislation adverse to this people—whatever success there may be about this in the past, throughout my life—and I believe it was the case with my predecessors—it has been due to faith and prayer. I have remembered this always; I have endeavored to exercise faith in God, through prayer, which has been heard by the Almighty. Men have met in secret in holy places, and have besought God in the appointed way, according to the holy order revealed, and deliverance has been wrought out for Zion, when it seemed that everything was dark before them and without one ray of light. At such times, when everything has been hedged up, the servants of God have met in secret places and have plead with God according to the holy order, and the heavens have been moved, and difficulties have vanished away, and our path has been made plain before us, and we have escaped the hands of our enemies.

My brethren and sisters, my young brethren and sisters present, remember this lesson. Cultivate the Spirit of God; keep it with you. Remember always, there is power in prayer greater than anything man can do. There is no power in monarchs, there is no power in armies, there is no power in legislation, nor in anybody nor anything else upon the earth that equals the power of God in prayer.

That we may always remember it, and keep it constantly in our minds throughout our lives, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, June 12, 1881.

I have listened with great satisfaction and pleasure to the remarks which have been made by Brother Woodruff this afternoon, and I know they are true, and that they will be profitable unto all those who treasure them up in their hearts and make application of them in their lives.

While he was speaking, the query ran through my mind respecting the prophets and men of God who lived in ancient days—was there ever a prophet of God—a man who had a message from God who was received by the generation among whom he lived? They had very few indeed. The Prophet Jonah stands out almost as an exception. Nineveh did repent when he went to it with the message from God; but from Noah down one prophet after another was rejected by the generations unto whom they were sent and unto whom they bore messages from the Almighty. Even Moses, though successful in leading out the children of Israel, with difficulty escaped being stoned to death by his own adherents. And so with every prophet until the days of the Savior himself. Jesus was persecuted; Jesus was derided, Jesus was rejected. Jesus, who came—his coming having been predicted by the holy prophets and the whole nation being in expectation of him—was rejected because he did not come according to the ideas, the preconceived notions of the people—that is of his own kindred unto whom he was sent.

The world entertain certain ideas concerning truth, they entertain certain ideas concerning God and concerning His servants, and when men come to them with something that conflicts with these ideas they are led to reject them, and it is not until a man has died, not until in many instances his blood has been shed, that he is recognized as a Prophet of God. In fact it was an accusation of the Savior against the Jews that they garnished the tombs and sepulchres of the Prophets whom they had slain. They slew them, but after their death their children said, “If we had lived in their day we would not have slain the prophets, we would have received their testimony,” while they treated the Prophets in their midst the same as their fathers had done their predecessors. But it takes time to bring men to esteem Prophets. It has taken centuries to sanctify the memory of the Son of God; centuries have rolled on before He was recognized by the world as the being whom his disciples testified he was. To his generation he was a vile impostor, and was counted worthy of the most ignominious death that could be inflicted—to be crucified between two thieves. Why, they had the most irrefutable evidence, as they supposed, that He was not the Son of God. “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” “’Why,” said they, “art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” He was a Galilean, and therefore, because of his lowly birth and surroundings, they deemed themselves perfectly justified in rejecting Him. And as has been quoted today, so confident were they that He was not the being whom He represented himself to be that they said, “His blood be on us, and upon our children.” They felt so secure in calling for his crucifixion, they were willing to incur all the penalties which might be inflicted upon themselves and their posterity for the death of a man who, in their estimation, was so vile an impostor.

In the same way it will take time to make the merits of the predictions of Joseph Smith recognized. Will they be recognized? Yes. Joseph Smith has uttered predictions which cannot be disputed, and that have come to pass. Before his death he predicted that the Latter-day Saints should become a great people in the Rocky Mountains. Years before we were compelled to leave the States, he predicted that the South would rebel, and that the civil war would break out in South Carolina. That prediction was in print long years before it was fulfilled. And when it seemed as though the rebellion would break out in Florida, the Latter-day Saints never had any doubt as to where the war would commence. They knew the word of God had been spoken, and that it would be fulfilled. And it was fulfilled, literally, as also many other predictions which have been uttered.

But do these things come to man in a way that man will receive them? No: they come in contact with worldly pride. They invoke the same opposition which Paul had when he was at Ephesus, when the silversmiths cried out, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” And they bawled and cried so much in favor of Diana, that his voice was drowned. So it is today. These things come in contact with established institutions, with established crafts; man’s craft is in danger, and hence the outcry. There is a great outcry, and it comes from those whose craft is most in danger. It has ever been so, and it ever will be so while man continues under the same influence which now operates upon him.

The organization of this Church does not coincide with men’s minds, it is contrary to their feelings, it comes in contact with their traditions and their prejudices. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” It is the same idea. Can any good thing come from Joseph Smith, an uneducated man? Can any good thing come out of the “Mormon” people. And the whole world seemingly is in a turmoil. Every conceivable falsehood is told about this people. Well, this will continue to be the case; I have no doubt of it in my mind. We have got this warfare to fight, and every people who have stood in our position had it before us. Every reformation which was ever effected among men had to be effected in the face of opposition, and frequently the foundation stones have been laid in the blood of the men who were the instruments in the hands of God in laying the foundation. Opposition in this respect is not a new thing. It is as old as Adam that there should be opposition to contend against. Jesus predicted it, because he knew it was the history of the past, and he knew it would be repeated. Thus those who embrace “Mormonism,” or the Gospel of Christ, may make their calculations upon it.

But there is this difference between the dispensation in which we are engaged and other dispensations which have preceded it: we have the promise of God that His work introduced in this the dispensation of the fulness of times shall never be overthrown, so that this dispensation differs in this respect from every dispensation which has preceded it. There is no stopping this work. Men may fight it, they may kill those who advocate it, and use every means in their power against it; but the fiat of Jehovah has gone forth concerning it, and it will spread and increase and will gather within its pale every holiest soul throughout the earth sooner or later, not making war, not attacking, not assaulting, but by the power of divine truth and by the spirit that accompanies it, bearing testimony to every honest soul. And as these troubles increase of which Brother Woodruff has spoken—for they will increase, in our own land, too; they have increased, and they will increase—men will become unsettled in their minds as to what they will do and where they will seek for protection; for the day will come when stable government in these United States will be very hard to find. The ele– ments are already operating that will produce this instability. Men will be glad to seek refuge, glad to seek protection, glad to live in any place where men and women are honest and true, and where the principles which Brother Woodruff has announced, the principles of true liberty are maintained, and God grant that they may be ever maintained.

It has been said that those who have been persecuted will, when their turn comes, become persecutors. This has been said concerning us. “Oh,” it has been said, “you are now in the minority. It is all very well to plead for liberty and contend for the rights of man. But wait. If you ever get power, you who have been persecuted will turn round and persecute other people.” This has been cast against us as bearing out the history of the past. The Pilgrim Fathers, it is quoted, did this. After being persecuted themselves, they turned round and persecuted others—Episcopalians, Quakers, Baptists, etc.—who did not believe as they did. Well, we have not done this yet. We did not do it when we had everything our own way in these mountains, removed a thousand or twelve hundred miles from every other people. We gave perfect liberty to all, and there never has been an hour since we first occupied this country when our tabernacles, boweries, and other places of worship have not been open to men of every denomination to preach within their walls or under their shade. Time and time again our children have been invited to this tabernacle to listen to ministers of different denominations, that they might know what other people taught; this has been upon the principle which Brother Woodruff has stated, that if they have one truth we have not got, we are willing to exchange our errors for that truth.

I would not give much for a religion which would not stand contact with the world. It was said once respecting President Young, that he read the remark that he would not give much for a religion that could not stand one railroad. I think the same. If my religion cannot stand all the railroads which can be brought here, I do not want it for myself nor for my children. It there is anything superior to that which we believe outside of our religion, let it come, we will welcome it. We are not wedded to our religion only so far as it is true. So far as it is true we are wedded to it, and as such we have espoused it, as such we maintain it, and as such we hope to die believing in its tenets and practicing them; but if anyone else has something better let him come along. We have sacrificed enough for truth to show that we love it. We have forsaken everything for the truth as we believe it, and a people who have been willing to have their houses burned, property destroyed and be driven into a wilderness as we have been, and to create homes in this desolate land—a people that has been willing to do this should not shrink from accepting any truth which may be presented to them, and I do not believe they will. We have given no evidence of such a tendency at any time, I have never heard of it, but there has been a constant willingness to receive the truth.

And this doctrine of plural marriage which is so much talked about; we have shown our devotion to truth by espousing it. If its practice had been of the same nature as that which is popular with the world, there would not have been a word said against us. It is not be– cause other people do not do wrong with women that the outcry is raised against us. It is not for doing wrong with women, it is for marrying more than one woman, which we could have avoided if licentiousness had been our object, that we are attacked. When God revealed that principle to the Latter-day Saints, there were men who felt as though they would rather go to their graves than carry out that principle. They were men who had lived all their days and had been true to the covenants they had made with their wives, and the thought of marrying more than one woman was as repulsive as it could be to any men in the world. They shrank from it. I heard President Young himself say, that as the hearse passed his house in Nauvoo on the way to the cemetery, he thought he would like to be the occupant of that hearse and of the coffin which it contained, when he thought of this doctrine and the opprobrium that would descend upon him and upon our people, when it became known that we believed in and practiced plural marriage. Here is President Taylor, and Brother Woodruff, who has spoken, and other men of mature years in those days—they know how it was. They would have shrunk from it if they could, but the very fact that they have embraced it ought to be sufficient to show the world that they are devoted to principle, that they have been willing to lay down their lives, if necessary, to carry out principle. It would be cheaper, no doubt, to discard plural wives and follow the ways of the world. Do you think I would have any persecution if I had a wife here and one or more mistresses in Washington? Not in the least: there would not be one word said about my marital relations or my domestic affairs; not one word. I know this. How do I know it? Because there are those who are in that condition. But because men marry wives and give their names to their offspring, and are not ashamed of them, and are true to these wives and do not go outside of the family circle, and believe a man ought to be killed who does it—because they do this they are decried and all hell is stirred up. Now, if these things are wrong we practice them without knowing they are wrong. We believe them to be true. We believe this principle has been revealed for the salvation of women. And a man takes a great responsibility upon himself who enters into this order. Reflect upon this a moment: A man marries a wife, and he does it—if he does it properly—with the clear understanding between them beforehand, that if it be right to take another, according to the tenets of his religion, he may do so. Well, he takes another wife. What is the result? He doubles his responsibility, he increases his care. What man of sense or principle is there that would take these obligations upon him lightly? Would any man do it for the sake of gratifying lust? He would be a simpleton and a villain if he did it. A man in this position, if he feels as he should do, will feel there is a great responsibility resting upon him in the taking care of the children of such marriages, in the education and training of them, and the preserving of them from vice. And what is there to induce him to shoulder this responsibility except principle?

We desire to have no margin of unmarried women among us. We do not want institutions among us which are not of God, and which propagate death and disease. We desire every woman to be married, and as there are not more women than men in Utah, if everyman marries, there will be no plural marriage, it will cease, and that is the best remedy in the world for this “Utah Polygamy,” as it is called. Let every man marry, and there will be no single women of marriageable age. But as all men will not marry, we have instances of two and more women who love one man and who choose to live together and live together virtuously and properly.

“Ah, but,” says one, “there is a law of Congress against such a thing.” I know that, and I am not advising any man to do anything that would make him liable to go to the Penitentiary. But I am talking about principle, about that which we believe and practice, and that which has impelled us to action in this matter. I have taken some of my children down to Washington, and have said to them, “Now, here you see the other side. I want you to have the opportunity of seeing society, and understanding something of it outside of our Territory.” I would not hoodwink a child. I would set before children all which is necessary to give them light upon this subject, that they may understand it. I would like every one of my daughters to understand it thoroughly; and in speaking thus about my own family, I speak about every girl in this community. I want to see a virtuous community, one which is free from vices which infest the world. Diseases that are common elsewhere are unknown in this land, among our people; and I thank God for it, and I pray that it will continue to be the case.

Shall we become persecutors in our turn? No. Why? We do not have the same motives to impel us to such a course that people who persecute have. Persecutors generally believe that those whom they persecute are doomed to spend the endless ages of eternity in hell fire, unless they can be made to repent of their errors. Persecution becomes, therefore, with them, in many instances, a highly justifiable and meritorious method of saving souls. This has been the feeling which has impelled many persecutors in every age—a holy, burning zeal to snatch souls from perdition. The men who have been most zealous in hailing men to prison and inflicting torment, have been as a rule, men zealous and sincere in their religion. They thought it better to destroy the body than that the soul should be consigned to hell; they thought it better for heretics to burn an hour or too on earth than that they should burn eternally. But the Latter-day Saints have no such views respecting future punishment? We believe there is an endless hell. We do not, however, believe that human beings are consigned to it eternally. The hell may be endless and the punishment endless, but it does not follow that they who are consigned there are to remain in it eternally. We believe men will be rewarded for the deeds done in the body, and we therefore can afford to be liberal in our views in this respect. As President Woodruff has said, we would give every man the right to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, knowing that he will have to be responsible for his actions, and that it is none of our business except to present the truth as we understand it before him, and if he accepts it, all right, if he rejects it he must endure the consequence.

As for ourselves we are opposed to being seized by the throat, because men think we are in error. And to avoid this we have fled a number of times, leaving everything, and finally came out here into the wilderness, thinking we could have peace for a while which we have had. But this people might as well take wings and fly from the planet as try to get out of the reach of the world. A prominent man who called upon me here, said to me upon one occasion: “When I see this beautiful valley, and see how comfortable you are, I wish you were out of the United States.” “Why,” said I. “Because,” said he, “I can foresee what trouble you will have, and that you will not be allowed to remain in peace; you will have to leave here, people will not be content to have you stay.” “Where shall we go?” I enquired. We might go to the deserts of Sahara, or the most forlorn place on the face of the earth, and it would only be a little while our industry, our frugality, our union and those qualities which characterize us, would draw the world to us. We cannot be hid. If we were to go to the remotest part of the earth, to Patagonia or anywhere else, that which we witness here would be repeated. We are like a city set upon a hill that cannot be hid. Those qualities that characterize this people, which make us so remarkable, which have enabled us to make a beautiful place out of the desert, as we have done in this country, and would do wherever we might go—those qualities would draw men to us. If we were on an island we should have ships coming with commerce; upon a continent we should have railroads and means of communication such as we have today. He would have been a bold man who would have ventured to have said—unless he were a Prophet; you know Prophets take strange liber– ties; God gives them liberty to say remarkable things—that in the space already passed such great changes would have occurred in this valley, and throughout these valleys, and that this place would become so important. We hear of railroads coming in here from every direction, making Salt Lake City their objective point. We are bound to be lifted up. You cannot conceal us, it is impossible. We have got to stand contact with the world, and if our religion will not stand such contact, then it must succumb. But it will not. It will stand the test, it will pass through the ordeal purer and better, and men will recognize its beauty. Our destiny is to be brought in contact with the world. God has predicted it. We may hide ourselves in a corner, but God will bring us out to the light, for we have to come in contact with the world to prove our strength, to prove what is in us, and to learn many things the knowledge of which we need.

I pray God to bless you my brethren and sisters and friends, to let His Holy Spirit rest down upon you and preserve you in the truth. Let us love and cling to the truth with all our hearts, and it will bear us through. It is that which will endure in time and throughout eternity; and that God may assist us in maintaining our integrity and keeping the faith, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, May 15, 1881.

The Gospel is declared to be glad tidings of Salvation; and the principles which have been dwelt upon in our hearing this afternoon by Brother Naisbitt, are made glad tidings of salvation unto every soul, especially unto every soul that will receive them and those who have received them, who have bowed in simplicity before God, calling upon Him in the name of Jesus Christ, to give unto them a testimony and a knowledge concerning the truth of these things. The declaration of the principles as we have heard this afternoon, kindles within their hearts the old fire and quickens their spirit and causes feelings of joy and satisfaction to fill their whole being. While listening to Brother Naisbitt’s remarks I thought to myself that no human being upon the face of the earth who could be assured of the truth of that which has been stated—that there is indeed a church organized according to the primitive pattern, that the old Gospel is in truth restored, that the old ordinances have been once more placed in the Church accompanied by the old power—if a person could be convinced of this and know for himself and herself that it is true, is there one soul that would not be willing to endure all things, to have his name cast out as evil, to be misrepresented, to be persecuted, yes, and even slain, if that should be necessary in the providence of God, in order to attain to all these blessings here and hereafter? I do not believe that, taking the human family generally, there could be many found who would hesitate concerning this matter if they could be convinced of its truth. But the difficulty is to get men and women to comprehend the truth, to recognize it, to understand it when they hear it, to be able to separate the truth from error, for the reason that in the human mind there are certain conceptions of truth. We entertain certain ideas as to what the truth should be, how it should come to us and also as to who its teachers should be, the kind of men they should be. And this is the difficulty that is all the time in the way of preaching the Gospel. There is an arch enemy of mankind who is constantly laboring to blind the eyes, to darken the understanding and to harden the hearts of the children of men, and to prevent them from receiving the truth when they hear it. There have been comparatively few who have been able to rise superior to their surroundings, and it has only been by the aid of the Almighty that they have suc– ceeded. But in every age from the beginning there have been those found who have sought after truth and have been willing to make every sacrifice for it. It was so with the Apostles. It was so with those who believed in their doctrine. It was so with the Prophets who preceded them. It has been so with those who have succeeded the Apostles; for in every age, and among all people, as we have been told, there have been those who have sought for the truth in heathendom, in Christendom, among all people, as they would for a precious treasure of inestimable worth, and who have endeavored to comprehend it, to value it, and have been willing to lay down their lives for it. There have been such persons found in all ages and among all people, but it has been especially the case with those who have received the Gospel as we have heard it described in our hearing this afternoon.

The world generally have the idea that when truth comes from God, it comes in such overwhelming power, that mankind are compelled to accept whether they will or no. But this is not the case, it never has been the case. If it were the case man would be deprived of that great privilege that he has received from God—that is, his agency, without which man would cease to be the being that he is, the child of God. The Almighty has given unto all the inhabitants of the earth their agency. A man can choose to be a wicked man; he can choose to be a devil, so to speak, if he wish. Will God interpose? Yes; but not to take away his agency. He can turn to wickedness, be corrupt, and do everything that is evil and abominable in the sight of God, so long as life is given to him, and God permits him to do it. He will not take away his agency. If He did, we would cease to be independent creatures with the right to choose. On the other hand, a man can turn to that which is good and holy and pure. He can cherish it, he can seek for it, he can love it. He has that right, he can choose between those two principles. They have been placed before us so that we might choose the good and reject the evil, or choose the evil and reject the good. That is the privilege that is given to us.

It is not always—neither has it been the case with the majority of mankind who have comprehended the truth—the popular voice that is expressive of the truth. On the contrary, from the very beginning down through all the generations, even to our own day, it has been the case that truth has been unpopular. Hence the saying of the Apostle Paul: “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” He did not say that they might suffer, or that they perhaps might suffer, but that they shall suffer. It should be one of the consequences of living godly in Christ Jesus. The Savior told His disciples the same thing. He led them to expect that they would be persecuted, that they would be hated of all men for His name’s sake. He cited the attention of His disciples to the Prophets who had preceded them; they had been persecuted, they had been slain, and in like manner they might expect a similar fate, and we know full well that this was all fulfilled, that they did meet this fate; as He himself died a martyr to the truth, so His Apostles died in like manner, and the great body of his followers suffered persecution unto death, but were sustained by the knowledge they had received from God, not looking at the world and the perishable things of the earth, knowing that there was a life beyond. They were willing to endure all things; to have their names cast out as evil; to be persecuted; to be stripped of everything that they had. Paul says: “They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, etc.” They suffered all manner of afflictions because of their love for the Gospel. But they lived in peace with themselves and with their God. There was a joy and happiness that came from God, that sustained them in the midst of their sufferings, trials and difficulties. They knew that if they continued faithful they would receive a reward at the right hand of God, and the very thought of that eternity to which they were hastening was sufficient to stimulate them to look beyond the trials and persecutions of this life, and they walked to the stake joyfully having that knowledge.

Now the very fact that truth has not been popular, shows very plainly that mankind do not expect to receive it from the source through which it comes, or through the mediums that presented themselves to them. They looked for it in some other form. But God chooses his own methods, he selects his own instruments, he disseminates his truth in his own way; he has always done so and he will do so until the end.

There is scarcely a day, I may say scarcely an hour, that I do not reflect upon our condition as Latter-day Saints in contrast with the circumstances which have surrounded our predecessors. When I think of the persecution they endured; when I think that God revealed unto his Apostles that there would be a fall– ing away, that the Church would be overcome and the truth destroyed—that is, in its original purity—I cannot help contrasting our position today as compared with the position of the early Christians. Of course a great deal of truth has been saved. Some believe in one part of the Gospel and some in another. Every church possesses some fragment of the Gospel; but the truth in its entirety, the authority to administer in the ordinances, had been taken away. Of course this being the case there could be no organized church upon the earth. But in the early days of the Church, as I have quoted to you, they suffered all manner of affliction. We, in our day, have different circumstances surrounding us. God in his mercy has made certain promises. He promised unto Paul, he promised through the Savior himself that this Gospel of the kingdom should be preached unto all nations before the end should come. Daniel spoke of the kingdom that should be set up in the last days and should not be given into the hands of another people, but it should stand forever. This is different from other dispensations which have preceded it. The Apostles foresaw that there would be a falling away; they saw that persecution would destroy the Church. But they looked beyond this, and, as has been quoted in our hearing, John the Revelator foretold the time when the everlasting gospel would be restored again to the earth never to be taken away again. It might be persecuted, its followers might be hated, they might be driven, as they have been. Indeed there is no persecution the early Christians received; there is no trial or affliction that they had to pass through considering the time the Church had been organized that the Church of the Savior which he has caused to be organized in our day, has not endured. Were the ancient Saints driven? So have the modern. Were the former-day Saints persecuted? So have the Latter-day Saints. Were they slain in former days? So they have been in the latter days. Were their names cast out as evil? So their names have been cast out at the present time. Were they accused of abominable crimes in ancient days as a justification to kill them? So they have been in these days. It is true that such wholesale persecution as attended the preaching of Christianity in the primitive days has not followed its preaching in our day, for the dispensations are different. The Church was driven from the earth then, but as I have said, God has made a promise in these days that it shall not be destroyed again, and this ought to sustain you. This has, I know, sustained and comforted you in days that are past. I have often wondered in looking back to the days of persecution how the Saints were cheered and sustained under such circumstances. When I reflect upon our journey from Illinois, through the wilderness, destitute of everything, women carrying infants with scarcely food enough to keep soul and body together—when I think of these things now, when years have brought responsibility and care, it is a matter of constant wonder to me how the Latter-day Saints in those days sustained themselves, how they could be so cheerful and show such forbearance and fortitude under such circumstances, meeting together round their camp fires singing and rejoicing together as though they were in happy circumstances and, even after they reached this valley, when starvation stared them in the face, their hope and courage were none the less. What was the cause of this? It was the consolation which God had given them that this work should triumph, that it should spread and increase, and that it should gather within its fold every honest soul sooner or later. It was this consolation that never deserted the people.

Now, does it follow, my brethren and sisters, that because this Gospel will not be given to another people, that we will remain in connection with this Church regardless of our actions? Certainly not. The religion which we profess ought not only to be a Sunday religion, but a religion we should carry with us in our daily lives, in our intercourse with one another, in everything in fact that pertains to us, and not like a Sunday garment put on today and laid aside tomorrow. In all; our dealings, in all our conversation, in all our associations, we should endeavor to carry out the principles of our religion.

And there is one thing above everything, I think, we should observe, and that is to be careful about; each others’ feelings and reputation. It is bad enough to be persecuted by outsiders; it is bad enough to have hard things said by those who do not know us; but it is a cruel thing for men and women who profess to be brethren and sisters in the Lord to speak evil of each other. I can endure anything and everything, it seems to me, from the outside so long as it is not true. I am so organized that I do not care anything about these things, they do not affect me, and I rejoice when I think I am trying to do the best I can; but if I should know my brethren and sisters spoke evil of me, that I think would hurt me, and I am sure it hurts others. We should be espe– cially careful how we talk about each other. If we cannot say anything good let us hold our tongues. If we know of a brother or a sister’s weakness go to him or to her if you speak of this weakness. If anyone has done you wrong go to him alone or her alone and tell him or her your grievance, instead of going to your neighbor to talk about the person whom you imagine has wronged you. Above all things we as a people should dwell together in love. The spirit of love should illumine our faces and gladden our hearts, for God delights in a glad heart. We should therefore carry peace and gladness into our habitations. Instead of going in cross, displeased, angry, we should dismiss all such feelings at the threshold and go into our homes carrying with us the spirit of peace. And when there are hard feelings existing, a feeling that some one has injured us, there should be a course taken to remove the same. We should not come together, as we have done this afternoon, and partake of the bread and water in remembrance of the broken body and spilt blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, bearing hard feelings towards one another. If I know or feel that a man has wronged me, should I come here and partake of the sacrament without going to him and endeavoring to make the matter right? No, I should not. I should go to that man and tell him my feelings. If he has wronged me, I should say to him, “Let us make this right;” if I have wronged anyone else, that person should come to me in like manner. All such feelings should be removed from the midst of the Latter-day Saints. We should dwell in love, in union and in peace, and if we cannot make our differences right between ourselves, then we should call in the aid of some of our brethren to assist us, and by their aid, perhaps, the wrong, if any exists, may be rooted out and the evil put away from our midst. This is the religion that we should have. We may hear the Elders talking about the principles of the Gospel, as we have done this afternoon, and our hearts be gladdened by the recital thereof—we may listen to these things: but if we do not carry out the principles that are thus taught, our religion is of no avail, it amounts to nothing, it is like a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, it is not a practical and true religion; but if we carry out these principles, then blessed are we, and just as sure as we carry them out it will be the case with us, as long as Satan has power, that we will be persecuted. I would have none of you imagine that there will be a cessation of this persecution. I have heard some say that the time will soon come when there will be a cessation of this hatred against the Latter-day Saints. Do not deceive yourselves with any such idea. Thousands of times people have said to me, “Oh, I wish you Latter-day Saints would abolish that hateful institution. That is the only thing that makes you objectionable.” This is a great mistake. If we could do such a thing, it would not bring the result that the world imagine. If this is the Church of Christ—as we declare it to be—just as true as it is we will be persecuted. We cannot escape it, it is an inevitable result of the Gospel. We might seclude ourselves in the deserts of Sahara, as we secluded ourselves in these mountains some thirty-three years ago, and persecution would reach us. The adversary will not let us alone. The direst persecutions we ever had to suffer, occurred before the doctrine of polygamy was taught or believed in. There is nothing short of complete apostasy, a complete denial of every principle we have received, a throwing away of the Holy Priesthood, that can save us from persecution. When this takes place, when all the chief features of the Gospel are obliterated, when we can float along the stream and do as the world does, then and not till then will persecution cease, or until the adversary is bound, for the day will come when Satan will be bound and then persecution will cease, but until then there will be no cessation; until then persecution will always exist in some form or other, and we shall have to meet it, so that we may as well make up our minds on the subject. In my childhood I made my calculations that the Gospel might cost me my life. I felt as Brother Naisbitt has described. In my childhood I had a yearning to know the truth and to know the Church of God. I would have gone round the world if I had been strong enough to have found a servant of God who had the ancient power. I thought I would be willing to do everything that anybody else ever did, God being my helper, even if it cost me my good name. It might cost me my life; but what is that compared with eternal life in the presence of God. What are houses, what are lands, what is property of any kind compared with eternal life in the presence of God, to dwell there eternally in the society of Jesus, and of the Apostles and Prophets of old? This life is but a span. A few short years and we will pass away. Even if our enemies should suffer us to live, it is inevitable that we shall die. That fiat has gone forth. Death is in the world. But we have received a knowledge of the truth, and we can seal our testimony with our blood regarding it; but I do not think this will be necessary in this age further than what has taken place. I trust it will not be. No man need court any such thing. If it should come while we are in the path of duty, having espoused the truth, we should be willing to endure all the consequences involved in its espousal and should follow the path that God has pointed out, leaving Him to overrule and control all things. But it is important, my brethren and sisters, that we should know it is the truth. That is the important point, that we should know for ourselves—not because I say so, not because someone else says so, but because we know it for ourselves, God having revealed it to us. And that is the privilege of every human being whom God has created, that each should know for himself and herself concerning the truth. It is my privilege and your privilege to ask God and find out the truth for ourselves, and then when we have found it we can endure persecution. This is what the world calls fanaticism, but it is a fanaticism that the Saints of God always had. It is different from any other fanaticism; it is based on the truth, and it is this that should gather us together; it is this that should gather us together and make us one people.

That God may grant us a continuation of these blessings and an increase of them and of His power and preserving care, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, May 8th, 1881.

President Cannon having read the whole of the 12th Chapter of the Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, said: It is a blessed thing for us who live in this day and age to have records in our midst which have come down from olden times, and which are recognized, at least by Christendom, as the Word of God, and as containing principles of life and of salvation. A people who are destitute of such records are in many respects to be pitied, for they have not the benefit of the experience and teachings of those who have preceded them and are deprived of that knowledge concerning the things of God, which is a great stay unto those who possess it. It is a great comfort to a person in the midst of trials and of afflictions, who has a desire to look unto God or some being who is superior to us, to read the life and the experience of others who may have been similarly situated in other ages, and to know from the record that has come down how they felt and acted, and the deliverances they received through the power of God. In like manner it is a great blessing and a comfort to those who are struggling in the midst of the darkness, error, and confusion which prevail upon the earth, whose souls go out after God, who desire to know concerning Him, to comprehend the plan of salvation, to have some understanding concerning the objects of their creation; and while in this life to have the experience of others who have preceded them, and also to read that which they knew concerning God.

In this respect the chapter which I have read from this book is of priceless worth; its value cannot be estimated by anything that is known among men upon which value is fixed. If we did not have this book, and it could be given to us with the testimony that we now have as to its authenticity and its divine origin, I suppose there are hundreds today in this Tabernacle who, if they could not get it in any other way, would be willing to give all that they have in the world to possess a copy of it. The fact that we have it, the fact that we have always had it, the fact that our forefathers always had it, at least so far as we know, has made us to a certain extent careless about it. We do not value it as we might do if our attention had been newly awakened to its existence. But in the Latter-day Saints it should always be a precious treasure. Beyond any people now upon the face of the earth, they should value it, for the reason that from its pages, from the doctrines set forth by its writers, the epitome of the plan of salvation which is there given unto us, we derive the highest consolation, we obtain the greatest strength. It is, as it were, a constant fountain sending forth streams of living life to satisfy the souls of all who peruse its pages. Our condition is bad enough, it may be said, in some respects with this in our possession and having this to refer to; but we can imagine that it would be much worse if we did not have it, if we could not appeal to our fellow creatures who believe in God, who believe in Jesus Christ, who believe in the Old and New Testaments—if we did not have this to appeal to, to prove that whatever our peculiarities may be, however different our views from the views of many who profess Christianity, we at least share in those views with others who were called the people of God, the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ in days that are past, and who among all people throughout Christendom are recognized as the true exponents of the word of God, and the plan of salvation which He revealed.

There was a day in our history when it was considered a crime for us to believe in revelation from God. I do not know that that day is entirely past. There was a day in our history when it was considered very improper for us to believe in Prophets or Apostles—that is, to believe that they ought to be in the Church. There was a time when we were indicted by a mob in its written proclamation for believing in miracles. It was considered sufficient cause and justification to expel us from our homes because we believed that God, through His power, could heal the sick, and perform miracles like unto those that were performed in ancient days by His servants. How do you think it would have been, my brethren and sisters, if we had not had the Bible to refer to? How would it have been with many of those who passed through those scenes if they had not had the teachings of the Apostles and the words of the Savior written as we have them in the Bible to comfort them, to cheer them, and to show them that it was not a new departure for men to have those ideas and beliefs? With the Bible in our hands we could test all men who professed to be followers of Jesus Christ; for God has plainly said, that He is the same yesterday, today and forever; that He does not change; that He is as near unto His people in these days as He ever was; that he is as willing to hear their cries, to answer their petitions, to grant unto them the desires of their hearts, in our age as He ever was in any preceding age. Now, this is a doctrine plainly taught in the Bible, and it, has been the cause of immense satisfaction to those who have espoused its doctrine, it would have been a very trying thing for us in the days of gloom through which we have passed had we not been assured in a very reliable way that God would hear and answer our prayers, for there have been many times when if it had not been for this assurance and this knowledge, the Latter-day Saints would have sunk beneath the weight of their afflictions, it is doubtful if they could have endured them; but by having this knowledge, by having received a testimony concerning the willingness of our Father in heaven to answer prayer, and to deal with us as He dealt with His ancient children, we have been comforted, we have been sustained, we have been filled with hope and have been cheered in our onward progress, and this knowledge today is more precious than any knowledge there is upon the face of the earth; for in the darkness, in the unbelief, in the denial of God, which is so common at the present time, the man who knows that God lives, that God hears and answers prayer, the woman who knows this occupies a very superior position and has great cause for thanksgiving and praise that such knowledge has been placed in his or her possession. Now Paul, who wrote this epistle from which I have read, understood this perfectly. His life, in many respects, resembles the lives of those who preceded him in the same career. In many of its features it resembles the lives of the prophets who lived before the days of the Savior; and the lives of the servants of God in this day in which we live have a strong resemblance to that of Paul and his fellow Apostles. Brother Woodruff has published a little work, called, “Leaves from my Journal,” and in reading that book I have been very forcibly reminded of the lives of the ancient Apostles, it resembles them so much. You have doubtless thought, all of you, about the character of the men whom Jesus chose to be His Apostles. They were men who were stumblingblocks to their generation, for they did not belong to the popular classes. They were not learned men, they were not rich men—that is in the worldly sense of the word—they were not dignified men; and Jesus Himself, the Lord of life and of glory, was a constant stumblingblock to His generation. His origin was humble—although he came of a kingly line: his surroundings were mean and low; his reputed father a carpenter, and doubtless he himself worked at the business, and the men whom he chose were fishermen, men of low degree, men of lowly origin; not scholars, not men of fine presence so far as worldly advantages were concerned. But he filled them with the power of God; he gave them the revelations of heaven; he taught them the plan of salvation; he sent them forth endowed with power from on high; and they effected a great revolution in the earth. They laid the foundation of a system that has accomplished marvelous results, and through their work the name of Christ has been spread throughout all the earth.

Have you not been frequently struck, my brethren and sisters, with the peculiar manner in which God called his people and his servants. It is not many wise, it is not many learned, it is not many noble who have been called as his servants. He called his Prophets wherever he could find them, and they were suited to his purpose. He called his apostles and his disciples in the same manner. It seemed to be a necessity that the faith of the generations of men should be tried, that their confidence in God should be tested, to see whether they would be willing to receive his truth from any source however humble. It would not be any trial of a man’s faith if some man possessing supreme power, who wielded wonderful influence, were to declare that what he said was the word of God unto the people—a man of popular honors, a man who could control all the people, who could make the system which he advocated popular and desirable among mankind, what trial would there be of a people’s faith to embrace truth under such circumstances? But that has not been the course which God has taken with his people. He could have sent his Son Jesus Christ among men at a time and under circumstances that would have made his influence irresistible on the earth and among the people. He could have given him such power that men would have been compelled to have received him, but that was not the way in which the Lord did his work. He never did it in that manner. He never consulted men’s views and their ideas respecting his work. He chose his instruments and he sent them as he desired under the circumstances which he deemed best adapted to accomplish his purposes. Therefore His Son Jesus was born—though as I have said deriving his descent from the kingly house of David—under circumstances that did not carry with them great influence. There was nothing about his birth or his surroundings to convince the inhabitants of the earth that he was the Son of God. They were left entirely to know this by the Spirit of God; they were left to derive this knowledge by seeking for it unto him who could bestow it upon them, and were not to be actuated by that which is called the popular voice; and in this way man’s agency is tested to the very utmost. To illustrate the idea that I have on my mind, suppose that Jesus had been born under circumstances that mankind would have had to accept him as the Son of God; suppose his disciples had been under such circumstances and surrounded by such influences that mankind would have naturally followed them and accepted their doctrines without hesitation, because it would have been to their worldly interest to do so, would man’s agency have been tested as it was in the days of the Savior? No, his agency would not have been tested. He had presented before him truth and error. Truth was not popular. The espousal of truth was not of worldly advantage to men at that time. If he therefore espoused it, it would be because of his love for it, and for the blessings which would flow from it, and not because there would be any profit of a worldly character attending its espousal. There is a reason therefore for God sending many of his messengers as he has done. It was rarely that they were men who by their position could control the people and cause them to follow them naturally aside from the truth. We know how it was with many of the Prophets. They were unpopular. The truths that they declared did not add to their popularity, and it was a test of men and women’s love for the truth when these men came among them, for when they espoused the truth they did it because of the love of the truth. God has evidently determined that when men and women embrace the truth, they shall embrace it for the love of it; that they shall not be converted by man’s influence; that they shall not follow in the train of men because of some advantage that will accrue to them. Evidently, then, it is the will of God concerning us, that if we embrace the truth we must embrace it because we love it, not because of the instrument who brings it to us. We must be willing to receive it through whatever channel he may choose. If it be John the Baptist, if it be any of the disciples of the Savior, if it be Joseph Smith, if it be Brigham Young, if it be John Taylor, or any other man, no matter who the man may be, God chooses his own instruments, and he sends his truth to the earth in a way that be sees fit.

The most of those who are of adult years in this audience this day know how it was before they heard the sound of the Gospel as, preached by the Elders of this Church. They know very well that nowhere within the range of their acquaintance was there a man among all the churches, who declared that he had authority from God to administer the ordinances of life and salvation by direct revelation from him. The most of you know that the common expression was that the canon of scripture was full; that there were no more miracles; that angels would come no more to the earth; that God would no more bestow the old blessings that were enjoyed in ancient days, and that he would no more speak unto men. This was the teaching, and every one was led to expect that all things would continue as they were, and when men and women were dissatisfied about this, and they went to their ministers and asked them about it, they invariably replied that the blessings pertaining to the days of Jesus and his Apostles were not for this generation. I was but a child when my parents joined the Church, but I learned to read very early. Among the first questions I remember asking my father was in relation to the Apostles and to the gifts. I asked him if there were no Apostles now. He told me there were not. I asked him if there were no men who performed the works that they did. He told me that there were none, and I have time and time again gone to bed and cried because I could not live in the days of Apostles, because I could not see Jesus and knew the things which he taught, and which his Apostles taught. This was my experience in my childhood. I yearned with all my soul to live in a day when these things were possible, when God would speak from the heavens, when God would bestow his power upon men, and when those who were faithful could receive the gifts and blessings of the Gospel as they did in ancient days, and I repined in my heart because I did not have the privilege of living in a day like that. And as I have said, though but a child when the Gospel came to my father’s house, I rejoiced in it, and I have rejoiced in it from that day to the present.

God has restored the old Gospel, God has rebuilt the old Church. God has restored the old authority, and with the Gospel have come the old gifts and manifestations of the spirit, and with the Church, and with the authority and with the Gospel and with the gifts have come the old persecution, the old hatred, the old animosity, the same determination to destroy the work of God that has always been manifested when it had an existence upon the earth. And how inconsistent it would be to entertain any other views concerning the Gospel than that which we do. How inconsistent it would be to believe that the inhabitants of the earth would be entirely cut off from any further revelation from God. But, says one—this is what is said when they object to these things—how is it that we have lived for so many generations without this knowledge? There is a reason for this. God does not deprive the earth, nor the inhabitants of the earth of His knowledge without cause. When the Prophets disappeared from Israel before the coming of the Savior, there were reasons for their disappearance. When there was witchcraft, as we are told, in the days of Saul, and there was a time of famine in the land for the word of God, there were reasons for this. When communication ceased between heaven and earth in those and subsequent days, there were good reasons why that should be so. Communication never ceased when the people were faithful. When they honored God, when they kept the commandments of God, when they listened to the voice and admonitions of His Prophets, communication never ceased under these circumstances. But when the people turned unto idols, when they followed Baal, when they hardened their hearts against God, when they persecuted and slew His Prophets, then in his anger he withdrew from them, his face was hidden, his voice was no longer heard, there were no longer visions, there were no longer prophecies in the land—an unbroken stillness reigned between the heavens and the earth until the people again repented, sometimes under the inspiration of a Prophet, sometimes under some good king raised up and turning to the Lord. Then again Prophets appeared, predictions were heard, the voice of revelation, or in other words, the voice of God through his servants, was heard in the land. And so it was after the days of the Savior. When he was killed his Apostles still lived, and they proclaimed the truth, and they would have continued to do so, to have perpetuated the line of the Apostles, to have ordained Apostles after Apostles, for, as Paul has said, God has placed first in the Church, Apostles. The Church of Christ is not perfect without Apostles. Apostles were as necessary as Teachers; they were as necessary as Evangelists; they were as necessary as Pastors. But the wicked would not allow Apostles to live, for Apostles were men who had revelation, Apostles were inspired of God; they became, as it were, the oracles of Jehovah to the inhabitants of the earth. But they were slain, one after another. The Church was persecuted, the men of God were destroyed, and of course when this came to pass, darkness prevailed. There were no means of receiving revelation. How could God send men unto people who would kill them? He destroyed the Jewish nation for killing his Son, and he broke in pieces other nations for killing His Apostles. And thus there arose a system having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; a system that was popular, a system of religion that monarchs caused to be taught in their dominions and to their subjects, and a great change occurred throughout what is called Christendom. The followers of this religion, instead of being persecuted and hunted, instead of having to hide in caves and dens to escape the wrath of the governing powers, those that were left of them emerged from their hiding places and were elevated to places of power and honor, and the followers of him who was called the meek and lowly Jesus, became, in some instances, the rulers of the land. Thus persecution ceased, and with the stoppage of persecution there was also a cessation of revelation. There was no voice from heaven, no angels descended, no men had visions—that is, I am speaking now in general terms. The Church was not organized upon its original plan; it departed from it; and from that time until a little over half a century ago, this continued to be the case. Have there been reformers? Yes; good men, men who served God to the best of their ability, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and many others, arose in their generations, and strove to the best of their ability to turn the tide and to have men seek after God. But they had not the autho– rity of the Holy Priesthood; they had not the authority to rebuild the Church according to the original pattern, and though they were blessed of God, though they enjoyed his favor, though his spirit was with them to a very great extent, they did not have the authority to initiate men and women into the Church, and through their administration to bestow upon them the gifts that were enjoyed in ancient days. This was the cause of such a long period of darkness, of gloom and ignorance that prevailed concerning God.

Now, if a man had gone with this Bible in his hands throughout Christendom at the time the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, and inquired of the various churches respecting their organization and the gifts and blessings that Paul has described in the chapter I have read as necessary to the Church of Christ, he would have found no church corresponding to his description. He compares it to a man’s body. He impressed upon those to whom this epistle was addressed, the necessity of being a member of the body; that the head could not say to the feet, “I have no need of thee;” that an Apostle could not say to the humblest member of the Church that there was no need of that member or that officer. Neither, on the other hand, could that officer say, because he was the feet, that there was no need of the head. All the officers, all the gifts, all the blessings that were enjoyed in ancient days are as necessary to the perfection of the body of Christ now as they ever were. The Saints were all partakers of the same spirit, and when men had that spirit, as Paul had it in his day, they had these gifts. Not every man the same gift, by any means; but God gave his gifts through his spirit according to the wants of the people, according to the necessities of the Church, and thus they were in every respect a perfect body. You take out Apostles and you leave the body imperfect, and you take out Prophets and the body is no longer perfect. You take out miracles, and helps, prophecies, tongues, interpretations of tongues, and all these gifts, or any of them, and you leave the body of Christ, or the Church of Christ imperfect. Are all Apostles? No. Are all Prophets? No; but every one ought to have the spirit of prophecy. There is necessity for Apostles, Prophets, Teachers, and all the gifts in the Church, and whenever the Church of Christ is organized on the earth it possesses those blessings. Now, referring to this chapter which I have read, if a man had gone out sixty years ago among the Christian sects and denominations in search of the Church of Christ, according to the ancient pattern, would he have found it? Was there such a church on the earth? No there was not. The Lord sent his angels to Joseph Smith and ordained him to the old authority, for as there was no man remaining on the earth then that had that authority, it was necessary that they should come, otherwise the authority could not have been bestowed. It had gone back to heaven, therefore the heavens had to be opened, angels had to descend, even the same men that held it when they were in the flesh on the earth. They had to lay their hands upon a man and ordain him as they would have done in the flesh, as they did in fact while in the flesh upon him who took the place of Judas Iscariot when he betrayed the Lord and lost his apostleship. They laid their hands upon Matthias, and he became an Apostle. The council would not have been complete without this. Matthias occupied that place by ordination under the hands of his brethren the Apostles, and in like manner when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were ordained Apostles, they received the Apostleship by the laying on of the hands of the men who had held that authority in the flesh, and hence you can see the propriety of angels coming.

Now, it is a remarkable fact that Joseph Smith had gifts before he was ordained. He was a Seer, for he translated before he was ordained; he was a Prophet, for he predicted a great many things before he was ordained and before the Church was organized; he was a revelator, for God gave unto him revelations before the Church was organized. He therefore, was a Prophet, Seer and Revelator before he was ordained in the flesh. Did you ever think of it? Brother Joseph Smith was a Prophet, Seer and Revelator before he ever received any Priesthood in the flesh. But did he on that account presume to administer the ordinances of life and salvation? Did he presume to lead men into the waters of baptism and baptize them? No, he did not. Why? Because he had not received that authority. He could act in those other capacities, he could possess those other gifts, they were born with him. He was ordained a Prophet, doubtless, before he came here; but that ordination did not give him the right to immerse men and women in the waters of baptism, neither did it give him the power to lay on hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. He had to await the authority from on high. And who came? The man that held the authority in ancient days, the man who baptized the Son of God—John the Baptist, who was beheaded by the order of Herod. It was necessary that some one holding that authority should come from heaven, there being no one on the earth, and all the churches then in existence denied such authority, to a very great extent, at least. At any rate, whether they denied it or not, they did not possess it. And when he came, he laid his hands upon Joseph Smith and his companion, Oliver Cowdery, and gave them the authority, and then, having received the authority, they were baptized for a remission of their sins. But there still remained another authority which they did not have. Joseph was not a presumptuous man. Why, there are thousands of men in this generation who would say, “if I am a Prophet, Seer and Revelator, I have authority to do everything else.” But he did not do that, he did not take that view, he waited, as I have said, until the due time of the Lord, and when the Lord sent his messenger to ordain him, then he acted, But he did not think, after having seen an angel, after having been ordained by an angel to the Aaronic Priesthood, after having received authority to baptize—he did not presume to lay on hands upon anyone for the reception of the Holy Ghost. As in the other cases he waited, and in the good time of the Lord, he sent his Apostles, the three leading Apostles—Peter, James and John, the First Presidency of the Church, in the days of Jesus after his death; he sent those who held the keys, he commanded them from heaven to go and administer unto those two men, to lay hands upon them. And when they were ordained Apostles, they proceeded then to lay hands upon each other, the one ordained the other, having received authority from God to do this. In virtue of this Apostleship they proceeded to organize the Church under the command of God.

And witness, my brethren and sisters, the marvelous results which have followed the restoration of this angelic and divine power, witness the marvelous results wherever this Gospel has gone. It has gone forth accompanied by the convincing power of God. The humble of the earth have been baptized and they have received a testimony from God that their sins have been forgiven. What wonderful power this is! The power to remit sins by the administration of an holy and divine ordinance. Yet this has been the case. Humble men have been chosen and ordained of God, and have gone forth carrying this power with them. They have taken those who believed into the waters of baptism, immersed them, and God has witnessed unto those souls that their sins have been remitted. A wonderful power! And then they have laid their hands upon them and the Holy Ghost has descended as in ancient days, and the gifts, blessings and graces of the Gospel have accompanied the administration of that holy ordinance, and the hearts of the people have been bound together. Oh, how wonderful it is when we look at it!—men and women of every nation, kindred, tongue and people to be bound together as the heart of one man, under the influence of the power of God, through this humble agency. Such men start out feeling their dependence on God. They have no learning to boast of; they have no advantages to any great extent, yet they have not the disadvantages that some people have to contend with. I think it is a positive disadvantage to be as many ministers are. A man is terribly encumbered who goes through the mill to be prepared to teach the Gospel. But when a man goes forth putting his trust in God, he feels that in and of himself he is nothing; that if he brings a soul to the knowledge of the truth, he knows that it must be by the power of God. He goes forth trembling and weeping, yet he bears precious seed. He knows he has the message of life and salvation, that God has chosen him to deliver that message, and he goes among the people, bearing his testimony in humility, calling upon God to bear witness of the truth of what he has said, calling upon the people to repent and to forsake their sins and turn to God. It is not his eloquence, it is not his popularity, it is not his wealth, it is nothing of this kind that convinces the people, but it is the Spirit of God which rests upon them. They are filled with joy and peace. They read the Bible as they never read it before. The scales drop from their eyes. They see the beauties of the Gospel, and they wonder how it was they did not see them before. And all this through the restoration of the Holy Priesthood. The Prophet Joseph Smith, inspired of God, laid the foundation of a Church that has not the like of it on the earth. Men wonder at it. They say, “What an organization you have; how wonderful it is.” It is wonderful because it is Divine, it came from God. Man’s wisdom did not devise it—man’s wisdom has not maintained it. Whatever there is about it, God must have the glory.

In conclusion, my brethren and sisters, I say to you, cleave to the truth, revere this book (the Bible) and the other books that we have received. These precious records contain the word of God. We can look back to olden times and see how our brethren and sisters did, and what God did for them, and how similarly he is blessing us now. These records are a source of comfort in the midst of affliction and trial; they are a source of blessing and joy to every soul who will peruse them and treasure up the truths therein contained.

May the Lord help us to be true to that which he has com– mitted to us, that after we have fought the good fight, after we have done all we can do for the salvation of our fellow creatures and the spread of truth, we may be received into the mansions of the blessed, there to dwell eternally with our God, and with those who have gone before, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, April 24, 1881.

The principles which have been advanced this afternoon are so strictly in accord with the principles which were taught by the servants of God in ancient days, that every one, upon reflection, must acknowledge that to have a church professing to be the Church of Christ there must of necessity be in it, if the ancient principles be adhered to, the spirit of revelation. In the Bible that has come to us as the record of God’s dealings with his people from the days of Adam our father down to the days of the last disciples of Jesus Christ: in that record we are told that every man who professed to be a follower of the Lord, and especially those who belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ, enjoyed from the Lord that spirit of revelation. It is difficult to conceive—if we did not see around us organizations professing to be his followers and not enjoying His Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, which communicates his mind and his will unto those who seek for it. Of course we see around us in Christendom any number of churches which profess to be the churches of Christ, the members of which deny present communication from God, who say that revelation is no longer needed; that the canon of scripture is full, that all the revelations that God had to give to men he has given, and that they are embodied in the Old and New Testament. We have, as I have said, any number of churches which make this statement, teach these doctrines and train the children and the grown people in the belief that God had ceased to speak, that he has ceased to communicate his mind and will unto his children; that the channel of revelation which was once opened and by which all who were his true children were distinguished—that that is forever closed. But, as I have said, if it were not the existence of these organizations; if it were not for the fact that these are the teachings that mankind receive; if we were to read the Book itself, and rely upon its statements, the natural conclusion would be that it would be the privilege of every man and of every woman who belonged to the Church of Christ to have communications from him, for the reason, as I have already stated, that it was the distinguishing characteristic of the organization known as the Church of Christ in the Messianic dispensation. It was the distinguishing characteristic also of the men who were the servants of God anterior to the days of Jesus. It would be a most singular idea—if it were not for the existence of those traditions to which I have referred—that God, our eternal Father, our Great Creator, should cut off his children from all communication with him, and leave them to grope in the dark, wandering hither and thither without any certain means of knowing his divine mind, of comprehending his divine will concerning themselves and the affairs of the earth. I can join with Brother Nicholson, who gave expression to his joy and gratification that we live in a day when God has once more broken the silence which has reigned for ages, and has revealed his mind and made known the plan of salvation in its old plainness and purity to the inhabitants of the earth. And if there is one thing that causes my joy to be greater than another, it is the fact that this knowledge, as he has stated, is not confined to one man, nor to three men, nor to twelve men, but that it is communicated unto every humble soul who seeks for it in a spirit which is acceptable unto God. It is a constant cause of thanksgiving to me that a people have been gathered together who are relieved, to a very great extent, from the uncertainty, and from the strifes, contentions and divisions upon points of doctrine that prevail throughout Christendom. There is in every human heart a desire to know something concerning God. I think it is Bancroft who says that the natural man, the barbarian, believes in God naturally; but skepticism and unbelief are the attendants of civilization, of enlightenment so called. There is no man who has not stifled that portion of the spirit of God which is born in him, who does not desire to know something concerning God; concerning his purposes, concerning the plan of salvation, concerning the object of his creation and of his being placed on the earth, and also concerning his future destiny. And because this knowledge does not come in the way in which men would like it to come, because God does not conform to men’s ideas and to men’s expectations, a great many deny the existence of God, and say that if there be a God, he certainly would reveal something to those who seek earnestly to comprehend him. But there is one saying recorded by an ancient Prophet, that experience proves to be true, even the experience of those who have known God best, and have been best acquainted with the plan of salvation. The Lord said that, “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” We cannot comprehend God; we cannot dictate to him the plan that he shall pursue in saving his children. Men frequently say, “How easy it would be for God to reveal himself; how easy it would be for him to make his mind and will known so indisputably that no one could cavil about or reject it; how easy it would be for him to open the heavens and make manifest his glory, and send angels that all might see.” No doubt the Elders of this Church have been frequently met by the objection—whenever they had testified that God had established His Church in its ancient power, with its ancient gifts, restored the everlasting Gospel, and the authority to administer its ordinances, and that he had done this by the administration of holy angels—they have been met by the objection “Well, if this testimony be true, why did he not send angels to somebody or to some people whom all would believe, and concerning whose testimony there could be no doubt, instead of sending them to an obscure youth, an illiterate boy, in the State of New York, and withholding from the rest of mankind all knowledge concerning this wonderful event.” Of course this sort of argument applies to the Savior himself, it applies to the whole plan of salvation, it applies to every Prophet that ever lived, and cannot be confined alone to Joseph Smith or to the Latter-day Saints. With equal force it might apply to those who lived at the time of the resurrection of the Savior. Why was he not seen by all the people? Why was the Son of God born in so obscure a place, born in a stable and cradled in a manger? Why did he not reveal himself in power? Why did he not convince all the inhabitants of the earth so irresistibly that they would be compelled to accept Him as the Son of God. This argument would apply to other dispensations than that of the Son of God. It would apply to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, and to the whole of the Prophets and Apostles that ever lived. But God, as I have said, has a way of doing these things that does not comport with the ideas of men. There is one thing that we as a people should understand, and that is, that God has purposely drawn a veil between himself and the inhabitants of the earth to accomplish his own designs. He has the power—we all admit it, that is, all who believe in God—to reveal himself in his fulness; he has the power to open the heavens and show every living being all that the heavens contain. There is no limit to his power. He controls the innumerable hosts of heaven. He has but to utter his command and they obey. Jesus said, on one occasion, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” But God, as I have said, has purposely drawn a veil over the inhabitants of the earth. He permitted Adam to fall; he permitted him to transgress his law, to bring about the fall of the human race, in order that man might be, for without the fall man would not have had an existence upon the earth. “Adam fell,” therefore, “that man might be, and men are that they may have joy.” There was a purpose in this. God, through his foreknowledge, comprehended it all. He knew the end from the beginning. It was all arranged. The Son of God was foreordained, to come as a Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, to die for man and atone for the original sin, and to bring to pass the resurrection from the dead, he being the firstfruits of them that slept. God designed that he should come here and be clothed upon with humanity. He designed we should struggle and contend here in this probation with a glimmering of knowledge, a little light. He gave unto us his word. He has commanded us to seek unto him, and he that seeks shall find, to him that knocks it shall be opened, and he that asks shall receive. How? Will it come in such a manner as to convince all the world? No. There would be no faith if this were the case; there would be no room for the exercise of faith. God wishes his children to be developed. And what better position could we be placed in for development of every kind than in such a school of experience as that through which we are now passing on the earth? If God were to reveal himself as many would like, there would be no room for the exercise of faith, there would be no necessity to struggle. But there are two great powers on the earth. Here is the power of God on the right hand, and on the left hand here is the power of evil, and as the Book of Mormon tells us, “it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things.” We could not enjoy the sweet if we had never tasted the bitter. There are two principles at work, and we have to contend with them. Jesus, our Great High Priest and Elder Brother, when he was upon the earth had to contend against evil. He was not free from temptation. He was tempted in all things like unto us, but he differed from us in being able to overcome temptation, in being sinless through the power that he had through his sonship. But he set us the example. He knows through that which he had to contend against the weakness of human nature. He stands as mediator at the right hand of the Father, pleading for his brethren and sisters who, like himself, are subject to the trials, temptations and afflictions that exist in this mortal life. But because of this shall we say that God does not speak? Because we do not see his face, shall we say he does not exist? Because we do not hear his voice, shall we say he has no voice? Because we do not see his hand or his arm—that is, that which we call a hand or an arm—shall we say that he has neither hand nor arm? Certainly not. He will be sought after and all those who seek him will receive his blessing. He will give certainty, he will remove doubt and misapprehension, and give light and enable all such to comprehend and see as far as necessary that which is good for them; he will lead them on step by step, until they reach his presence if they will obey his commandments. They will not have to do this in darkness or in doubt, they will not have to throw aside or surrender their judgment, but he will give unto them his mind and will in such plainness that they will know and comprehend for themselves, although they may be tempted and tried and afflicted.

The proclamation of the Gospel as it has been taught in our day, has brought peace to thousands and thousands of seeking souls. It was very remarkable at the time that this Church was organized, how the spirit of God moved upon a great many people throughout the United States, in Canada, in Great Britain, Denmark, and in other countries to which the Elders went, carrying the glad tidings of the restoration of the ancient Gospel. In many places members of churches were dissatisfied with the want of power in the churches to which they belonged, dissatisfied with the absence of gifts, and they met together and prayed unto God to reveal himself or to give unto them some knowledge concerning the old plan of salvation. Here are my two brethren on this stand, President Taylor and President Woodruff, aged men, who in their early youth or early manhood were in this condition—President Taylor in Canada, and President Woodruff in Connecticut, one of them a Methodist preacher, and the other a member of no denomination. Both of them for years sought God with all the earnestness of their souls to make manifest unto them his mind and will. They were dissatisfied with the existing condition of affairs. President Taylor with other members of the church to which he belonged, would gather together to read the Scriptures, and investigate the principles taught by the Savior and his Apostles, such as the gifts following believers, but in the church to which they belonged and other churches around them no such gifts existed. They were dissatisfied with this condition of things, being conscious that God was the same then as he had been 1,800 years before. They sought for the restoration of these gifts, and when an Elder came along with the glad tidings that a church had been organized after the old pattern, and they were convinced it was true, it filled their souls with gladness, and President Taylor and a number of others who are now in this city, or in this Territory, members of this Church, received the doctrines gladly. At first they doubted its truth. It seemed too good to be true. And they also felt a good deal like the people of Judea in olden times when Jesus was on the earth. People asked them, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” So they feel in respect to this Church. People say, “What good can come from such a source as this is reported to be from.” The same with Brother Woodruff, the same with hundreds of men and women. And I do not know that it should be limited to hundreds; it may be said hundreds and thousands had a yearning, anxious desire for something higher, something nobler, something more certain, something that was from God. This feeling animated thousands of hearts in various lands, and the Elders were guided to them, and when they saw their faces, when they heard their teachings and humbled themselves in obedience to the commandments of God, they became profoundly convinced by the testimony of Jesus Christ, that the Gospel they taught was indeed the ancient Gospel restored. And from every land where the glad tidings have been carried by the Elders of this Church have these humble people crossed continents and oceans, forsaking all because of the Gospel, glad in their hearts that they had received it; like the man that had found the pearl of great price, they were ready to sell all for the purchase of that, so that they could have it in their possession. They were ready to forsake home, kindred, old associations; they were ready to sacrifice their good name—for that had to be sacrificed—all the past repute that they might have had, everything had to be thrown as it were to the winds. But they had found the pearl of great price. They had obtained a testimony from God, and they could endure persecution. Mobs could not extinguish the love of truth. The burning of houses, the destruction of property, and even the loss of life itself, could not cause them to abandon the truth. They cast their lot with the Saints. This feeling of unity has pervaded this entire people, go where you will. You may go to the antipodes and find a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They may have never seen an Elder from Utah, and yet when you go into their congregations and meet them, you find that they believe in the same doctrines, they have precisely the same spirit and the same faith. Before they heard the truth they might not have desired and never thought of leaving their native land, but as soon as they have received the Gospel, you will find in their bosoms, even if no Elder has ever taught it, an unquenchable desire to come and associate with the people of God in the Rocky Mountains, and they are never content until they can gratify their desire. Go to the north and the south, to the east and the west, and to the most distant lands, upon the face of the earth and you will find in their hearts the same feeling, nothing else will satisfy them. God has spoken, God has touched their hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost, and it is this that has sustained us. It is this feeling we should cherish. It is dearer to us than life itself. It is the spirit of God that unites heart to heart, that unites man and woman with bonds that are stronger than death—death cannot break them. Where that feeling is cherished, persecution may rage with all the fierceness that is possible, it cannot destroy it. I thank God from the depths of my heart, when I think of it, that I live in such a day and that I belong to a church of this kind, that I am permitted to have a membership in the Church, for go where you will on the earth you cannot find anything like it. This brotherhood comes from God. It is a foretaste of that brotherhood that will exist in the heavens; it is a foretaste of that union and that love that will prevail there, and without which heaven would not be heaven. And whence its origin? Where did it originate? It originated in heaven, and it was communicated through an humble instrument whom men despised.

It is a test of faith to embrace a Gospel taught by a man with the repute that the world gave to Joseph Smith, with all the falsehoods that were circulated concerning him. It is a test of faith today to the inhabitants of the earth to receive anything that has an origin among the “Mormon” people. Why, you might as well accuse a man of being a leper in some societies as accuse him of being a “Mormon!” Men will shun coming in contact with him. To those who know the Latter-day Saints, it is laughable to see the feeling that is manifested, and there is no greater cause of wonder in the minds of this class than when they come to Utah and see the condition of things existing here, it is so different from everything they have expected. Men and women frequently get filled with the most outrageous ideas respecting the Latter-day Saints. They come here expecting to see monsters, as though you wore horns or were beings of a different species to other people. Now, as I have said, it takes faith and a love of the truth to embrace the Gospel under such circumstances. And the devil is doing all he can, as he always has done, to prejudice men’s minds, to deceive them, to throw dust in their eyes by maligning the servants of God and the people of God. He did it with the Savior. Why was it that all Judea did not believe in the Savior, a holy being whose life was spotless, performing mighty miracles in the midst of the people? Could they not all have embraced the Gospel? Was it God’s design that they should not embrace it? No. God gives unto us our agency, and we do not ourselves realize how great this is. There is no limit to our agency. The power to choose good, the power to refuse evil, the powers to choose evil and refuse good is given to every human being. We can, if we choose, accept God, we can, if we choose, reject God. There is no compulsion about Him, about His Gospel, or about the plan of salvation. If you and I are saved, we will be saved because we have been obedient, and we have exercised the power that God has given unto us. There is no limit to this. We can seek unto Him in humility in the name of Jesus, and continue faithful to the end; we can walk humbly and uprightly with all the ability of which we are capable, observing virtue, chastity, honesty and truthfulness, or we can on the other hand turn to evil, we can reject everything that is good, we can be untruthful, we can be unvirtuous, we can be dishonest, we can practice iniquity. As the Lord said to Cain, “If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” If he would do right, he would be accepted. The agency was within him; God had given it to him, and he would not take it from him. We should cease to be the beings he designs us to be if he did. We are not automatons to be moved by some master hand or pulled with a string. God will control our ac– tions, but he will not dictate to us and compel us. He overrules all things for his glory and for the accomplishment of his purposes. Your acts and mine, and the acts of all the inhabitants of the earth are subject to God, who is the overruling providence over all, and he controls all to suit his divine purposes through his superior knowledge and supreme power. But if you get to heaven, as I have said, if you sing the songs of the redeemed, you will do it, because you yourselves have chosen that path and have determined, by his aid, to walk therein all your days; if any are ever numbered with the damned, if any, ever go into outer darkness and endure the misery of those who have rejected the truth and violated those laws which God has given, violated, in other words, the light that was within them, and which comes from God—if any be there it will be because they have chosen to walk in the path that leads in that direction, and Jesus came not to save them unless they seek to save themselves; it would be contrary to the plan of salvation if he were to do so. There is divine wisdom, therefore, in our seeing as little of the divine presence as we do, it is a test of our faith, and yet those who follow the right course receive the light that is necessary. I can testify of this to you this day in all solemnity before the Lord, I know that God is a God of revelation. I know it for myself. I know that he is a God that hears and answers prayer. I know that he is a God that heals the sick when he is approached in faith and that the mighty works that were done in ancient days he is as willing that they should be done today if his people will exercise faith. He has not gone to sleep like old Baal did. You remember Elijah and the Pro– phets of Baal. Elijah believed in a God that heard and answered prayer, but the believers in Baal called upon Baal. They called upon him throughout the day, but he heard them not, and Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.” But Elijah’s God was not asleep. He had not gone so far but what he could hear the prayer of his chosen servant. The God of heaven never sleeps. His ear is open constantly to the cries that come up unto him; his eye is never closed; he looks upon all his creations; and though he rules in the heavens above and regulates the motions of the universe and controls the planets with which the heavens are emblazoned, there is none of us so insignificant, small or obscure that he cannot hear our prayers and our cries. We have proved this time and time again in the history of this people. His preserving care has been round about us; he has never forsaken us; and often, when everything seemed as though destruction was inevitable, and that there was no path of deliverance, he has calmed the angry elements, he has opened the path and made it plain, he has caused the light of his glory to shine upon that path, and it has been clear to those who have been walking humbly and uprightly before him. This people are a standing witness in the midst of all the nations of the earth that God lives, and that he is the Being the Scriptures say he is. Think of the plots that have been devised against us; think of the plans that have been laid for our destruction; no end to them, and yet this little handful of people, six in the beginning, have gone on increasing, trusting in God as their Deliverer. We have been mobbed, tried and persecuted in various ways, but all these things have had the effect of cleansing us, they have all had their purpose. I would not give much for this Church today if all who had joined it were members of it—that is, members of it with their sins and corruptions and inclinations to do wrong. I am thankful for one thing connected with this work, namely, that every trial has the effect of cleansing the Church, of keeping it pure, of taking away from it the dross and leaving the somewhat purer element. It would not do for the tares to grow up and choke the wheat. Therefore all these things have served a wise purpose in the economy of God; and there is this peculiarity about this Church, it has the power of self-purification, it carries with it, as it were, the power of self-purification. Let a man or a woman in this Church do wrong and persist in that wrong, and sooner or later the Spirit of God will be grieved and they will lose that spirit and their attachment to the truth, and will fall away. In this way we have been preserved. The union of the people to a great extent has been preserved. It is true that those who have left us are opposed to us; it is true there is opposition from various sources; but this does not change nor affect the fact that there are those who do right, nor does it detract from nor lessen the spirit of God which they have received, the spirit of union and of love. That spirit burns as brightly today in the midst of faithful people as it ever did.

Now there are a good many who look upon this work—and some of our faithful Saints, too—and get discouraged because they see iniquity around them, because of evil here in our city, for instance. There was a time when we were free from these evils, many of which now abound, and some are fearful that the evil is overcoming the good. I do not share in these apprehensions. I think it is our duty to be vigilant, to be watchful, and to be all the time doing our best to repel every iniquity, to extinguish as far as we can every temptation, every wrong that is practiced; to use our influence against it, and to do all in our power to stamp it out. For instance, there is drunkenness and the sale of spirituous liquors or intoxicating drinks. I think it is the duty of every Latter-day Saint to help put away such things and to do all in their power to put down gambling houses, houses of ill fame, and other haunts of vice; to discourage blasphemy, the use of profane language, dishonesty, taking advantage of our neighbor, everything of this character. I believe this is our duty, and every man and woman should exercise himself and herself to this end; but after having done that and those efforts do not succeed in preventing or in extirpating them entirely, then what? Shall we be discouraged? Not in the least. You and I cannot sustain this work alone; it is no use thinking the burden of the work is upon us. It is God’s work. I have been made to feel this a good many times when I have been concerned in my mind, being in a strait, as it were, as though everything was closing around me. But I have learned by experience that this work is not the work of man; that the responsibility of carrying it forward and gaining success and preventing evil does not depend upon me alone. I of course have my part, but God presides over it, God has it in his keeping, he is arranging and overruling everything for its final success and triumph. He will make the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of wrath will he restrain. All, therefore, that we have to do is to do that which devolves upon us individually and collectively, and leave the rest to him, and borrow no trouble. One-half of our unhappiness is due to borrowed trouble, looking forward to something that will never occur. The Savior gave us a very wise admonition upon this point. Said he, “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” Enjoy today, not improperly, but properly. Take pleasure today and let the threats come. The clouds may be dark here in the west, when the sun sets, and you may think tomorrow is going to be a stormy day; but how unwise it would be for us to make ourselves miserable in anticipation of the storm tomorrow, when we have the sun shining upon us today, when the heavens are glad and all nature is thankful for the goodness of God. Why should we think of the storms tomorrow? Let them come, and let us be prepared to meet them as best we can. Let us put our trust in God, and while we have peace today, let us enjoy the peace. Be happy as you progress. Enjoy the day as it comes. If adversity comes you will be prepared to meet it, just as well as if you had been brooding over it for months or years. The Latter-day Saints should be the happiest people upon the face of the whole earth. I believe we are. There is one thing the Lord has done for us. He has removed that uncertainty and fear that people have respecting the future. And if we do right, if we keep the commandments of God to the best of our ability, confessing our sins and repenting of them, we have no cause to be un– happy. If afflictions come, if death enters our habitations, shall we bow down our heads and mourn as though We had no hope? No. Let us accept it as from God, believing that he controls all things for the good of his people. And remember this, my brethren and sisters, that God has said through his Son Jesus Christ, that not one hair of our heads shall fall to the ground unnoticed. He is watching over us. He cares for the humblest. Even the very sparrows are the objects of his care, and we are worth more than many sparrows.

I pray God the Eternal Father to bless you, to fill you with His Holy Spirit. Let it be read in your countenance. God loves a glad heart and a cheerful countenance. Carry these into your homes. Husbands: instead of carrying your cares unto your homes to afflict your family with them, throw them off outside and go in with a glad face, so that your children may welcome you with gladness and joy, as they would the presence of the sun after a storm. Let your wife also receive you with gladness and if she has had anxiety and care let your presence comfort her. One of the most painful things to me, is to see men cross in their families, carrying into their houses a spirit that incites fear in the hearts of the mothers and children, and that makes them feel glad when the man goes out. Why, such a man ought not to have a wife, he is unworthy of children. Husbands when they go into their homes ought to carry with them a spirit of peace and joy, so that all might be cheered by his presence, the children glad to meet him, glad to have him come, and sorry when he goes away and the wife, on her part, gladdened by the same spirit.

I pray God to bless you, my brethren and sisters, and to fill you with His Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered at the General Conference, Tuesday Morning, April 5, 1881.

A great variety of topics have been alluded to during our Conference; and I trust that the people will be able to remember, after their return to their homes, the various counsels and instructions that they have received. Our meeting together in a conference of this character ought to be exceedingly profitable to us. Certainly these are occasions of great interest; and I am sure if the instructions which have been given are carried out by the people, they will produce a marked improvement in their lives.

There are many subjects which suggest themselves to us upon occasions like the present. We are placed in such circumstances that it requires constant teachings, constant counseling to enable us to accomplish the duties devolving upon us.

There is one thing that has impressed itself very much upon my mind, to which allusion has been made by others since our Conference commenced, namely, the subject of education.

My position for many years has been such as to deeply impress me with its value and with the importance of our attending strictly to this matter in our various settlements.

There are no people with whom I am acquainted upon the face of the earth who need and who can find use for education to the extent that the Latter-day Saints can. The sending out of missionaries, the building up of settlements, the laying the foundation of a government in a desert land uninhabited by other people; the framing of a polity that produces the results that we have seen produced already in our valleys, and the taking part, as we naturally will have to do, in all matters affecting the weal and the independence of our children and others, all these considerations appeal most powerfully to us as a people, as fathers and mothers, and as citizens, to do all in our power for the advancement of the cause of true education in our midst. Those who are familiar with the people and with what has been done must feel gratified at the improvement which has already been made in various directions. There is a rapidly growing taste for everything that is elevating. I can remember when a boy, when we came here, of the feeling of the boys and the young men; to ride bronco horses, wear big spurs, use the lasso dexterously, break wild horses, and pursuits of that character, were then deemed the most desirable accomplishments by many.

A great change has taken place. We now have our Mutual Improve– ment associations for the young of both sexes; the meeting of last evening gave evidence of the great improvement there has been made in this direction, and the crowded condition of the meeting of the Sunday School superintendents and teachers held the evening previous to that, was an indication of the interest that is being taken in these matters by all classes. This means improvement; this means a growing taste, an increasing desire to advance. You can see it in the children. Books are sought for. Children take pleasure in reading. The great demand today in this Territory is for libraries. And let me here say, we should be exceedingly careful in the selection of books that we put in the hands of our children. And there is one thing that I would have said last night, had time permitted, to those engaged in these associations, that is, to teach the children not to accept that which they read in a book as true, because it is printed; but to teach them to weigh for themselves, to examine for themselves, and test for themselves the statements which may be made upon any and every subject that may be brought to their attention through the medium of books, whether scientific or otherwise. The danger in indiscriminate reading on the part of young people lies in this: their impressions are vivid, and if what they read be incorrect; if, in point of fact, what they read is based on unsound premises and be entirely wrong, but it is presented in an agreeable taking and specious manner, they are apt to accept it as being true. Now, as we have heard this morning, God has revealed certain principles which we know to be true, certain grand cardinal truths which are as fingerboards pointing the way of life. We should teach them to our children of the Sabbath School and of the Mutual Improvement Associations, and endeavor, by the help of God, to implant them in their hearts, so that they afterwards in their search for knowledge, of any kind, may be able to bring what they may read to this standard and test the same thereby. And if our children are taught thus to read, the danger of infidelity, the danger arising from superficial reading, and the imbibing of incorrect ideas, sometimes set forth in a scientific way will be, to a great extent, obviated; and to my mind great care should be taken in these things by all teachers, by all parents, by every one, in fact, who has the care of young people, or the direction of their studies; and not only this but the same rule applies to every one whether a child or an adult. Let us endeavor to cultivate this disposition in our children, to investigate carefully, to weigh properly the statements which may be presented to them. And in no place in our territory should there be a child left without education. A man who suffers his children to grow up in ignorance and without the benefits of education—that which pertains at least to a common school education—is guilty of a great wrong. We should take every pains in our power to instruct our children, to furnish them every facility for learning. Educators who have had experience in other places all join in stating, that they never found a class of pupils more apt, more bright, or who manifested a special aptitude for knowledge and who acquired it with greater ease than do the children of the Latter-day Saints. This is the statement of educators repeatedly made to me, as Chancellor of the University of Deseret; and I believe it. We have children growing up who are bright—who only need have ordinary facilities for education to make them cultured men and women. We had better take the means that others probably would covet, as mobs have done before, and which is a standing temptation in the eyes of certain persons, take that means, I say, and spend it in educating our children with the view of preparing them to enter upon the great and important duties which will devolve upon them, than to have it as a standing temptation to induce somebody to make a raid to get possession of it, or to keep it, and when we can keep it no longer, to bequeath it to our children to possibly quarrel over, and cause disturbances and divisions in our families, and at a time too when our voices are silent and our influence powerless to remedy the evil. Spend it wisely upon your children in your lifetime, and when you have educated them, when you have given them something which they can keep when they lie down at night, without the slightest danger of burglars stealing it, they are equipped for the struggle of life.

Every child in our community should be educated, not in books alone, but to sustain himself, or herself, so that in case he or she be left alone, or otherwise, they will be able, from the elements around them, inasmuch as they possess the use of their own limbs and faculties, to earn a living and thereby aid somebody else to live. And it seems to me, that if parents were worth millions, they should never be content to let their children, boys and girls, grow up to manhood or to womanhood without teaching them to earn their own living at some trade or some manual or skilled labor. I say to my brethren, teach your children the use of their brains, and when they have learned to use their brains, teach them the cunning and skill that can be taught to the right hand of man, by which all that is glorious which we see around us is produced. A good brain and the skill of man’s right hand can produce wonders. The nations who have thus developed themselves have made their mark in the history of the world; and to this characteristic in the nations who are so fortunate as to possess it may be traced the secret of their growth and prosperity. There is no reason why we should not be equal to the most favored in this respect.

A remark was made last evening to the effect, that some of our young men had very little desire to take part in the exercises of the Improvement Associations, because their early education had been neglected. If there had been time I would have related for the benefit of such, a few incidents in the career of a gentleman with whom I am acquainted; he sat by my side at the last session of Congress. He is a man about 45 years of age; when he was 29 years of age, he had a wife and one child, and could not read or write; today he is a member of Congress, and a very creditable representative of his State; he has served also in the Legislature in his State; and has been speaker in that body. Now this is a remarkable instance of what a man can do when he applies himself to learning. There is no man who possesses a sound mind who need be afraid if he will apply himself, using the faculties which God has given him, and not sit down with the idea that he cannot learn. Why a man ought to learn if he should live to be 150 years of age, learn something every day until he dies; there is no limit to a man’s capacity to learn. And because a young man is 20 or 21 years old, or even older, and has a wife and children to sustain, to sit down with the idea that he cannot learn or that he is past learning because his early education has been neglected, is folly; there is no propriety in either man or woman entertaining such ideas. This gentleman of whom I was speaking, at the age of 29, could not read; he was a farmer and was suffering from an attack of bronchitis. His physician told him that if he did not stop work he would gradually sink into the grave. He knew that if he remained upon his farm he could not live without working; so he rented it, and with his wife and child moved down in the city, determined to spend in study the time he could not employ in work. His wife helped him. He had a worthy partner—a most excellent woman I should judge, from what he told me. He commenced his studies, his health improved, but instead of returning to the farm he kept on for four years, and secured a good education in that time; he pinched himself, and both he and his wife struggled, by working all they could and living economically, to acquire this education. After thus applying himself for four years he returned to his farm, completely restored in health. His neighbors thought that as he had been a good student, he would make a good supervisor, to which office they elected him without any effort on his part; and after awhile they elected him a legislator, and returned him several times, and he served as speaker to that body in the State, where probably for its population there are as many men of culture and energy, as can be found anywhere else. And then he was sent to Congress.

It struck me that it was an in– stance of perseverance and energy worth remembering for the benefit of its example, and I relate it so that if there are any young men or young women within the hearing of my voice who may be similarly situated, they need not be discouraged because they have not had the advantages of education in their youth. There ought to be no discouragement under such circumstances. I hope, however, that we shall do everything in our power to furnish facilities for our children. Do not spare means in this direction, my brethren and sisters. You do not know what future there is before your children. They are like diamonds. True, they may need polish, in order to bring out their brilliancy and best qualities; and education of the right kind will impart this luster. There are some as bright intellects in obscure families in this Territory as can be found elsewhere. God has so distributed his gifts that he has not given them to any one family. I thank him for that. He is not going to build up a dynasty in his kingdom. He does not confine his gifts and blessings to any special class of men. He has distributed them like he has the air, so that all have them and all share in them. A man and his wife may be an obscure couple, yet their children may make the brightest men and women. None of you know what your children are capable of until you give them proper opportunities. You should not think that because you have got through life without much education, that therefore your children ought to go through in the same manner. Give your children opportunities, and do not work them to death and thereby stunt their minds; but give the boys a chance and give the girls a chance, bearing in mind that they will have more extended opportunities than you have had for the use of education, and you ought to train them accordingly. At the same time do not, sisters, bring up your children in idleness, and encourage them in the thought that their hands, because they are educated and have a few accomplishments, are not designed for labor; and so with the boys, because they get an education that they cannot hold a plow or handle a shovel, or an axe or other tools. This is a wrong idea. We must not, in educating our children, degrade labor, but rather ennoble and dignify it, and make it worthy the ambition of everybody to work, to toil, to look upon labor as a blessing from God.

I would like to see knowledge spread through our land, in all our settlements; and while we give the boys and girls every facility we can, at the same time we should develop, within them the love of the truth; that is very important, in fact, it is indispensable with us. I am exceedingly anxious upon this point. I have felt, I may say, concerned about it for years. I have done what I could in my limited way to help our children. I resolved years ago that I would do all in my power for them, and I have been struggling to do so ever since. I have not been able to do what I would like to do, but I still hope, and I know others have felt as I do, and that with our combined exertions and efforts we will be able to uphold the cause of true education throughout all our land, and raise the standard so high that, in a few years, we shall have the best educated children to be found within the confines of the republic. There is no reason why this should not be, and yet not depend upon taxes altogether. I, myself, am not unconditionally in favor of taxation schools under all circum– stances. I have views about that which I have not time to express now. Let us advance education by individual effort. I hope we shall never have heavy taxes in this Territory. They should be kept down to the very lowest amount consistent with the preservation of good government and the making of the necessary improvements. Have light taxation and stimulate individual effort in this direction; and not bring a child into the world and instill into its mind that because he is born somebody owes him an education. I think it degrades children to give them such ideas. Teach them it is their duty to work for themselves. And when a man has children he should provide for and educate them, and not think that because he may have a rich neighbor that he should help give them an education. Such an idea is doing more at the present time to pauperise the children of our country in their feelings than almost anything else. They get the idea that they ought to be educated at the expense of the State; and when they are educated they then are to be sustained at the expense of the State. The consequence is the country is filled with men seeking for office; every new President is almost killed by the clamor and pressure of men applying for office. I think it a very bad condition of affairs. I am thankful for one thing. I have been your delegate now for upwards of eight years, and I have scarcely had an application from any of my constituents for help to get office. This relieves me from much that Representatives generally find very unpleasant. Our people are self-sustaining and taught how to work and look upon manual, honest labor as dignified and honorable, and such pursuits as require this as being as noble as any other.

I pray God to bless you and fill you with His Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered at the General Conference, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, April 3, 1881.

It is with great pleasure that I meet with you, my brethren and sisters, in Conference today. And though in some respects I am not feeling very eager to address so large a congregation as has assembled this afternoon, still we all know that if we can get the influence and assistance of the Spirit of the Lord, there is no difficulty in speaking or advancing such thoughts and suggestions as are suitable.

It seems to me that of all men I ought to be most thankful. I certainly feel exceedingly happy in being in your midst, in beholding your faces, in sharing in your meetings, in partaking of your spirit; I am thankful I have this privilege, for such I esteem it.

I have been absent, as you all know, for some sixteen weeks. During my absence I have enjoyed myself very much, that is, considering the circumstances. I have had excellent health, and I do not know that I ever felt better in my life, under the circumstances, than I have during the past winter. Of course there has been considerable discussion upon our cause and question, and considerable has been said about us; but so far as my individual feelings have been concerned, I have not been disabled, not for a single second. There is an excitement about this warfare, and the consciousness that victory will eventually perch upon our banners and that we are on the winning side, that makes such a contest pleasurable. I know this, that when everything is still—when the stream is quietly flowing along without a ripple—I begin to be uneasy. I expect you do. We have been accustomed now for so many years—in fact it may be said from the beginning—to contending with the turbulence of the elements; to battling with angry waves, that it seems to be the natural condition for us to be in. At any rate, we know when this is the case that somebody is a little disturbed about us, and that some think it necessary to be stirring up opposition against us. With the activity which prevails at home in the curious departments of the work, the zeal that is being manifested among the Saints by the leading men in the various Stakes of Zion: with the labors of the home missionaries, the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Associations, the Relief Societies, the Sunday Schools, and the various organizations which have taken shape in our midst, together with the union of the people, and the sending of missionaries abroad in such numbers with all these things at work, tending to consolidate the people, to make them of one heart and one mind, to preach the principles of truth, to declare to the inhabitants of the earth the salvation of our God, and to leave them without excuse for rejecting the truth; I say, with all these activities at home and abroad, together with the building of Temples—a great work which devolves upon us as a people; with all these things, it is no wonder to me that opposition should be fierce, and that there should be a great deal of talk about the “Mormons.” We have been taught from the beginning that this would be the case; the earliest teachings that I can remember were to this effect, leading me forward, as you were led forward, to anticipate just such things, just such a warfare as that in which we are involved. Year by year, as this work develops, as the purposes of God unfold, do we see the literal, the definite fulfillment of the predictions that were uttered years and years ago concerning the work of God.

The Prophet Joseph Smith’s name has been known for good and evil among all the inhabitants of the earth, being regarded by some as a man divinely inspired, a prophet of the living God, his words treasured up as the words of a prophet should be; and by others, he is looked upon as an impostor, an ignoramus, a man in fact too bad to live. This Joseph Smith, who is thus known and has this repute among various people, is gradually being lifted up and made prominent, and through his being lifted up and made prominent the name of our God, whose servant he was, is being glorified. Thus Joseph Smith, whose predictions were uttered fifty years ago, and from that time down until he sealed his testimony with his blood nearly 37 years ago—this Joseph Smith is being proved to be a prophet, not by the Latter-day Saints alone—for we are doing comparatively little towards the vindication of his prophetic views, of this divine calling; for we are a feeble people; we are a people few in num– ber, but the inhabitants of the earth, numerous as they are, by their words and acts, are establishing the divinity of his mission and proving that he is the man that we have testified he was from the beginning.

To me the ways of the Lord are very wonderful when I thus contemplate them. How wonderful are the Lord’s works! How wondrous are His doings in the midst of the inhabitants of the earth! How strangely, and by what singular means he brings to pass his great and glorious purposes, using men, using nations, using governments, as seems good to him, to effect his divine purposes! Those of us who have been brought up in this Church who can remember the days that are past, the days of our weakness, the days of our oppression, the days when we were a broken and a peeled people, can call to mind how unlikely it was that the teachings we have received concerning this work would ever be fulfilled. We had faith that they would be. But it required the eye of faith and a heart of faith to see or to comprehend that they would be, as they have been, developed through the years that have intervened until the present time. The fulfillment of these teachings and predictions has brought to us confirmation of our faith; brought to us more and more with the greatest impressiveness the truth of that which we were told, and which, as I have said, was so unlikely to be fulfilled.

In the beginning, this work, before it was an organized body, that is when it was in its embryo, when but a few men had any knowledge concerning the purposes of God connected with it, excited hatred and brought forth contention. An obscure young man, without worldly influence, without advantageous surroundings, declared that God had again spoken from the heavens and that angels had again descended to the earth; testified that the Church of Christ was about to be reestablished with its old powers, and that the everlasting Gospel, the old plan of salvation was to be again restored in its original purity, and with it the old authority, the everlasting Priesthood, by means of which men and women could be inducted into the Church of God by the administration of the old ordinances, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, with its attendant powers and blessings. The mere declaration of these things by a young man who was thus obscure, without influence, without the prestige of education or birth, immediately excited a fever in the neighborhood; an excitement was aroused, and men began to persecute him; they began to tell lies about him; they began to bring false charges against him. There was a restlessness begotten that could not be accounted for upon natural principles, or upon anything they could see with their natural eyes; it was entirely unaccountable. His family was calumniated; he was calumniated and slandered; every act of his life was turned over and made evil of, and charges of wrongdoing were hurled against him of which he was entirely innocent, and for which there was not even the color or semblance of truth.

On next Wednesday, fifty-one years will have elapsed since the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. It then consisted of six members. Not very numerous; you can count them on your fingers. It might be thought that so insignificant a body of people would escape attention. Not so, however. The whole countryside was aroused. A terrible thing had taken place. This Joseph Smith had dared to organize a Church. He had found some gold plates, had a “golden Bible.” He had been a money digger; and he had done a great many things, and at last his audacity had culminated in the organization of a church. As I have said the whole countryside was in a flame.

“We cannot endure this; it is a disgrace to our city, our country, our township, to let such a vile fellow as he palm his impositions on the public. We must put a stop to it.”

The result was accusations, criminal accusations. Joseph Smith was brought before officers of the law upon every conceivable complaint. The papers heralded his disgrace throughout all the neighborhood, as far as they had circulation, determined to lie him down. There are certain fabulous attributes incorrectly ascribed to the creature called the octopus—or devil-fish. It is said that when it wants to devour its victims, it ejects an inky substance that fills the whole water around so that it can the more easily capture its prey. It was something in this manner that the press and pulpit endeavored to stifle the truth and to destroy those who testified that they had received it. The whole country was filled with every kind of slander. Human imagination was racked to invent stories. They said that Joseph Smith had tried to establish his divine calling by attempting to walk upon the water, with cunningly arranged planks placed a short distance beneath the surface of the water, but that, fortunately, he had been detected in his imposition. They said he had tried to raise the dead, and that the man whom he tried to raise nearly died, because the apparatus which he had arranged for him to get air became accidentally deranged. There was no end of stories told by ignorant people, vile people, deluded people, wicked people, and even by men who called themselves ministers of the Gospel. You cannot think of anything that was not told, that was not sworn to—any number of witnesses could be obtained to testify to the truth of these falsehoods. At the same time it was said it would only be a little while until the system of which he was the head would burst up. “We have only to wait a while and it will disappear.” But it did not disappear.

The Elders went forth regardless of the slanders, regardless of the falsehoods, regardless of the calumnies, preaching the word of God, preaching it in the spirit and power of God. Regardless of all these things they went—persecuted, derided, their names cast out as evil. Men considered it almost a disgrace to talk to them; if they received them into their houses their neighbors looked upon them as though they were entertaining lepers. “What, have you got a ‘Mormon’ in your house? Do you know what these people are?”

Traveling without purse or scrip, as their predecessors had done in primitive days of Gospel purity, from town to town, from village to village, from hamlet to hamlet, bearing all kinds of insults and persecutions and hardships, they traveled the land, lifting up their voices everywhere where they had the opportunity, testifying in all humility that God had again spoken from the heavens; that God had again restored the truth in its ancient purity and power; that God had restored the ordinances of the Gospel as they once existed upon the earth; and declaring unto the inhabitants of the earth that God is a hearer of prayers and that he will answer their petitions when they call upon him in faith. Thus they went, traveling through the United States and Canada, and afterwards crossing the ocean to the Old World, proclaiming there the same truths. A strange thing to be heard in Great Britain—Great Britain! Who had been sending out her missionaries by thousands to the remotest parts of the earth; who considered herself as dwelling in the blaze of Gospel truth, and occupying the foremost rank among civilized and enlightened nations! A strange thing for men from the wilds of America to come and preach to them the truth of heaven, to tell them the contents of their Bible. Presumptuous as it seemed, the Elders, nevertheless, did this. They had received the dispensation of the Gospel, and, like Paul, they felt it would be woe unto them if they did not preach it. And they went from land to land until every continent, almost every land, has been visited by them.

While the missionaries were thus engaged, the work at home did not cease. Persecution at home was not arrested. Mobs continued to gather together as they had done before the Elders crossed the ocean; and it was not then the cry that “these Mormons were introducing patriarchal marriage, which we think hurtful to our civilization;” that was not the charge. In the early days the charges urged against the Saints when they went out West to the limits of the Republic, were, that they believed in anointing and in laying hands upon the sick; that they believed in revelation; that they believed in prophets; that they listened to the counsels and teachings of those prophets. Was not this very dangerous? But this was not all. It sounds very queer in these days to think that one of the gravest charges made against the Latter-day Saints by the mob that drove them from their homes in Jackson County was that they were Yankees and abolitionists! Designing men, seeking for pretexts that would answer the purpose of inflaming the minds of ignorant people, seized and used this as a good ground upon which to base designs for expulsion. Missouri was a slave State, and the Latter-day Saints were in the main New England people; they who were not were from New York, Pennsylvania and other middle States. But they were known as Yankees, and, as their enemies asserted, abolitionists—a suitable people to be pounced upon and driven out. They were driven out from Jackson County, and finally, to get rid of them, Lilburn W. Boggs, governor and commander-in-chief of the militia of the State of Missouri, issued an exterminating order, threatening the Latter-day Saints with extermination unless they left the State. There was one alternative left to them if they remained in the State—apostasy. But Missouri’s favor was not so desirable to the Latter-day Saints as the favor of their God, and they chose to abandon their homes and they marched out of the State as best they could. Now, during all these years, and subsequently, when we were being mobbed, plundered, and driven, the Latter-day Saints had an abiding faith, based upon the revelations that God had given through brother Joseph Smith, that the day would come when we should be a great people, when our virtues would be recognized, when our patriotism would be vindicated, when our loyalty to truth and to the principles of virtue and of good government, of pure repub– licanism would be established and the work of God with which we are connected become universal. Brother Joseph had predicted this. The Elders, the Saints, the people old and young believed it with all their hearts. The hatred of mobs, the burning of houses, the destruction of property, the expulsion from homes never weakened their confidence in the truth of these predictions, and their eventual fulfillment. That feeling had been implanted there by the Almighty; the Spirit of God had borne testimony to it in their hearts, and they never doubted it. Hated by a township, they foresaw the time when they would be hated by a county; hated by a county, they foresaw the time when they would be hated by a State; hated by a State, they foresaw the time when they would be hated by men who constituted a party who, it might be said, were the representatives of the nation; hated by a nation, they foresaw the time when they would be hated by other nations, until, as I have said, their loyalty to truth, to virtue, to good government, to good order and everything that is pure, holy and Godlike, would be vindicated and established in the eyes of all men—by the nations at large, as well as their fellow citizens.

How unlikely a thing to have been when there were but six persons composing this church! Yet the revelations given previous to that organization, the word of God as it has come down to us embalmed in that sacred book which contains the revelations given through the Prophet Joseph Smith, foretells in plainness just such results as these that I have alluded to. The spirit of this work, its character, the results which should follow it were plainly mapped out beforehand as though all the events connected with it had already taken place and were written by the pen of the historian, instead of that of the prophet. The historian can delineate with no greater accuracy (though he may give more details) when he writes the history of this people and the results of the labors of the elders of this Church, than it has been written for half a century.

The inhabitants of the earth, contrary to their will, and despite their wishes, are contributing to establish the prophetic calling of Brother Joseph Smith, and to fulfill the revelations of God given through him. Hated as he has been; despised as he has been; derided as he has been, this is the result of their actions. The destiny of this people has been clearly foretold. Here are men whom I see around me, whose heads are whitened with years, whose bodies are frail and trembling, and women, too, who have been connected with this Church from its earliest days, who know of the truth of what I am stating, who know that there is nothing that they behold today that they did not behold by the spirit of prophecy and with the eye of faith years and years ago. And many things that are yet unfulfilled, that yet remain in the womb of time, to be yet brought forth. The destiny, as I have said, of the people, is written in heaven, it is enrolled in the archives of eternity. God has spoken it; the eternal fiat has gone forth, and it will never be revoked. We play our part; we figure as actors in these scenes. By and by others will come; the column of humanity will march on; the column from the eternal worlds will continue to descend. Myriads of the just are watching with, I might say, eagerness, the development of this work and they are doing their part, and unborn myriads are looking forward to the future of this work, small as it is today, insignificant as it is today. It is no enthusiasm or fanaticism that inspires these words; but it is the plain truth not half told; it is merely to hint of that which will be. For this is the work of the eternal Jehovah, the work spoken of by all the holy prophets since the world began; the great work that is to prepare the earth and its inhabitants for the coming of the Son of God. Who that reads this sacred book, the Bible, does not know that Prophets and Apostles, Seers and Revelators—all looked forward to the time when a great work should be done in the earth? They predicted it, they dwelt upon it, in inspired strains. Poets, too, who never laid claim to inspiration, have looked forward to the “golden age,” have dwelt with delightful language and, it may be said, with inspired pen, upon that great time that should come in the history of our race.

It is true as I have said, that from the beginning calumny and slander of every conceivable kind have been circulated concerning this work. It is so today. It goes the rounds of the country, and is believed in by the great masses of the people. The Latter-day Saints are looked upon by many as guilty of every conceivable crime. Their true characters are so befogged by misrepresentation, that strangers almost come into our borders as though they were about to enter a den of thieves—that is, strangers who do not know better. Murder, outrage, robbery, perjury, villainy of every kind is attributed to this people. Why should such a worldwide notoriety be given to a people who number no more than we? Why should such lengths be gone to in falsifying an innocent people? It might be thought that we, being so insignificant numerically, might escape notice; or at least such prominent notice; it might have been thought in the beginning that Brother Joseph Smith and his compeers would have escaped notice. It might be thought that when they were few in numbers and their influence did not extend beyond a township, that they might have escaped notice. But no, the world has seemed determined in a way that to the natural eye seems unaccountable, to uplift this people to importance, to give them a worldwide reputation, to advertise them throughout the earth. And why is this? The Latter-day Saints ought to understand it, and many of them do understand it. You know the powers that are at work—the same powers that blackened the Son of God, that made him appear so hideous that men in crucifying him thought they were doing God service—and were perfectly willing to have all the consequences fall upon them and their children; the same influence that caused an Isaiah to be sawn asunder, that caused a Daniel to be thrust into the lion’s den, and that caused the death of nearly all of the prophets, and that produced the martyrdom of eleven of the Twelve Apostles, according to tradition; it is that same influence that never rested until every inspired man was destroyed from the face of the earth, that is still busy. This Satanic power has kept at work slaying the servants of the Almighty, including the holiest being that ever trod the earth—the Son of God.

Is it not astonishing that the world cannot see these things? Think of the long list of martyrs, coming down through the ages from Abel; the best and the holiest men killed by their fellows, not because they thought them virtuous, not because they thought them holy, not because they looked upon them as pure; but because they were considered too dangerous to be suffered to live.

I wonder when I know that this has been the case that the world cannot see today, that the same spirit is abroad in the earth. It is not usual for wicked people to kill wicked people, that is, in the way the prophets and apostles were killed.

Here is a feeble people in these mountains who have come here fleeing from persecution, carrying with them when they left their native States and launched forth into an untrodden and unknown wilderness, a love for the principles of liberty for which their fathers, many of them, had fought. Notwithstanding their persecutions and the vile treatment they had received at the hands of their fellow citizens, they did not allow that feeling to dominate in their hearts; but loving the flag, the stars and stripes; loving the republic; loving the institutions of freedom, loving the Constitution, loving the laws, and carrying with them that love into the heart of the wilderness, and there laying the foundation of a great commonwealth they sought for admission as a State, and to have in that State every human right fully guarded and civil and religious liberty secured for people of every creed, and of no creeds, not seeking for alliance with Mexico, whose land they occupied, not seeking alliance with Great Britain, who was their neighbor on the north; not seeking alliance with the wild races, or endeavoring, or seeking to set up an independent republic, but their hearts going back fondly to the home of their fathers, to the land which their fathers had helped to redeem and make free, to the Constitution upon which the government of the land was founded, to the flag for which their fathers had fought and bled, they showed to the world that persecuted as they might be, hated as they might be, despised as they might be, and driven as they might be, they could not extinguish within them the love of liberty, the love of true republicanism. This was the testimony which this people bore to the inhabitants of the earth; and it might be thought, as I have said, that the people who had done this, working with unceasing toil to reclaim the waste places and make them habitable and beautiful and a fit abode for themselves and their children; sending out missionaries at untold sacrifice to the nations of the earth to proclaim the Gospel and gather in the honest from their own land and from the remotest nations of the earth; doing this for years, until gradually, as we see, the stately structure of a great commonwealth rises up around us; law executed; liberty preserved; the utmost freedom extended to every human being throughout the length and breadth of these mountain valleys; life and property as secure here as they ever were in any of the States of the Union; strangers coming in here before the railroad was built, weary and footsore, received with hospitable kindness. This tabernacle, after it was erected, and before this was erected, the old tabernacle, and before that was erected, the bowery, opened to preachers of every denomination, men of every creed united to proclaim their tenets, to give us their views; women protected throughout this land with such sacredness that they, old or young, beautiful or homely, could traverse every valley and pass through every town north and south, night or day, without hearing a word that would be improper, without ever witnessing a gesture that would annoy them; emigrants with their wagons coming in and leaving them in town unguarded, and not a thing harmed or taken—I say, it might be thought, viewing and witnessing these results—the virtue, the temperance, the good order, the frugality, the industry, the enterprise, the liberality, the honesty of the people, that somebody would think and say:

“What do all these attacks mean? Why is this crusade being waged against a people of this kind. Surely fifty millions of people with all the advantages of the age—the press, telegraph wires, pulpit, day and Sabbath schools, the wonderful improvements that are being brought out—everything in fact, in their power, including the wealth of the world at their command, surely these fifty millions of people should suffer a few thousands of people in Utah, to dwell in some degree of peace without constantly urging on the dogs of war against them; without hounding on every vile fellow in the nation to rob them and to engage in crusades against them, with the assurance that they will be justified in doing so.”

But no, this is not to be; it is not thus written; it is not the destiny of this people. We would never be the people God intends and designs us to be if we were to be let alone. The warfare must go on; it is an unceasing one; the powers are arrayed one against another, with God on one side and the Adversary on the other. The devil is not going to relinquish his ground. He has tried falsehood from the beginning, and tried it successfully in many instances. It has been said of him that he was a liar from the beginning; and it is certain he has not lost his old characteristics. He has succeeded by means of murder many times in the history of our race. He has contrived by this agency to maintain his foothold in the earth for a long time. He thinks, like men think who steal things and keep them for a long time, that he is the owner of the stolen property. The man who jumps another man’s land or claim, the longer he possesses it, the more assured he becomes that he ought to have it. Satan is imbued with this same idea; and he has recourse to the old method of warfare—lying; and lies are being circulated until the ear is tired listening to them. Every conceivable falsehood! Then he supplements lies with violence, and even murder has been resorted to. He thinks, if he can kill a man that puts an end to him; if he can kill a people that destroys them and their influence. But this time it is another sort of a work. God has spoken concerning this work; this is the last work that the Prophets or the Apostles have called the dispensation of the fullness of times. There was to be a time when Satan should have to recede inch by inch, step by step. That time has come. The column of the righteous, of the true is pressing onward; there is an irresistible power behind it. It will go forward gathering into its ranks the honest and virtuous from every nation; just as sure as we live this will be the case. It will gather people from every nation. It seems like a very strange thing to say, but on all proper occasions I say it with a great deal of pleasure, at home and from home, that I have been taught from early life that the day would come when republican institutions would be in danger in this nation and upon this continent, when, in fact, the republic would be so rent asunder by factions that there would be no stable government outside of the Latter-day Saints; and that it is their destiny as a people, to uphold constitutional government upon this land. Now, a great many people think this is a chimera of the brain; they think it folly to indulge in such an idea; but the day will come nevertheless. There are those in this congregation who will witness the time that the maintenance of true constitutional government upon this continent will be dependent upon this people, when it will have to be upheld by us.

We are battling all the time for human rights. We did so in the States before we were driven out; we have done so throughout these mountains, and are doing so today, contending for our rights. Even before the great tribunal of our nation, Congress, the contest is going on; for attempts are constantly being made to wrest from us our liberties, as citizens; and we are standing our ground as best we can, pleading for our rights, pleading for liberty of conscience, pleading for that freedom which belongs to the country, which God has guaranteed through the Constitution; not for ourselves alone, but for every creed, for every member of the human family. We do not want liberty for ourselves alone; we desire every man to have it: liberty for Ingersoll, and all who believe as he does; liberty for the followers of Muhammad and all who believe in the Koran; liberty for Beecher and for those of his way of thinking; and even Talmage who has talked so badly about us, we would have him enjoy liberty; yes, and permit him to say what he pleases about us, to take what view he pleases of our belief and practices, and to tell every– body what he thinks about them. We would give him the utmost liberty to do this, and every other man, to say what they please about us or about anybody else, as long as they do not interfere with the rights and the liberties of the people against whom they are opposed, protesting always, however, that men in criticizing others, should confine themselves strictly to the truth, or be held responsible to the laws for slanders and falsehood. All sects and all people should have this liberty, that is, liberty of conscience, liberty of speech and liberty of the press, as long as it does not degenerate into license, and interfere with the rights of others. We claim this for ourselves; we contend for it, and we shall contend for it, until it is gained.

Now, my brethren and sisters, I forgot that it is Sunday; I do not know, however, but what this is as good Gospel as I can declare; it is the Gospel of humanity; it is the Gospel of truth. And I hope that you will ever be true to these principles. It makes no difference really whether you will or not, so far as this great work is concerned; but it is a glorious reflection to know that we are striving to accomplish these ends.

When I look at the wonderful deliverance that has been wrought out for us, it is a subject of amazement to me. Still our enemies continue to plot and get up machinations. It is all right, let them have their agency, let them do as they please; it ought not to disturb us or cause us a moment’s uneasiness. Let them do as they please as long as they keep hands off.

I pray God to bless you and fill you with His Holy Spirit, and to bless His servants who may address us during this Conference, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered at the Assembly Hall, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, November 14, 1880.

It is exceedingly pleasing to me—and I have no doubt it is to all the Latter-day Saints—to hear the testimony of the servants of God who have gone forth as missionaries to the nations of the earth, and have returned bearing a faithful testimony concerning the work of God, and giving their experience in declaring the word unto the people.

The labors of the Elders of this Church are, in some respects, the most extraordinary of all the labors of the children of men with which I am acquainted. The preaching of what is called the Gospel is not uncommon. There are thousands upon thousands of men who profess to be ministers of life and salvation, and to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, who devote their lives to the proclamation of those principles which they esteem necessary to salvation. But it is not a common thing for men to go forth, putting their trust in God and relying upon him for that sustenance which is necessary to enable them to live and to perform their missions. We have missionaries of various denominations who have come here, as they say, to enlighten us, to dissipate our errors, to put us on the right path and to point out to us a better plan of salvation than that which we possess. But they come here because they are paid to come. They make their living by coming. It is a profession like that of the physician or surgeon, who comes here to administer to our physical ailments. In this respect the Elders of this Church differ from all others. They go out without purse and scrip, relying upon the Lord, putting their trust in him, devoting their time, their energies, and the ability that God has given unto them for the purpose of enlightening their fellow men concerning that which they know to be the truth. I do not know any greater evidence than this that men could give to their fellow men of their sincerity. And when men go forth in this way they are very likely to live so that the spirit of the mighty God of Jacob will be with them, they are likely to feel after it, to seek in faith to obtain God’s blessing. When a man is hungry, when he is without money, when he has no friends, he is very apt to feel after some Being that has power; if he has any faith in God he is very apt to exercise it, and by the constant exercise of that faith, if he did not know before he went upon his mission that God lives, that God is near, that he hears and answers prayer, he would be very likely to learn these things before a great while, and so become strengthened in his faith so that he would ask, believing when he did ask that he would receive the very thing that he desired. God in his mercy has commanded his people to take this course. He has commanded his Elders to go forth and preach his Gospel, not for a salary, not for hire, not for the sake of enjoying pleasant times and the favor of mankind, but that they may be the means in his hands of saving the world and of bearing such a testimony to the world concerning this Gospel, that it will be left without excuse, at the same time promising his servants that he would raise up friends to them that they should have their needs supplied. It is one of the most remarkable things connected with this Church, that from the day it was founded until the present time no man has gone forth called of God to proclaim the Gospel in faith, but he has returned bearing testimony that God has opened his way, that God has fed him, that God has clothed him, that God has put it into the hearts of people to assist him, that he has traveled by sea, traveled by land, traveled amongst strangers in lands where strange languages were spoken—yet at no time has he ever lacked for food, raiment, or any of those things which were necessary to enable him to accomplish the mission upon which he had been sent.

As a people, brethren and sisters, we do not appreciate the value of this training. I am satisfied that we ourselves scarcely comprehend the blessing there is in such educational conditions. In an age of almost universal skepticism it is of the utmost value to us as a people that we should receive the training that our Elders get when they go abroad among the nations of the earth preaching the Gospel. Without it we should lack opportunities of testing the Lord, of being tested ourselves in regard to our faith, of proving to our own satisfaction that God lives, and that God hears and answers prayer, and that he does interpose in behalf of the humble, the weak and the insignificant when they approach him in faith in the name of Jesus and ask for this interposition. A perusal of the journals of the Elders of this Church who have kept daily record of that which they have endured and witnessed, and the various incidents of their missions would be as interesting as the acts of the Apostles in the New Testament; for God has manifested Himself in the most extraordinary manner in their behalf. Many of this people, before they heard of the organization of the Church, read the acts and teachings of the Apostles and of the Savior, and also Paul’s Epistles, and their souls yearned for a day of such power upon the earth. Many who are here today, many thousands throughout this Territory, who are now connected with this Church, have wished that they could have lived at a time when these acts were being performed, when such men as are described in the New Testament had an existence upon the earth. But the history of the Elders of this Church—the miracles and manifestations of God’s power which they have witnessed and been the instruments in performing—would make a book far larger than any record we have handed down to us.

Today, the existence of God may be said to be only known by personal experience, to comparatively few people. Thousands throughout Christendom think they know, because of their traditions, that God lives and that Jesus is the Son of God. Their fathers, their mothers, their priests, their school teachers, have indoctrinated them with the idea that there is such a Being as God, and that Jesus his Son is the Savior and redeemer of the world, and they fancy they know and understand these things. But how many are there who can testify, by personal experience that they know that God lives? How many can say that they have asked for and re– ceived, through imploring in the name of Jesus, the very blessings that they desired and needed? Comparatively few people out of the masses that live upon the earth. Hence it is that God has removed himself far from them, and they say there is no use in calling upon God, there is no use in inculcating a belief that he will hear and answer prayer, that he will interpose in behalf of individuals, or that he will suspend—to use another phrase —great natural laws to accomplish certain results. Yet God does not suspend natural laws when he interposes in behalf of his people. We are told in the New Testament that Jesus ascended in the sight of certain individuals into heaven. The law of gravitation apparently may be said to have been suspended, or the law which confines bodies to the earth—the law by which we are governed; but the Savior understood a higher law; he understood laws by which he could accomplish this, and at the same time not interfere with the general law that governs human bodies, and so in all these matters God can interpose his power; he can hear and answer the prayers of those who are humble and seek unto him. He can give unto them the desires of their hearts in a way that is his own; He can operate by unseen influences upon men’s minds, and lead them to certain things that will result in the fulfillment of the desires of others, concerning which they have offered their prayers unto the Lord. In this respect the Latter-day Saints occupy, so far as I know a unique position.

Brother Nicholson remarked that he could see among the young men who had gone forth to preach of late years, a wonderful zeal, and growth in faith. This will be more and more the case. The agencies that are now at work in our midst, our Sunday Schools—the scholars of which number upwards of thirty thousand—our Young Men’s and Young Women’s Associations—the members of which are numbered by thousands—are doing a vast amount of good. The young are being trained in the reading of the Scriptures. And who can read the Scriptures without believing that God is, and that he hears and answers prayers? What is there in the Bible to lead a reader to believe that faith shall not be exercised today as much as at any time in the world’s history, or that revelation from God shall not be enjoyed today as much as 1,800 years ago? He who reads the Bible and believes in the equality of man, believes in the justice of God, and his unchangeable character, that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, will have faith spring up in his heart concerning the possibility of having knowledge from God, and of God’s speaking, of sending his messages to the earth today as well as he did in ancient days. I do not believe that a child can be found who, if the New Testament be given to him or to her, and he or she read it without the bias which comes from the interposition of friends and the comments of teachers, will not have faith in God, and will not desire to know why it is that God does not work miracles in these days, and why God’s power is not manifested now as it was in ancient days. These inquiries will naturally spring up in their hearts, and their desire to share in these blessings will be as natural to them as any other thoughts would be. Certainly, they will have no idea unless they are taught it, that these gifts and blessings are no longer to be enjoyed by men upon the earth. It is false teaching that generates such ideas in the mind of the children of men, not the Bible itself, not the New Testament, not anything that is written within either of those books, but they are ideas that come from outside of the Bible. But it is said if these things have not ceased, if it was not the will of God that they should cease, why is it that we do not have these manifestations now as they had in ancient days? Why is it that God does not speak now? Why is it that angels do not minister unto men now? Why is it that the Holy Ghost is not poured out now? Why are there no persons possessing the gift of healing, and other manifestations of the power of God? Why is it that Christendom has been for ages without these blessings and gifts in their midst?

These are very reasonable inquiries, and the answer to them is to be found in the history of the Church, in this fact: that mankind would not permit a servant of Jesus to live in their midst who did such things, from the days of himself and his apostles down to the days of the restoration of the Gospel in its purity to the earth. Inspired men have not been permitted to live in their midst. Even men who professed to have a little light, who did not profess to have received revelation, but who claimed that it was their privilege to seek unto God and to find him and obtain knowledge from him, to a certain extent, were persecuted unto death. Read the history of the various reformed churches from the days of the Apostles down until the present time, or to within fifty years, and you will find that this has always been the result. Mankind have been determined that a reformed religion, and cer– tainly revelation from God, should not be introduced in their midst. They would not have it. We have seen it in our own age, in this enlightened nation, occupying the foremost rank of all the nations of the earth, prominent for liberty, and for the freedom of its government, laws and institutions.

Joseph Smith, the Prophet of God, did not arrogate to himself any superiority over his fellows, but he said that every man might be a prophet of God, might have the testimony of Jesus Christ, if he would live for it. He did not go among the people and say, “I have been chosen and elected to be something superior to all the rest of you; I have received blessings which no other man can receive.” This was not his doctrine nor his teaching, but he said that every man that would obey the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and have the ordinances administered to him by one having authority, should receive the Holy Ghost, and that would make him a prophet, it would fill him with the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of prophecy; and because he declared this, because he declared the equality of man before God, because he contended that the souls of men in the nineteenth century were as precious in the sight of God as they were in the first century of the Christian Era, or at any time anterior to that era; because he declared that God was the same in these days as he was in ancient days; because he declared that God was not a God who made distinction among his creatures; that he did not manifest light to one generation and refuse it to another who were equally faithful in seeking for it—because he declared these doctrines in this nation and in this age his life was sacrificed. Our existence today in these mountains, the existence of Utah as a Territory in its present form, is due to religious intolerance, and is due also to the fact that a community has grown up who contend for religious equality before God, who claim that they are as good as their fathers in the sight of God, who contend that, however weak and fallible they may be, they at least are the children of God, and the heavens are open to them, if they have equal faith, as they were to their fathers who lived 1,800 or 2,000 or 3,000 years ago. Utah became an organized territory because of this fact; that there had been begotten in the hearts of the people the feeling to seek after God as their fathers did, to seek for him that they might find him and obtain knowledge from him for themselves, not content to read of the blessings, of the powers, and gifts, and of the ordinances of salvation that were extended to others, thousands of years ago. The mere reading of these things would not satisfy this people. Nothing short of the actual realization of the blessings would satisfy the yearnings of their soul. And they stand today as a living protest against religious intolerance, and in favor of the old faith that existed upon the earth thousands of years ago, seeking for the old paths, teaching their children that God is the same today that he ever was, and that they must seek unto him as they did in ancient days to obtain knowledge of him and from him. And we began in this way: The Lord commanded us to go without purse or scrip—a good way of testing us to see whether our desires to know him were real or not—to go out in the midst of a cruel and unfeeling world, opposed to us, opposed to the ideas we entertained, priests feeling as they did in ancient days, that their craft was in danger. “Why,” said they, “here are men who will destroy all our creed. We shall have no pay for our preaching if this becomes popular, our profession will be destroyed,” and from the day that proclamation was made to the present time the strongest opponents of this Church and of this people have been men who preach for hire, and whose creeds have been in danger by the proclamation of these truths. Today religious conventions cannot be held without “Mormonism” being introduced and advanced as something against which the power of the nation should be directed.

The Lord has been with us and has helped us or we could not have done what has been done. It has been his blessing, it has been the manifestation of his power, that has shielded and upheld this people. His word has gone forth concerning this work. It will not return unfulfilled. Commencing with six members, this Church has increased until it is a power in the earth, and there is no nation which has not heard of this strange people living in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. The ideas we have taught are revolutionizing the earth, silently and slowly in some respects, but nevertheless as thoroughly. We are few in number, but the power and influence of the ideas which we advocate wield a power that we here do not fully understand. This will increase. As I have said to you and to others, the qualities that are possessed by the Latter-day Saints will never die. They cannot die unless you kill the people themselves. Talk about destroying this work! When you destroy the Church of Christ, and virtue, union, industry, frugality and temperance from the face of the earth, the world will destroy “Mormonism,” as it is called. But a people with such qualities as we exhibit, as God has developed within us, cannot be killed. Ideas have been begotten and given birth to that will continue to grow and increase until they fill the whole earth, because they are true and divine. If there were only half a dozen men left alive who had this organization and held these principles, they would continue to grow and gather adherents and spread on the right hand and on the left. The principles are indescribable in their character. A faith has been begotten, a faith been born that will continue to live and increase and spread abroad, from the very fact that it is true, and truth always finds a lodgment in the hearts of the honest. There is no way to destroy this unless those who entertain a belief in it are destroyed. That can be done, but it is not likely to be done. It was done in the days of the Apostles, for the reason that the churches were scattered abroad, here and there. They were surrounded by their enemies. Satan had power in the earth. The Apostles were slain one after another. Every man that raised his voice in favor of divine revelation from God, or contended for the equality of man before God, and the unchangeableness of God, was slain. The Church was scattered abroad. Paul built up branches throughout Asia Minor. Other Apostles built branches of the Church wherever they could find a place where the people would receive the truth. But they were surrounded by adverse influences, and the Apostles and Saints were not allowed to live. And we in this day would be destroyed if we were alone, if these influences were left to operate against us. You surround a few people by multitudes who are actively hostile and aggres– sive against them, and how difficult it is for them to maintain their foothold! This was the condition of the churches in the days of the Apostles. They were scattered abroad throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, and on many islands. The Apostles had gone forth wherever they could find an opening. Thousands had been organized into the Church, and in these various branches there were men who had inspiration from God, who had the authority of the Holy Priesthood, who could ask of God and receive from him knowledge for the guidance of the people. While these men remained the Church continued to grow. But persecution sought the lives of men of this character. They were singled out and slain until not one was left, until a universal silence reigned. Throughout all the nations of the earth, not a voice was heard to disturb the silence, no heavenly messenger, no voice from the eternal world, no man that had the authority to say, “thus saith the Lord.” The heavens became as brass over the heads of the children of men, all communication was cut off, and of course the Church fell, the Priesthood departed, the ordinances were changed, and those who survived with a little faith accommodated themselves to the circumstances surrounding them. That was the condition in early days.

But how the condition has changed! God in his mercy concealed this continent from the eyes of the world. For ages it remained here a secret place. Neither the Atlantic nor the Pacific could be penetrated until the set time came. Then a man was found who was moved upon by the Spirit of God. He became possessed of an idea that would not die, and his idea prevailed eventually. Ships were launched upon the great ocean, and the continent of America was discovered. God has revealed the reason this continent was concealed for so many ages. If it had been known to early ages, it would have been overrun, and there would have been no room for the great work of the last days. But he organized a government upon this land. He sustained the men who founded it. He filled them with His Spirit and enabled them to fight all the battles necessary to establish religious, social and political freedom, and a system of government was formed under which his kingdom could be set up, with all its institutions, without interfering in the least with the Constitution. In the Lord’s own due time this Church was brought forth. The messengers of life and salvation were sent to the nations of the earth proclaiming that God had established His Church, and inviting them to come to a land of liberty. Thousands have been gathered here from that day to this, fulfilling in a most remarkable manner the predictions of the prophets concerning the gathering of the people in the last days. The circumstances which surrounded us are very different from those which surrounded our predecessors. We are a compact body. We believe in gathering; we believe in one people of one faith living together, worshiping God according to the dictates of their own consciences. This presents a solid phalanx against opposition and persecution. We cannot be slain today in detail as our brethren were 1,800 years ago. The ideas we believe in are being disseminated among our children. We are increasing. The teachings of history are that a people like us have a destiny, and they cannot be pre– vented from fulfilling it. You take two communities, one a multiplying community and the other only partially multiplying, and what will be the result? But I need not dwell upon this. There is a line of thought connected with this which you can reflect upon at your leisure.

God has given unto us the conditions that are suitable for the accomplishment of the great work that he has said shall be established and carried forward in the last days, and we are connected with it; and there is this to distinguish it from all others—it is not a man-made system. Men may say and think what they please about it, but from the President of the Church down to the last man who has entered into the Church in sincerity, there is a faith and a knowledge that this work is of God, and the Presidency believe this as much as the humblest man in the Church and more too. It is this that gives power, it is this that gives influence. It is because they are filled with a knowledge concerning it that they have lived it, that they have contended for it, that they have passed through persecutions to establish it, that they are not unwilling to die for it, if it should be necessary. And this is the case with the whole people. Why? Because they are deluded? Because they are dupes? Because they are deceived? No, but because God has opened the heavens and poured out His Holy Spirit upon them and given them a testimony for themselves of the truth of this work. The Norwegian, the Swede, the Dane, the native of Switzerland, or the German, Frenchman, Irishman, Englishman, or the American, together with the Icelanders, Sandwich Islanders—all receive it in their own lands, all bearing testimony in the selfsame words, that God has given them a testimony of the truth of this work. Destroy it! You might as well try to destroy the heavens themselves, or to overthrow the throne of Jehovah. It is true. It will live. Men may fall away—for men are weak mortals—man may deny the faith, man may say this is all a delusion; men may die, but the grand truth still lives. It has found a lodgment in the hearts of honest men and women. And they are increasing. Their children are multiplying. They are spreading abroad on the right hand and on the left; living virtuous, temperate, frugal, industrious lives, loving God and loving their neighbors.

Are there exceptions? Yes, we are human. The devil still lives, and he has power to tempt. Therefore we have exceptions in our midst. Nevertheless those qualities are increasing and multiplying. Men are found who possess them, and those growing up to manhood and womanhood are also found to possess them. They know God and ask Him, believing that they will have the desires of their hearts granted unto them. And thus the work of God is spreading abroad throughout the earth, finding a place in the hearts of people, humble, it is true, but people who are independent—people who are the noblest of earth’s sons, for the reason that they are not afraid to embrace that which is unpopular. The work of natural selection is going on in that way. This Gospel is naturally selecting the best of the people from the midst of the earth—men and women in humble station, from the lower ranks of life, in the most of instances, although there are some exceptions, some noble exceptions; but notwithstanding the lowliness of their origin and their surroundings, they are people of independent thought, people who dare embrace a truth though it be unpopular, and cling to it in the midst of all the influences that are brought to bear against them. Out of such materials the Lord is building up a Church, building up a people, bestowing His blessings upon them.

It would not do for His people to be anything else but valiant, and when they pass through the ordeal they will be like gold seven times purified. In days gone by it was the mob, it was the burning of houses, driving the people from their lands, and this has been followed by ordeals just as trying in their character, as far as testing the people is concerned. By this process the people are becoming stronger in the Lord. Their feet are planted upon a rock. They have proved God for themselves, known him for long years in the midst of trials, temptations and vicissitudes such as no other people on the face of the earth know anything about.

I thank God for this. I thank him every day that I live for this Church. I thank him that I am a Latter-day Saint. If I can only have a name among this people I feel as though I could have no greater comfort. I wish to be associated with a people of this kind, a people who love the Lord and are willing to do anything to show their faith in and their love for him, and if it were necessary, to lay down their lives for the truth. I cannot help loving a people of this kind. They have weaknesses and faults. I have them too. We are alike in this respect. If they will bear with me I will strive to bear with them. I know this is the Church and Kingdom of God. I know that those who cling to it will, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, receive glory and exaltation at his right hand. I know that people who love him, as the Latter-day Saints do, and are willing to make sacrifice, will not be forgotten by him. He will not forget them in the day that he makes up his jewels; he will bless them and honor them.

That we may remain faithful and true unto the end, and be counted worthy to receive an exaltation in the kingdom of our God is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.