Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered at Tooele City, on Sunday, October 31, 1880.

We profess as a people, to be led by revelation, and I hope our professions are not in vain; in fact I know they are not. I know that this people, called Latter-day Saints, do have revelations, that they have the word of God given unto them as they need it, according to their faith and their diligence and their good desires before the Lord. And those who speak unto the Latter-day Saints are different in this respect from every other class of ministers that I know anything about. We do not cogitate in our private apartments or in our libraries or in our studies what shall be said to the people, and to frame discourses to deliver to them. It is right and proper that the Elders of this Church should try to inform themselves respecting the principles of the Gospel; but it would not be right, neither is it right for them to prepare their discourses and arrange before hand what they say to the people. We might tickle your ears, we might say pleasing things to you, we might give utterance to fine moral sentiments which you would think very beautiful; but they might not be what the people need. It requires the inspiration of the Almighty to take of the things of God to impart to the people. Without that I know it is useless for any Elder in this Church to attempt to teach, and that if he taught his teachings could not result in any possible good to those who listened.

President Taylor, Brother Lyman and myself were conversing yesterday upon the subject which this bears reference to, about the abundance of good things there is in the world which are pleasing to the inhabitants of the earth. I was reminded myself on going upon one occasion when upon a mission in England, at the invitation and earnest persuasion of some friends, to listen to a very eloquent man who was a Church of England minister, who had a great reputation for eloquence and ability. I never heard anything more beautiful than his lecture; it was full of moral sentiment and beautiful ideas, and was very interesting indeed to listen to. And one would have thought that a man with such sentiments would be capable of leading the people and teaching them and making them much better than they were. The world is full of such ideas and sentiments. You read books which are written by men who are not of this Church, and you many times find in them sentiments which you cannot help but admire; they are charming and they are true; you feel when you are reading them, that there is a great deal of truth in their doctrines, and then they are set forth so convincingly. If you visit their churches, doubtless, you will find men who are able to deliver sentiments of this character to the people. You take such a man as Henry Ward Beecher; he is noted for his eloquence and the good sense which characterizes many of his discourses. He is able to talk to the people in a most sensible way about a great many things. Such men you may sit and listen to, and be really pleased with many of their ideas. There are other noted men, who are also able to deliver moral truths in a charming manner; but what does this amount to? Does it make the world any better? To some extent it does. But there is something that all these men lack, and which the world lacks, that is the Priesthood of the Son of God and the power of God. There have been Elders of this Church who could not read, who have gone forth to preach; but they had in them the power of God, they had the inspiration of the Almighty, they had the everlasting Priesthood, by authority of which they were authorized and empowered to declare unto the people the principles of life and salvation. These men, although ignorant and unlearned, and not capable of teaching by their own wisdom, have been the means of bringing salvation to hundreds and thousands of souls, and of bringing them into the Church of Christ, and into a condition where they could receive the Holy Ghost.

This is the difference between this Church and the churches of men. It is not that they do not believe in good moral sentiments, and are not capable of teaching them; it is not that they are ignorant, for they have a great deal of what is called worldly wisdom; but it is that they are destitute of the power of God, the inspiration of the Almighty, and the gift of the Holy Ghost; therefore their teachings do not bring people to a knowledge of the truth.

I was very much impressed this morning when I arose. It was cold, but we were comfortably housed, in good quarters; we had good beds to sleep on. We were visitors here; and I could not help contrasting the feelings we have for one another, and the feelings which exist in the world. We are strangers to each other in some respects; we are not blood connections; in fact, there were but very few of us who were not strangers to each other, yet I certainly feel that I am among my brethren and sisters.

I do not suppose there are any Latter-day Saints in this house who would not share what they had, if they possessed but little, with the Elders who come in their midst. And if they had a good, comfortable place, they would prefer giving it to the brethren who visit them, than taking it themselves. There is that feeling of love begotten in the hearts of the Latter-day Saints that the world knows nothing about. And yet we are selfish, and have yet much to learn in this respect. But that love which we have for each other and for God and His cause, He has begotten in our hearts. We are united together through the love of the Gospel and the love of truth. We are united together as no other people in the world are. What is this done by—by preaching moral sentiments? By fine discourses? By dwelling upon thoughts which men have framed and put together in their private studies, by their own wisdom? No. All the books in the world could not have brought about such a condition of things as we witness in our midst and experience in our hearts. We might have read all the books which have been written by the learned of the world, if it were possible to do so, and then taken the Bible which is said to be the word of God, and read that, and we might have heard all of the wise men talk about these things, and about the wisdom and the sublimity of knowledge and the attractiveness of truth, and everything of this character, and what would it have amounted to? We see what it all amounts to in the world. They have texts, they have knowledge, they have wisdom, they have schools, they have colleges, they have access to all human knowledge there is, ancient and modern, and what does it amount to? They are divided up, they are split asunder, and are really ignorant concerning God. They are full of differences concerning points of doctrine; they contend over the smallest things, and difficulties which are irreconcilable are begotten in their minds. A man who has the spirit of God given unto him through obedience to the Gospel, and who is ordained to minister in the things of God, even if he can scarcely read, as I have said, goes forth among the people accompanied by the power of God, and searches out the honest in heart. He does not use flowery words, he does not deliver great swelling discourses; but he preaches the truth in simplicity, in meekness, he tells people what to do to be saved, and he has the authority from the Lord to administer the ordinances of salvation to the people; and when they repent humbly before God, and confess their sins, he baptizes them for the remission of their sins, and lays his hands upon their heads for the reception of the Holy Ghost; and they become new creatures. A change takes place; they become new creatures in Christ Jesus. They put away the old man and his deeds, and they become new; they receive of the Spirit which unites them together and makes them one; and all those beautiful thoughts, and those glorious truths, and those delightful moral sentiments which they hear and have heard outside this Church, they can understand and they can see which is true and which is untrue; they can distinguish between the two; and they are knit together in love one to the other.

This is the marvelous work, and a wonder concerning which Isaiah spoke. The Lord said, through that Prophet: “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precepts of men: Therefore, behold, I proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” The wisdom of the wise has perished in the presence of the Gospel declared by the Elders of this Church, and we, as a people, have been gathered out as a standing protest against the folly of the creeds of men, and as a standing protest against that which is called the wisdom of man. And the Lord has shown by the building up of this Church that he is able to do his own work in his own way. And he chooses his own instruments, through whom to accomplish it; and when we shall have finished our work, none of us will be able to take any glory to ourselves; no single son or daughter of Adam will be able to claim the least degree of credit to himself or herself when the work shall be accomplished. The Lord is determined that he shall have the glory; that his name will be praised for all that has been done, and that shall be done. If we were the learned, if we had the wisdom of the world, and if we were to accomplish these results through worldly wisdom or power, there might be an opportunity given unto us to take glory to ourselves; we might under such circumstances say, it was by our wisdom and by our ability that these things were accomplished. But as it is we cannot do that; and if we attempt it and continue to indulge in such a belief, the Spirit of God will leave us to ourselves, and our weakness will be made apparent not only to ourselves but unto all men with whom we associate. But God will have a tried and peculiar people. We have been tried to some extent, but not to the extent which we probably will be; there are many things in which we will be greatly tried before we get through. Every Latter-day Saint who gains a celestial glory will be tried to the very uttermost. If there is a point in our character that is weak and tender, you may depend upon it that the Lord will reach after that, and we will be tried at that spot, for the Lord will test us to the utmost before we can get through and receive that glory and exaltation which He has in store for us as a people. When we think about the character of the exaltation promised unto us, we can understand why this should be the case. What are we striving for? What are we aiming to obtains? Our constant prayer to God is that we may be considered worthy to receive celestial glory. That is the prayer of every one who belongs to the Church. Every man and every woman who prays unto the Father, who is in the habit of doing so, ex– presses that desire in his or her prayer—that we may be counted worthy to receive celestial glory and exaltation in the presence of God and the Lamb. What a great thing to ask! Do we take in, as a people and as individuals, the full purport of this request! When we talk about celestial glory, we talk of the condition of endless increase; if we obtain celestial glory in the fullest sense of the word, then we have wives and children in eternity, we have the power of endless lives granted unto us, the power of propagation that will endure through all eternity, all being fathers and mothers in eternity; fathers of fathers, and mothers of mothers, kings and queens, priests and priestesses, and shall I say more? Yes, all becoming gods. For this is the power of God; it is the power by which God presides over the universe, and fills the universe with power, and which we pray unto Him to bestow upon us. This being the case, do you think that we are going to attain unto these things without we show ourselves perfect before the Lord? Do you expect that God will save you and me and exalt us, and give unto us this inestimable, this indescribable glory, if we are full of sin, if we yield to temptation, and are not tested and are not tried in all these things? Do you imagine that God will do all this for us; can you conceive of such a result if we are imperfect and full of frailty, and continue to yield to temptation, and doing those things that are contrary to the mind and will of God? I cannot; I do not look upon God in that light. I think that He is a perfect and holy being, and that the words of Jesus which he spoke unto his disciples are intended for us: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” We, as a people and as individuals, should seek to attain to that perfection, to be as perfect in our sphere as God our Eternal Father is in His; and we cannot attain to that exaltation and glory which He has promised unto us, unless we are thus perfect.

I do not have any other view than this of the character of the salvation and exaltation that God has promised unto us; and I therefore do not expect that any man will ever enter into the Celestial kingdom of our God, until he is tested and proved in all things. Some men think they can slip around—I have heard such men talk—they think they are going to get into the celestial kingdom without obeying the law of celestial marriage. I do not have any such ideas about exaltation; and yet I am perfectly satisfied there are men who will be counted worthy of that glory who never had a wife; there are men probably in this world now, who will receive exaltation, who never had a wife at all, or probably had but one. But what is necessary for such a case? It must be perfection before God, and a proof of willingness on their part, if they had the opportunity. I will instance the case of a man whom you perhaps know by reputation, namely that of Elder Lorenzo D. Barnes. He was a faithful man in the Church, a man of zeal, a man of integrity, a man who did all in his power to magnify his holy Priesthood, and he died when upon a foreign mission before he had one wife. The Lord will judge that man, as he will all others, according to his works and the desires of his heart, because had he lived, and had had the opportunity, I am fully satisfied he would have obeyed that law. I do not doubt that he will receive exaltation in the presence of God. We have young men who die before they have had the opportunity to obey that law, and they will, doubtless, receive also, inasmuch as they were worthy; for the Lord, in His infinite wisdom and knowledge, understanding the worth of all men, will mete out to them accordingly. But if we live in the flesh, you may depend upon it we shall be tried in all things. If I have an appetite, if I have a passion, if I have an inclination which is in conflict with the law of God, if I do not subdue it and bring it into complete subjection to His law, I do not see how I can enter into celestial glory. I cannot conceive, with my views respecting God, and His wisdom and justice, and all His holy attributes, that I could ever enter into the celestial kingdom whilst in that condition. I must bring every appetite. I must bring every passion, I must bring every desire of my being into complete subjection to the will and mind and law of God, or I cannot receive the exaltation He has promised unto His faithful children. I say, I cannot, and I cannot see that anyone can. If there is anything about us—if there is selfishness in us, if there is a disposition in our hearts not to yield upon a certain point, or to have our own way and own will; and carry that will into effect in opposition to the will of God, we cannot in that condition receive exaltation at His right hand. And if we die in that condition, we will have in some other state of existence, to get rid of it, or we cannot get exaltation. That is my idea. If I value my life more than I do the will of God; if I value my wives or children more, or my earthly substance more than I do the will of God, then I am not in the condition to receive exaltation and glory. I will tell you what I think about these things, and the manner in which I view the life which is to come. If there is anything that stands between me and the will of God which would prevent me from doing that will perfectly as He requires of me, if there is anything which I love more than God, I am not in a condition to receive that glory. If I think more of my own life, if I think more of my own will, if I think more of a wife or child, or of all my wives and children, or of my property, or of my time, or of anything over which I have control or which belongs to me, and is part of me, than I do of God, then I am not in the condition to receive the exaltation; I am not worthy to receive it; I am not willing to bring everything I have or which belongs to me into complete subjection to Him, and to what He requires of me. When He says, Go, to go; when he says, Come, to come; to do that which he requires, or to refrain from doing so, as He may require; and to do this not only when He, himself, tells me I must do it; but to do it also through the voice of those whom He has chosen to hold control. For God has His mouthpiece on the earth; He has always had one when He has had a Church. He chooses one man who holds the keys of His kingdom; He chooses one man as revelator to His Church, to teach His people the mind and will of God concerning them, and His word through him is binding upon the people. Then he chooses others as helps, and they too have the power to counsel. “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him who sent me,” as Jesus said, “If they receive you they receive me; if they receive you and me, they receive my Father who sent me.” This is the doctrine. And God has chosen His servants to minister to the people, to teach them and instruct them upon all those points, so that they may receive salvation and exaltation under the leadership of that Priesthood which He has restored, and which will bring us into the celestial kingdom. And as I said, it is not the wisdom of man; it is not the power of man; it is not the learning of man which does these things; it is not the learning of man which has gathered this people together, for the wisdom of the world combined would have failed to have gathered this people as they have been from nearly all of the civilized nations, and if all the combined wisdom of earth had tried to build up the Church which the Latter-day Saints have, their endeavors would have failed; they could not have done it. There is no power of man which could have reached you at your firesides and dwelling places and gathered you to Zion, as you were gathered. It required the power of God, and that power manifested through humble men—men despised by the world; nevertheless it accomplished the result. And that same Priesthood which has brought us here, and through the power of which we were inducted into this Church, and through the power of which we have been nourished and guided in the Church, that same Priesthood will continue to teach and direct us, until we shall be brought back into the presence of God our Father. It will be through the ordinances of that Priesthood administered to us, that these results will be accomplished—by binding wife to husband, children to parents, parents to parents—until the whole shall be bound together, from our father Adam to the last one born to the earth, and all the links be welded. It will be done by the sealing ordinance which God has restored, and if we ever get the full benefit of these things, we will have to do it in the way I have endeavored to describe.

I say to my sisters, you expect to receive exaltation in the presence of God. Will you obtain it if you do not bring your will into subjection to the will of God? No. Will you be cast off? If you do certain things, you will. But I think the women of this Church would have to do a great many bad things before their God would cast them off entirely. The Lord may feel after them, He will bring them through circumstances such as will eventually purify them. But no woman can enter into the celestial kingdom any more than a man whose will is in opposition to the will of God. When God speaks all must submit to it. It may not be pleasant to us; it may come in conflict with our traditions; it may not be that which will suit us if we had the choosing. There are a great many things which would not suit us if we had the choosing, according to our natural feelings, for these are often far from correct. But whatever feelings we may have which may be the result of tradition and false education, we must get rid of and be willing to do that which God requires at our hands. And it is the experience of the women of this Church who have done that—I speak now of plural marriage, for that is one of the most trying things—those who have submitted to this order, have reached a point where they enjoy true happiness, because in sacrificing their own will they have the consciousness of knowing that they have done the will of God; and in their supplications to Him they can ask Him in confidence for such blessings as they stand in need of. Where is the man or the woman who has been diligent in observing the requirements of God, who has failed upon any point upon which he has sought earnestly to God? If there are any, there must be something lacking, they have not that claim upon God which they would have if they had submitted perfectly to the requirements made of them.

Another point connected with our religion, which is trying to some people, is their fondness of carrying out their own will in relation to temporal affairs. “I want to manage my own affairs in my own way; I want to do that which is pleasing to me.” Is there a vein of selfishness running through our nature upon these points? I think to myself that that must be entirely conquered before we can receive that glory to which I have alluded. If I have property, it is my duty to take care of it; if I have means, it is my duty to husband it, and carefully use it in a way that shall be beneficial to others as well as myself. But there is still a higher duty devolving upon me and upon every member in this Church, and that is to do as we are told by the servants of God. For instance, if I am in business, if I am in the midst of some enterprise which requires my personal attention which the withdrawal of my personal supervision would cause to result in failure, and the servants of God should call upon me to let that drop, to go here or there, even if it should be at the sacrifice of all my worldly interests, it would be my duty as a Latter-day Saint, as one who is struggling for an exaltation in the presence of God and the Lamb, to drop that at the moment I am required, and to do as I am told. Or, if I have property that is needed for the work of God, for the establishment of the principles of the Gospel, it is my duty to give that which I shall be required to do, in order that the law of God, so far as that is concerned, shall be complied with. If I should not be willing to do this, then how can I witness to my Father that I am desirous of receiving celestial glory? You feel as I do, that it is necessary for our salvation and exaltation, that the men who hold the Apostleship should administer unto us the ordinances, in order that we may derive the full benefits which flow from them. If these men have a right to do this, and we recognize their power in administering these ordinances unto us, considering that if they administer them they will be bound and recorded in heaven, and that we shall have the benefit of them in the morning of the resurrection; if these are our feelings, shall we say that this same authority shall not dictate us in regard to these perishable things by which we are surrounded? It would be very unreasonable, indeed, for us to take a different view. Therefore, it follows, in my mind, as a natural consequence, that we must hold ourselves entirely subject to that authority which God has placed in this Church to lead and guide us. The steps we have already made to our present condition have taught us this. We have been led gradually from the waters of baptism until today, under the guidance of the holy Priesthood; and from the waters of baptism to the present time all the blessings we enjoy have come to us through the holy Priesthood, and the power which God has bestowed upon His humble servants; there is not a blessing which is of any value which we have not received through that medium. This being the case, it is a natural consequence that that Priesthood shall continue to exercise a power in dictating us as to what we shall do.

There was considerable said yesterday, about what a good lot of people you are; and while I would not like to mar the pleasure you may derive from the representations given of you, there is this to be said about Salt Lake City Temple District, of which you form a part, that there is not that disposition to build Temples, and forward the work of God, by the use and donation of means, which is observable in other Stakes, and in other Temple districts.

I tell you another thing we discovered upon examination of these things—for we examined them somewhat, but not so thoroughly as we might have done—we found that those who have paid the largest amount on Tithing in proportion to the number of souls, have done the most towards building Temples. We found that in St. George, where the people are all poor, that they paid more Tithing and more Temple donations in proportion to each soul than any other part of the Territory. We found that in Cache Valley, where the people are building a Temple, that they not only paid a good tithing but also a larger proportion of donations than any other part; showing that those who give the largest donations to Temple building are able to pay the most Tithing. These are facts which should be understood by us. The Lord has told us from the beginning, in all which has been spoken to us by his servants, and by that which has been written in the revelations, that he will bless those who are liberal in sustaining and supporting His work, that His blessings will rest down upon those who manifest faith. You look for instance—I do not know that it would be wrong for me to allude to the Twelve—you look to them, you see the way they have labored, in going here and there according to the directions of the servants of God who have presided over them; they have not stopped to inquire whether or not it would suit their worldly circumstances to take such a mission or to do such a work; they have never stopped to consider a moment whether their individual interests would be affected by their going; they have always been ready and on hand to go at call, and has not the Lord blessed them? Has He not opened up their way before them? Has he not given unto them his holy spirit, witnessing to them that their course has been pleasing in his sight? He certainly has, according to my view; and so he has all the faithful Elders of the body of the Priesthood. You look at the men who have been the most faithful in doing that which the Lord required at their hands, and you will agree with me that they are the men who have been blessed; and you look at the men who have paid their Tithing the most diligently, and you look at the women who have stood by and sustained their husbands’ hands under these circumstances, whether upon missions, making donations, on otherwise contributing to the forwarding of this work, and you will find that if they are not so well off, in a worldly sense, they are rich in faith, and as a rule they are better off in worldly circumstances than those who have been more selfish and niggardly in their labors and donations to the Church of God. You, sisters—and there are some I see in this congregation whom I have known abroad when preaching the Gospel—let me ask if you have not been blessed when you have entertained the Elders and been kind and liberal to them, as many of you have been? Have you not felt abundantly rewarded for it in the increase of the Holy Spirit, and the pleasure and peace and joy which have filled your hearts when you have taken this course? So with you, brethren, when you have done your duty towards the work. When you have helped the Elders, have you not felt a blessing come from God, and rest down upon you which has more than satisfied you? Certainly you have, and those who have been at home who have been liberal in parting with their means to assist in forwarding the interests of this work, have you not been blessed? Has not the Spirit of God witnessed to you that this is the course you should have taken? Certainly, this is the testimony of every faithful Latter-day Saint. God requires that we should be liberal in relation to these matters, for great essential blessings depend upon the building of Temples in our midst. We cannot have our dead redeemed, we cannot ourselves be prepared for the exaltation that awaits us unless we attend to these matters in accordance with the law of God respecting them. There are generations to be looked after. For 1,400 years, the people on this Continent were without the Gospel, and the power of the Priesthood, and, indeed, so far as that is concerned, it is nearly 1,800 years since the Priesthood was upon the earth; and the salvation of the unnumbered millions of people who have lived since that period will have to be cared for. Trace, if you can, your own genealogy back only for a few generations, and see how it spreads out on every point. For instance, for one mother we have two grandmothers, four great-grandmothers, and eight great-great-grandmothers, etc. And thus it spreads out like the branches of a tree, until all of the inhabitants of the earth will be brought in. God has chosen us from the various nations for this purpose. There are men in this Church from almost every race of men, and if representatives from all the races are not now, they will be in. God scattered the seed of Israel through all of the nations of the earth, so that in the great gathering of the last days He might be able to get representatives of all the families of men. And we are chosen for this purpose. The seed has been scattered among the nations; and when the descendants of Israel here, heard the sound of the Gospel, it was indeed the glad tidings of salvation to them. They knew the voice of the shepherd, it was like telling them something they had forgotten but always knew; they felt that it was something they had been waiting for, the sound thereof was most delightful to the soul. The reason that the sound of the Gospel had such an effect upon us was, because we were chosen from before the foundation of the world, for the express purpose of coming forth in this day to receive it and well may it be said that your lives have been hid with Christ. You have come forth in these last days to be instruments in His hands of bringing souls to a knowledge of the truth as his in Christ Jesus. In the Temples that shall be built, you will have the opportunity of standing therein, as saviors, upon Mount Zion. That is your calling; and it is your privilege to be saviors on Mount Zion. God is giving you the means and ability in order that you may have it in your power to accomplish these things—to build Temples. It is a great labor devolving upon us. God sent the Gospel to you and gathered you out from the nations of the earth by His wonderful power; even by bestowing the Holy Spirit in a miraculous way upon you. Through its influence you knew the truth when the Elder came to you, you knew the voice of the shepherd, you knew it to be the voice of glad tidings for which you had been waiting, and you obeyed it gladly, and have been gathered with the Saints of God. It is your duty now to rise up, all of you, and trace your genealogies, and begin to exercise the powers which belong to saviors of men, and when you do this in earnest, you will begin to comprehend how widespread, how numerous your ancestors are for whom Temple work has to be performed, in order that they may be brought into the fold; and when you get stopped, the Lord will reveal further information to you; and in this way the work of salvation and redemption will be accomplished, even from Father Adam down to the last one; or to speak more properly, down to the Prophet Joseph, who was the first of this dispensation. From Father Adam down to him, all being linked together by the sealing ordinances which God has restored, and the powers of which will be exercised in the Temples of God, all being united together as brethren and sisters, for we are all begotten of God. We are related to each other; we may not have the same blood in our veins now, but it will be found when we trace it back, that we are of the same family; hence it is that we love one another as we do, at least, that is one reason for it. It is true we have been scattered among Gentile nations, and are called Gentiles, but nevertheless we are of the pure seed, having come through Gentile lineage that we may be the means of saving them, and through our faithfulness we shall stand at their head. This is the blessing which rests upon us as descendants of Abraham.

It is a great privilege we have to take of our means and to put it in the Temples which we are building. It is a great privilege in this great latter-day dispensation which God has given us, a peculiar privilege; but when we are digging and delving and struggling with poverty and get our minds filled with darkness and unbelief, we forget it all and think our lot is hard, and the Priesthood is making hard requirements. When you are asked to pay Tithing, it is said that some want to know what is done with the Tithing. If such folks were to come into the council they would soon find out; they would find at any rate that the Apostles do not eat it nor consume it, they would find that it is handled with as much care as it is possible to handle such things, and that they feel accountable to God for the responsibility which rests upon them. But when the Saints get their minds engrossed with the cares of the world, they forget the blessings which God has bestowed upon them, and what he designs to do with them, and things which they ought not to think about come up in their minds. I look upon our condition as one of peculiar blessedness. I think all of us should be thankful that we are counted worthy to be members of this Church. To be a member of this Church is a great thing. I am very thankful to have my name numbered with the Latter-day Saints, to be a sharer in the blessings God has bestowed and promised unto us. We have the holy Priesthood, we have wives and children given unto us, and husbands, wives and children are sealed together by the eternal power of the holy Priesthood, the binding power which connects them together for time and eternity. When you think that you are chosen to be saviors to the children of men, to stand as a medium through whom salvation shall flow unto unnumbered thousands, what manner of people ought we to be? They pray for you today in the spirit world, as they have been no doubt from the beginning praying for their descendants, that they may be faithful to the truth. You cannot tell the interest felt in eternity for you, my brethren and sisters, by those of our dead who have gone before us. Their hearts yearn after us, their constant desire being that we may be faithful and maintain our integrity and be prepared to bring salvation to them, and redeem them by going forth and obeying every ordinance which God has established in the Church for the salvation of the living and the dead. You cannot be made perfect without them, neither can they be made perfect without you. It is for us, being in the flesh, to perform this work, and to educate our children the same way, that our young men and young women may feel that in laboring to build up Zion they are establishing the work of God, and, at the same time, laying a foundation for their own exaltation, in His presence, and for those of their ancestry and posterity. This is the feeling we should have. Instead of being oppressed in our feelings, and permitting ourselves to believe that these things are hard upon us, that it is hard to pay our Tithing, or to make donations, or to do this or that which may be required of us, we ought to feel it is a plea– sure and honor and a great privilege to be counted worthy to have the opportunity to do this. There are men in this Church who have felt that they could traverse the earth to get to see a servant of God who could baptize them. I have heard men say that they would have undertaken the labor of walking around the earth, if they, by doing so, would have been sure to meet a man of that kind. You have met men of that kind, men who have had authority to baptize you for the remission of sins, and by being baptized by such men your sins have been remitted in the sight of God, and of angels. You came forth from the waters of baptism clean and pure so far as these old sins are concerned, and you had the Holy Ghost sealed upon you by authority of the holy Priesthood, and you have been inducted into the kingdom. And yet some of us forget that we have been made the recipients of these blessings, our minds become darkened, and we forget all that God has done for us. Here we have men among us, through whom we can have the word of God when we want it; just think of it; men dwelling, as it were, so near to God, that you can have the counsel of Jehovah given to you about this matter and the other matter you may choose to hear about. This is within your reach. Who appreciates it? We begrudge a little Tithing or a little donation, and think it a wonderful sacrifice to fulfil such minor duties. If we were to devote our entire time, the labor of our bodies and spirits to the interests of this work, what would it be in view of what God has done for us? Is there a blessing you have desired of Him that he has not bestowed upon you when you have sought for it properly?

Brethren of Tooele, I said some plain things to you last evening. I hope they will be borne in mind; I hope that you will endeavor to so live that your prayers will avail with God, and so as to have a conscience void of offense before God and man. Why should we not have a heavenly influence dwelling upon us? Is there anything to be compared to it? Nothing. And God has placed it within our reach. It is like the drinking fountains we see in the city, you can drink at them until you are satisfied, and it matters not how thirsty you may be, and your drinking will not prevent my drinking, and your being filled will not prevent my getting filled. God has opened this fountain to us, the fountain of peace, the fountain of joy, the fountain of happiness, the fountain from which all can drink and all be filled, and it will not deprive anybody else from the same. Did you ever have anything to equal it? Did you ever taste anything that equals the taste of the Spirit of God—the sweetness, the heavenly joy and the peace which it brings to the soul? You who have partaken of it know that there is nothing so sweet. Honey to the natural taste is not to be compared to the sweetness of the Holy Spirit to the spirit of man. God has spread out this feast before us, and invites us to partake of it, to fill ourselves until we are perfectly satisfied. And He warns us against evil, and beseeches us to forsake sin. He wants us to be pure, he wants our young men to be pure and to have His Holy Spirit. He is willing to bestow His gifts upon us, but He will be sought unto in prayer and faith for His blessings. I am not talking about something theoretical, but something you know for yourselves. You had it after you joined the Church; you felt then as you never experienced before. Have you cherished that Spirit from that time to the present? If you have, the Gospel is indeed the power of God to you, and the sound thereof is full of glad tidings, and great joy, and the testimony of peace reigns in your hearts.

I pray God to bless you and fill you with His Spirit, that we may be full to overflowing, and that it may enable you to conquer every evil desire and bring all of your appetites into complete subjection to his mind and will, which is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Apostle George Q. Cannon, delivered in the 14th Ward Meetinghouse, Sunday Evening, July 25, 1880.

While I was sitting here today, a portion of the record of Alma suggested itself to my mind, which I will read, as found recorded in the 4th chapter of the Book of Alma—(new edition).

[The speaker then read the greater portion of the 4th chap.] Continuing he said:

I should not attempt to get on my feet to speak to you my own thoughts, or my own feelings, or that which my own spirit would suggest. I have had sufficient experience in my life to know that for a man to impart profitable instruction unto his fellow creatures in the capacity of a teacher of the things of God, he must have the aid of the Spirit of God. Without that he cannot impart that which will be of permanent profit to anyone. I know it is the privilege of a people situated as we are to know the mind and will of the Lord concerning us, and also when we come into an assemblage of this character to receive the instruction which is adapted to the circumstances of each particular individual, and that is the office of the spirit. I cannot tell your feelings. I do not know your hearts. There may be secret sorrows, there may be griefs, there may be doubts, there may be many things that oppress you in your feelings, of which I am entirely ignorant. But the Spirit knoweth the things of God. God knoweth our hearts and his all-piercing eye can penetrate the inmost recesses of our hearts, and every thought, every secret is known to him, and he can, through the aid of his Holy Spirit, impart to each one that portion of strength, of comfort, of light which each soul may need to strengthen it on its onward journey in the path which God our Father has marked out for us to pursue, and unless a meeting of this kind is attended, with these effects, to me it is exceedingly unsatisfactory. When I go as a listener, I desire to go to meeting to be fed, to go away from the meeting with a feeling that I have received that which will be a benefit to me in my life, in the acts of my life, and so also if I speak.

The position of the Latter-day Saints in this respect is different from that of every other people which I know of on the face of the earth. We profess to serve God. We profess to have received from him blessings as the result of our obedience to his commandments. We profess to live by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God, and we believe that this is a time when God speaks in various ways to his children, manifesting his mind and will to them, and that it is not with us as with other people who are dependent upon that which is written, dependent upon the Bible for the food and nutriment necessary to strengthen them. We depend upon the revelations of God to us. In this respect our position is different from that of every other people which I am acquainted with, and of course, this being our position, it is of the utmost importance to carry out the principles which we believe in, that we should live in such a manner as to have the mind and will of the Lord made manifest to us. How is this mind and will communicated? By what means is the mind and will of the Father made manifest unto the children of men? There are various ways. One is—he has placed in his Church officers whose duty it is to instruct the Church. Yet this does not relieve the members of the Church from their responsibility. It is for the members of the Church also to so live that when they are taught and counseled, when instruction is given unto them, that they shall be able to know whether that instruction and counsel be from God or not. This is the privilege of every individual, and there is no person, however humble, who is a member of the Church, who should be destitute of this spirit of which I speak, this light and this intelligence. God our Eternal Father is the Father of us all. The relationship which exists between us and him is not confined to a small portion of the human family, but it is the same with all of us; every individual who is within the walls of this house tonight, occupies I may say precisely the same relationship to our Father in one sense. Not that all have the same responsibility, not that all are required to perform the same duties; but all occupy the same position of children, and our Father in heaven is our father, the Being whom we worship. As God is the father of us all, we trace our descent from him, our children trace their descent from him, they are as much his children as we are his children, and I often think in my association with my own children that I would just as soon hurt the feelings of a grown person as I would one of my children. I think in one respect they are my equal, though I occupy the relationship of father to them; and so I feel towards all. Now, the Gospel produces this sense of equality. There could be no slavery where the Gospel is taught in its fullness and in its perfection. There could be no distinction where the Gospel is practiced. You read here—or rather I have read for you—in this record which has come down to us, that when the principles of the Gospel were practiced among the people of this land, they were equal to a very great extent; but when they began to violate the principles of the Gospel, their inequality manifested itself. Some were lifted up in pride, some looked with scorn upon their poor brethren and sisters. Classifications arose in society which had their origin not in virtue, not in holiness, not in purity, not in any superiority arising from intelligence, but because some were richer than others, some could dress better than others, some could have better surroundings than others, doubtless dwelt in finer houses, better furnished, and they were better clad, and had probably finer and nicer food. Distinctions of this kind grew up not out of the Gospel, but out of the violation of the principles of the Gospel. Wherever the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is taught, it produces, as I have said, this sense of equality, it makes the man who may know and understand the things of God feel that he is no better than his fellow man, and the woman who understands the things of God feel that she is no better than her sister. If this sentiment were practiced among us, it would produce the results we find that Alma sought to produce among the people, and which he did produce by the preaching of the word, as recorded in the subsequent verses to those which I read. He went forth preaching the word as he found it the most effectual means, as described by the historian, of checking the evils that were growing among the people. It would be so among us in a while if it were not for the preaching of the word of God, and with the preaching of the word, with all the faith, all the zeal, and all the power which our leaders are capable of exercising, it needs it all to repress these inclinations and these tendencies. There is something in the human heart of that character that when human beings are prospering they are apt to be lifted up in pride and to forget the cause or the source of their prosperity; they are apt to forget God, who is the fountain of all their blessings, and to give glory to themselves. It requires a constant preaching of the word of God, a constant pleading with the people, a constant outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the people to bring them to a true sense of their real condition. With all the experience the Latter-day Saints have had, who is there among us that cannot perceive this tendency? Why, it is constantly bringing itself into notice. It becomes in some instances quite offensive, because those who are humble feel the effects of it. Those who are poor, needy and destitute, not gifted with ability to accumulate the things of this world, feel it, and very frequently their hearts are grieved because of it. There is this tendency we have to contend with as a people and as individuals, and it is something we should constantly bear in mind, that God has sent us here and given unto us a mission on the earth, not to accumulate riches, not to become worldly-minded, not to pile up the things of this world which are perishable, to the injury of ourselves or to our detriment in our progress in the things of the kingdom of God. Is it right that we should take care of ourselves as a people and as individuals? Certainly. Is it right that we should be prudent, that we should take care of those gifts and blessings which God has given unto us, that we should husband our resources, that we should be economical, and not extravagant? Certainly; this is right, this is proper, we should be culpable if we were not so. But with this there is also something else required, and that is, to keep constantly in view that the management and care of these things is not the object that God had in sending us here, that is not the object of our probation. God has shown unto this people repeatedly—and there is scarcely an individual member of the Church who has not had experience in it—that he can give and he can take away. I have in my mind now many instances where men of wealth —comparatively wealthy at least—have joined this Church, and it seemed as though there was a succession of events after they joined the Church, to deprive them of all they had, to test their faith apparently, but to show them that God did not give men means for the purpose of placing their affections upon them, and then, after they were stripped, he has, in many instances, begun to bless them again, and allowed them to have means in greater abundance than ever they had before. He has done so with this people. We have been stripped of our property, reduced to the last extremity for food and for other necessary comforts, and yet God has multiplied upon us these blessings when he has sent us food, and we have had abundance. But the happiness of a people does not consist in the abundance of worldly things, that is, the abundance of food or of raiment, or of houses, carriages, horses, and costly apparel. It is true that if we are relieved from the pressure of want, if we have the wherewith to supply our necessities, we feel better, we feel a relief that we do not feel when ground down by poverty. But happiness is not entirely dependent upon these circumstances, as doubtless many of my brethren and sisters have proved. I have proved it myself to my entire satisfaction. I have been in reduced circumstances; been on missions when I did not know where to get a mouthful to eat; turned away by the people who dare not entertain me because of the anger that was kindled against us. I could stand by and weep, being a boy and away from all my friends. But I, nevertheless, was happy. I never enjoyed myself in my life as I did then. I know that happiness does not consist in the possession of worldly things. Still it is a great relief when people can have the means necessary for the support of themselves and families. If they possess these things and the Spirit of God with them, they are blessed. But the Lord requires of us different things in this day to what he did in ancient days. I often think of it.

There is a great deal of inequality among us as a people, not so great as described by the writer in the book of Alma, but still there is a great deal of inequality among us, a great deal of pride and more disunion than there should be. This people are not united as they should be. There are many things existing among us that should be uprooted and not have an existence in our midst. And what is the reason that these things exist? The reason is to be found in our neglect of the principles we have espoused. The Lord requires all his people in these days to bring unto him a sacrifice. In olden times, before the coming of the Lord Jesus, we read in the Bible that the people brought their offerings of oxen, of sheep, of fowls of various kinds. These were burnt offerings, they were sacrifices, the blood of animals flowed, and the sins of the people apparently were remitted by their obedience to these requirements. But the Lord has said respecting us, that the offering he requires at our hands is a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Let me ask you—and in asking you—I ask myself—do you, when you go unto the Lord, bring this offering, or do you go to God without asking him in this spirit and in this manner? If you go to the Lord with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, he will show to you all your faults, and all your weaknesses, he will bring plainly before you wherein you have come short in doing his will, and when you see yourself in the light of that spirit instead of being filled with pride, you will feel to abase yourselves and bring yourselves down in the very dust of humility; your own unworthiness will be so plain before you, that if pride should come into your heart at any time, you will almost be shocked at it, and you will feel to put it away from you. It is in this way that we as Latter-day Saints should live. There is enough taught to us in the Bible, in the Book of Mormon, in the Doctrine and Covenants, and by our leaders from time to time, to guide us into the presence of God Our Heavenly Father. We should be the most humble people on the face of the earth. Why? Because God in communicating to us the knowledge of our weakness and faults, will give us humility. We should be the most thankful people upon the earth. Why? Because owing to the abundance of God’s goodness and mercy to us, and realizing it as we should do, it will fill us with a thankfulness that words could not express; our hearts would overflow with extreme gratitude to the Lord our God for the blessings that we enjoy. Under these circumstances should there be any murmuring? Not any. Should we find fault with our condition and our circumstances? Certainly not, if we are living the religion which God has revealed to us. Should there be any quarrelling or faultfinding? No; because where the Spirit of God exists there is no disposition of this character. There is a manifestation to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong; not to revile, not to prosecute, not to assail back when we are assailed. If a brother comes up to me, he is in a bad temper, he says something that is annoying, and I lose my temper and reply in the same spirit, do I do right? Certainly not. However much the provocation may be, it is not my duty as a Latter-day Saint, as a professed follower of Jesus Christ, to indulge in any such feeling or expression. Well, but one may ask, have we to submit to abuse? Yes, that is one of the requirements of the Gospel, that you shall submit to abuse. Have we to submit to wrong? Yes, if somebody attempts to wrong you, it is your duty as professed followers of Jesus Christ to submit to that. Supposing I am struck, must I submit to a blow? Yes, I must, or else I am not carrying out the principles of my religion. Well, but suppose a person tells falsehoods concerning me, assails me and reviles me, must I submit to this? Yes. Why? Because the requirements of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ are that we should do so, that we should not quarrel, that we should suffer evil and wrong and pray for the person who does these things to us. This is a hard lesson I know. Some men would think their children cowards unless they would fight when they were struck. They teach their children to strike back when struck, to resent attacks upon them. Then, again, if one man calls another a liar, the first thing we know the man is knocked down, and as a result of training he would be considered unmanly if he did not resent the insult in this way. I am very glad, however, that a change has taken place in this respect. There must be changes of this kind among us. If a man forgets himself so far as to call his brother a liar, or any other offensive name, there should be enough of the Spirit of God and the spirit of patience and the spirit of self-respect left in the brother to bear the insult without resenting in the same spirit. Would this make us pusillanimous? Would this make us a people devoid of spirit? Certainly not; there is plenty of room for the exercising of all the spirit we have in coping with the difficulties we have in life without exercising it in that manner, without expending it in senseless quarrels. If we have this spirit to which I have alluded, this meek, humble, broken and contrite spirit, will it not produce union? Yes, it will, it will produce union and love, and I wish to say to all who are here tonight, that it is the duty of every man and woman in this Church to live at peace with him and herself, and then to live at peace with everybody else, husbands with wives, wives with husbands, parents with children, children with parents, brothers with sisters and sisters with brothers; this is the duty that God requires at our hands. I am speaking now of something which is not an abstract theory, that cannot be carried out; I am speaking of that which can be carried out, which every one of us can carry out, and of results which can be accomplished in the midst of this people.

The feeling has grown upon me, and is growing upon me every day, that as a people we do not live up to our privileges. We do not have the knowledge of the things of God that we should have. There is not that amount of revelation enjoyed by us which there should be. The gifts of the spirit are not manifest to the extent they should be. Is there revelation? Yes, I know that and can testify of it. Are there gifts, are there blessings enjoyed by the people? Yes, I am convinced of it. Are there manifestations of the goodness and the power of God among this people? I am satisfied that there are manifestations of this kind. The sick are healed. The mind and will of the Lord is communicated to the people, but it is not to that extent that it should be considering our circumstances, and considering the length of time the Church has been organized. Who is there that is not conscious of this. Ask yourselves, each of you, “Have I the knowledge of the things of God that I should have? Does the Spirit of God bear testimony to me and warn me and teach me as it should do?” Let each one ask himself and herself this question. Now, if we live as we should, there is no event of any importance that could occur but we would have some intimation respecting it; we would be prepared for it, we would be prepared for every public event that affected us, every private event, everything of this character that could occur to us that would affect us in the least degree would be known by us at the very time. The Spirit of God with its monitions would say to us, “If you pursue that path there is danger, you may lose your life, you may meet with some accident.” Mothers would have the teachings of the spirit respecting their children, and how to take care of them, and fathers also respecting their families. I am not talking about something which is entirely beyond our reach and is impossible for us to receive. I am speaking of something which is within the reach of all of us to a greater or less extent. Some are gifted in one direction and some in another. But all who belong to this Church and have taken the course which God has pointed out, and have humbled themselves in obedience to the commandments of God, and endeavored to carry out these commandments, have this promise made unto them, that they will be taught of the Lord.

If there is one desire that I have as an individual greater than ano– ther, it is that I may so live as to have the blessing, and next that you, this Church, this people, may so live as to have the same. I would not have those gifts unless somebody else had them, for I have learned in my life that when one man is blessed more than his fellows, temptation comes in, prides comes in, and the adversary is apt to suggest to him that he is so much better than his fellow men. Therefore, if I wanted to have any great gifts from the Lord, I never have felt—and I do not think I ever shall, I certainly will not with my present state of feeling—to have these myself, I would like somebody else to have them also. I would not want to be the richest man in the community; I would not want to be the most gifted, the most prominent or the most honored in any respect. I would want others to share in these blessings. Then I would have less fear concerning the effect of them upon myself. When I am blessed I want to see the Latter-day Saints blessed, I want to see the people of God receive the gifts of God, and enjoy them so that we shall all grow, increase and develop together.

I noticed when I was very young in the Church, that men who were greatly gifted of the Lord and had many manifestations, were the men who apostatized; with the exception of the Prophet Joseph Smith, nearly every one was overthrown. I suppose the reason of it was that they were lifted up in pride and allowed the adversary to take advantage of them. I would like well enough to see these gifts and blessings multiplied among us and upon us, that as a people we should have dreams and visions and manifestations of the Spirit; but there is one thing that we have all got to be very careful about, and that is this: I have seen Elders in my experience that when they got their own spirit moved very much they imagined that it was the Spirit of God, and it was difficult in some instances to tell the difference between the suggestions of their own spirit and the voice of the spirit of God. This is a gift of itself, to be able to distinguish that which suggests itself to our own hearts and that which comes from God. And we are misled sometimes by our own feeling, because of our inability to distinguish between the voice of the Spirit of God and the suggestions of our own spirit. There is a still, small voice in the heart of every human being. There is an influence comes with every son and daughter of Adam that is born into the world. What! Outside of the Latter-day Saints? Certainly, I told you in the beginning that we are all the children of God. There is an influence born with every person that to a certain extent is a spirit of revelation. Hence you will frequently find it the case—probably some of you adults have experienced it, when you joined the Church, that this influence told you what proved to be true. Brother Woodruff, here, I have heard him tell, in his experience, how he was led before he joined the Church by this influence, how it operated upon his mind until it was brought in contact with the truth. I have heard a number of others relate the same thing, and if they received the truth this influence increased with them, but if they rejected the truth, if they refused to receive the testimony of the servants of God, the light that was in them became darkness, and as the Savior said, how great is that darkness! I proclaim it as a truth, that when a man or a woman enters into this Church and is baptized, repents of his or her sins, humbles himself and herself in the depth of humility before the Lord, determined with His help to forsake their sins, to put them away from them, I say, when a man or a woman comes to the Lord in that spirit and lives so that the Holy Ghost will rest upon them, that there will be no event of any importance from that time forward but what they will have some intimation respecting it, some premonition, and they will walk in the light, some to a greater extent than others, because some are more gifted than others, some live in such a manner as to have this developed within them to a greater extent. But if they continue to cultivate this spirit, to live in the light of it, it will become a principle of unfailing revelation to them.

Is this your privilege? Certainly it is. It is also the privilege of children, boys and girls, young men and young women, middle-aged and aged to enjoy this. It is not confined to anyone in particular, to any sex, to any particular position in life, but it is extended to all. It is the design of God that it should be so. But it is dim within us because of the generations of unbelief and wickedness of heart which have existed. We have inherited a great amount of unbelief from our fathers; it has come down to us. The heavens have been as brass over the heads of the people, and there has been a spirit of unbelief which has excluded the revelations of Jesus and the manifestations of the Spirit of God.

Fifty years ago this Church was organized. There are men and women who have been fifty years in the Church, some who have been forty years, a great many thirty years, a still greater number twenty years. Is it not time, then, after all we have heard, and all we know concerning these things, that some of this unbelief should disappear and more of that love be exhibited which draws us nearer to God and places us in closer communion with Him? Is it not time that this should be the case with our children? Why, it seems to me so, and I have no doubt it is so. And yet there is much room for improvement in these things.

There is one thing above all others which strikes me with astonishment when I think about it among our people. A great many years ago, the Lord gave what is called the “Word of Wisdom” to us as a people. It is a thing I very rarely allude to. I never drank tea or coffee in my life, I never drank liquor, I never used tobacco, and I have endeavored to keep the Word of Wisdom. It is no credit to me, my parents instilled it into me. I never allude to it in public speaking. I never allude to it in my family. I have set the example and allowed them to follow it, and they have done so, most of them. But when I think about it, when I see our people, after what God has said upon this subject, after the plain manner in which he has spoken to us and told us what would be the result of the observance of certain laws, deliberately day after day flying in the face of the counsel which God has given unto us in that Word of Wisdom, I get exceedingly amazed and I wonder how it is that God bears with us. It is a grievous thing to trifle with that promise, and with the many promises which are connected with that promise and with the many promises which are connected with the Word of Wisdom. We see young men learning to drink liquor, to smoke and chew tobacco, and acquiring this habit and the other habit which is expressly forbidden, or at least that counsel is given respecting, which ought to be more binding because it comes with an appeal to us—it appeals to our sense of right that a commandment does not, because a commandment comes with strict injunctions which leaves no alternative but to obey; but this is a word of counsel by a kind father, and He tells us that if we will observe it, we shall have health, the destroyer shall not have power over us, nor over our families, and that we shall have treasures of knowledge and wisdom given to us. Supposing here are a good many young men that belong to this Church, some of whom are very eager for knowledge—reading books, studying, going to the University, imagining that is the most direct and easy way to obtain it, and at the same time these same young men, members of the Church, drinking their tea and coffee and smoking their cigarettes. Does it not seem like a great inconsistency for men and women to do these things? I proclaim to you Latter-day Saints, that the Word of Wisdom is the word of God, that those who obey it will receive every blessing which is promised in the revelation, that they will have health, and that they will have power and blessings which they cannot conceive of until they try it. It is a simple thing, yet it shows how neglectful we are as a people. I believe the time is not far distant when we shall have to be very different from what we are in these respects. I with tell you what I have sometimes thought: that the Lord is going to deal with us as he did with the Israelites. They hardened their hearts against the Lord, became careless and disobedient, and finally the Lord, in His wrath, decreed that none of them, with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, should enter the promised land. The words that are used are very expressive. Their carcasses were to fall in the wilderness, all over a certain age. But the Lord spared the little ones. He raised up a new generation and led them to the promised land. We have the same promise that some will be left to go back to the promised land, and I feel satisfied it will be fulfilled. But would it not be better for us all to exercise faith and do right, that we might all receive the fulfillment of this promise? Certainly. There were times in our lives when we felt that we would do anything for the sake of the spirit we had received. Is there any person in this Church, in this room tonight who has not seen the time in his or her life—if they have had any experience—when they would sacrifice anything to be in possession of the Spirit of God. Every one who has joined this Church of any age and experience knows this to be the case. There is a sweetness to be experienced in receiving the Spirit of God, that is preferable to everything else in life. Everyone should be in possession of this spirit. If you do not have it, let me say to you, do not rest till you get it. I do not believe in the sectarian style of doing things, neither do you; but there are some things exceedingly necessary for all to do whether they belong to this Church or not, and that is to look at their lives and examine and see wherein they have come short, and repent and humble themselves before the Lord, and get a renewal of His Holy Spirit. Of course people who do not belong to this Church are not likely to take this course; yet in the sectarian world they feel the necessity of revival. As a people we should live day by day so as to have the spirit of God resting upon us.

I have great pleasure in testifying to you of my own experience in these matters. I have been away now for some eight or ten years, more than half of my time from the Church; alone, so to speak; I have not had the advantages of other Elders, because they are visiting among the various branches. I therefore can appreciate these things which I perhaps would not appreciate if I had been constantly in the society of the Saints. I sometimes regret this; I feel that I have not the advantages my brethren have; but I have no doubt the Lord makes up for it in other ways. I have proved to my entire satisfaction, that God is willing to reveal Himself to His servants under all circumstances, to make his mind and will plain to them, and I have had to live in that way while I have been gone. Circumstances have sometimes been of such a nature that I could not see what to do by my own wisdom; but I have never yet—and I do not say this from vanity at all, I say it to encourage you; I do not say it because I consider myself blessed above you, but I say it because it is your privilege and because I would like to stir you up to faith that you may receive those blessings of God—I say there never has been a moment when I have been absent, but what I have had shown to me what to do, what steps to take, what to say and what not to say. It gives me great joy to bear testimony to these things; and if there is one thing that I feel more thankful for than another, it is that God has restored His Church, and that I have the privilege of being a member of it. When Brother Erastus Snow was speaking today, and when Brother Woodruff was speaking yesterday, I could scarcely control myself. You heard how the Lord led the brethren across these plains, and how when President Young saw this valley, he said to Brother Woodruff, and afterwards to the brethren of the camp: “Here is the place.” Was there any doubt in his mind? No; the Lord had revealed the place to him, he knew it for himself. I remember on one occasion telling President Young, the first year we were here—I was then quite a boy—that if we could only get bread and water I should feel satisfied if we could only have peace. Well, we had peace. We were not harassed; indeed a more peaceful time than we had when we came into these valleys never was enjoyed by any people on the face of the earth. President Young knew what the Lord would do. The Lord had revealed it to him, and described many things which have not yet occurred. Is not this precious?—to have the word of the Lord, to know we are led by the inspiration of the Almighty. It is one of the greatest blessings that a people can enjoy. Ever since the Church was organized, we have been led by revelation. And who has been misled by it? People have always prospered who have listened to the voice of the Shepherd. It was so in the days of Joseph, it was so in the days of President Young, it is so today under President Taylor, and it will be so to the end. The Lord has stretched forth his hand to accomplish his purposes, and it will not be withdrawn until all is fulfilled. We shall not be destitute of the voice of revelation. We may do a great many things contrary to the mind and will of God, for which he will chastise us and scourge us, if necessary; but he will not withdraw His Priesthood from us, and his voice will not cease to be heard; it will be given unto those of his servants who live for it, and they will know the mind and will of God for this people. Persecution may go on. People may say we have not the gifts; but the Lord will not leave us; he has not left us; he will make of this people a great nation; and there is no power upon the face of the earth that can arrest the progress of “Mormonism,” as it is called by the world, but which is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It will grow, increase and spread abroad as the Prophet Daniel saw it, until it fills the whole earth. Some of you may get discouraged and say the Lord delayeth His coming, and begin to get weak in faith because of drunkenness and gambling in our midst, and say Zion is not going to be redeemed because our enemies have got such power. But will that prevent the redemption of Zion? No. The Lord is bringing us through these circumstances. There was a time when we were driven by mobs, and our faith was tried in various ways. It is necessary that there should still be trials to test the faith of this people. There are no mobs now, we do not have our houses burnt down now, or our cattle shot down. But shall we be without trials? No. Why? Because it is necessary—at least I accept it as necessary in the providence of God—that there should be liquor saloons, etc., so that Latter-day Saints who make so many professions can, if they want to drink beer and get drunk, or go in and play billiards and gamble, or go to other places that are worse—can do so. “But,” says one, “I thought in coming to Zion I was coming to a place of purity where none of these things existed.” If that had been the case how would you have been tried? It is necessary you should be tried for a while in order to develop your strength. We have to be brought in contact with the world, and we have to show the world that there is something connected with our religion which is enduring. Yet all these things have been a source of strength to us. Why, says one, how can that be? Well, now, I am in a position to know the feeling towards us. Our enemies have been trying to get legislation against us. But some say, “what is the use of legislating against the Mormons? If you will only let them alone, it will come all right. The Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the infidels, have their meetinghouses, schoolhouses, and newspapers, and have brothels, gambling houses, drinking saloons, and milliner’s shops, and you cannot imagine what a great work these things are doing among the Mormons! The young people are growing up and they do not want more wives than one. Why, it is as much as they can do to keep one. The girls want fine millinery, fine dresses, fine furniture. What is the use of resorting to unjust legislation when these things are going on? When they get rid of their polygamy they will be a good people.” I have sometimes thought that in the providence of God he suffers such things. At the same time it is operating upon our own people. Our young men are led on to smoke, to drink, and to do wrong. At the same time, trials are necessary; we must be tested, and when we emerge from these trials we will feel better and stronger. Has the Lord forgotten Zion? Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can you mothers forget your nursing babies? When you do, which is not very likely, then the Lord may forget Zion. His eye is upon Zion. His hand is over this people. His hand has overruled all things for the good of this people and their salvation. Will Zion be redeemed? Yes. Will you be redeemed? That is for you to say. Will I be redeemed? That is for me to say. We need have no fear about the welfare of this work; we need not tremble and think there is danger. Congress may pass laws, attempts may be made to overthrow this work; but we need have no fears: Zion will be redeemed. Many will fall by the wayside, many will lose their faith, many will be led away by false and seducing spirits; but there will be those who will be saved and exalted, and all of us who are here tonight have this privilege if we will accept of it; we can be saved each of us and crowned with glory in the presence of God and the Lamb. There is no provision to exclude us; we are not predestined for damnation; we are predestined to be saved if we will accept of the salvation offered. Therefore, in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ, if we are not saved we cannot look up and charge God with having done anything to prevent us, we will have no one to blame but ourselves, and that will be our hell.

I pray the Lord in the name of Jesus Christ, that we may all be saved and exalted in the celestial kingdom. Let us live our religion, this precious and holy religion, and let me say to you that if you have not had the happiness of it lately, get the happiness that it produces, and you will not exchange it for anything else in the world. It ought to be a pearl of great price to all of us, and we ought to cherish it more than we do our lives. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, June 27, 1880.

If I were to consult my natural feelings today, it would afford me much greater pleasure to sit still and listen and look at the faces of this congregation than attempt to speak. But this, doubtless, would be a disappointment to very many, and might not be understood. Therefore, I arise this afternoon to make a few remarks—such as may suggest themselves to me—to my brethren and sisters who are present. I shall not attempt to describe to you the emotions, the feelings which I have in being once more reunited with you, for you have heard them expressed by others so frequently, and also by myself, and many of you have experienced them yourselves, that I am relieved from the necessity of restating them in your hearing. I may say, however, that I am exceedingly thankful for the opportunity of returning once more to our home and finding circumstances and surroundings so favorable to the people of these valleys as they are at the present time, and also that I can, to a certain extent, return as the bearer of good tidings; that I can speak favorably concerning our present and our future prospects; that is, so far as my information extends.

When I left here last November, it seemed to me that the elements were charged with threatenings to us as a people and to our liberties. I have had some experience, of several years’ duration, in public affairs; that is, political affairs, and have had occasion to notice the signs of the times; but I can say now that at no time did affairs appear more threatening to us than they did when I went to Washington the latter end of last November, or beginning of December. You probably can recollect the circumstances which existed at that time.

The greatest enemies we have had to contend with for many years have been those who should, from their intimacy with us, from their knowledge of our labors, from their familiarity with our proceedings, have been our friends—those who reside in our midst. It has been the case for several years that all the excitement, all the ill-feeling, all the manifestations of hatred which have come to the surface or been exhibited outside of the Territory of Utah concerning the people called Latter-day Saints, or “Mormons,” have had their origin in this Territory, and have been stirred up by those who reside here. There has not been in Congress, there has not been throughout the country on the part of the public press, or on the part of public men generally, much of a disposition to take or to adopt harsh measures against the people of these mountains. But there have been those residing in this Territory who have seemed to be uneasy lest we should be treated too kindly, or be viewed too favorably by those who are outside of the Territory, and there has been apparently a great dread on the part of a few individuals, lest there should be a disposition manifested by Congress and by those in authority to recognize us as fellow citizens, and to extend to us those rights and privileges to which we are entitled—I mean our rights to become a State, to be admitted into the Union, to receive recognition, the recognition of our numbers, of the good government of this Territory that has been maintained for thirty-three years; of the peace which has prevailed and the developments which have been made, all of which have entitled us to recognition and to admission into the Union as one of the States, and because this fear has seemed to exist in the minds of some individuals, they have done all in their power to misrepresent the people of this Territory, that is, the majority of the people, circulating all manner of falsehoods, representing the people as disloyal, as not being fit to be entrusted with the full powers of citizenship; they have endeavored to create the impression throughout the Union that if the Territory of Utah should be admitted as a State, it would be impossible for any person but a “Mormon” to live within its confines; that property would be unsafe, that life would be in jeopardy; that there would be an unbearable condition of affairs here; the “Mor– mon” Priesthood, as they say, would have such extraordinary power, and wield it so despotically and so much in the interest of their own people and to build up their hierarchy, that it would be impossible for any person of independent views, who did not act with them, to reside in this Territory in peace. These views have been so industriously circulated that a great many people have almost thought that this would be the case. However, I may say in relation to this that these statements do not receive the credence they once did. It is not a new thing for these misrepresentations to be circulated; they have been harped upon for many years. There is one thing, however, that has helped to show their falsity, and that is this great railroad that has been constructed across the continent, which has facilitated intercourse with the world, which has enabled hundreds and thousands of the people of the East and West to visit our Territory and see for themselves. This has been one of the best means of educating the public mind correctly in relation to Utah and its people that I know of; it has done more to dissipate this cloud of misrepresentation that has overshadowed us for so long a period than anything else I know of. It is more difficult at the present time, in consequence of this, that is, this speedy means of intercourse, to circulate those falsehoods and have them receive credence than in past years. I am thankful that this is the case, I have done all in my power to urge public men to visit Utah. I have said to them, Come; Come to Utah, come to Salt Lake. If you are going to California, don’t miss visiting Salt Lake City. I have known that the effects of such visits have been beneficial to the parties who make them, as they tend to enlighten their views concerning us, beneficial to us, as they are the means of informing intelligent men and removing a vast amount of prejudice which exists regarding this people. And I have this to say, that I do not know today a public man in either branch of Congress, who has visited Utah Territory, who is not—that is, so far as the rights of the people are concerned—the friend of Utah. This is saying a great deal, it is a broad statement, but I make it without scarcely hinting at a qualification, for it is true. During this past session—and it has been the case for several sessions—measures have been introduced by men who apparently have a monomania concerning “Mormons” and “Mormonism.” Measures have been introduced by persons of this kind, who have been anxious, apparently, to make that a hobby, hoping, I have thought, that they would gain favor with their constituents by doing this. When such measures have been introduced, and I have needed assistance respecting them, the men to whom I have gone in the Senate and in the House, have been men who have been in Utah Territory, have come down by the railroad to Salt Lake City, and have seen the city and the people. They have not been converted to “Mormonism.” They have not gone away believing that it is right for a man to have more wives than one. That does not follow as a consequence of their visit. But they have seen a people who—notwithstanding that they may consider them mistaken in some of their religious views and practices—are honest, industrious, persevering and orderly, and who behave themselves as good citizens should, and their sympathies have been aroused in behalf of the people, the more so because of the previous misrepresentations which have been made respecting them. They have been so thoroughly undeceived by their visit, that it has had a reactionary effect in many instances upon them, because of the statements that had been made to them previous to coming here. Therefore, you can see that I am warranted in saying as I do so frequently to my friends in Washington, Come; come West; and if you do come West, be sure and stop at Salt Lake City. It is not such a country as California. We have not so many attractions in Utah as you will find in California, but your trip will be incomplete without you visit Utah, and see Salt Lake City and its surroundings.

Of course, there are those who are ready to attribute all sorts of bad motives to those who come here and who are disposed to be favorable after their visit. I have stated this to officers. There have been a number of gentlemen appointed to offices here, with whom I was on very familiar terms in Washington. We could visit, we could meet together, we could associate together, and nobody would wonder at it or attribute any bad motives to either party. But I have said to these gentlemen when they have been appointed to office in Utah Territory—Now, I shall continue to be familiar with you as I am here if you wish it, but let me say to you that as soon as you get inside of the limits of our Territory, if you and I are very familiar, somebody will raise the story that the “Mormons” have bought you, that they have got you in their hands, and it would hurt your influence. Is not this a strange condition of affairs, that in a Territory of the United States citizens cannot associate together without a lot of mis– erable creatures here raising the story that there must be some corrupt motive in this association? And they have endeavored in this way to deter public men from doing their duty when they have come here. I remember one friend who came here, and in riding around he was seen in the presence of President Young. He came here as one of a committee going further West, and he was opposed in the public press here, till he became so indignant that he got copies of all the papers and mailed them to President Grant, to show him the assaults made upon public men, when they come to Utah, by a certain class who are here.

We have these things to contend with; we shall probably have them to contend with. We have lived through them so far, and we shall continue to prosper and live through them in the future. I have no doubt about that. I merely refer to these things to show the character of the opposition that is manifested towards us, and towards those who are friendly to us. But, as I have said, there is a better understanding gaining ground everywhere respecting this people called Latter-day Saints, and I expect it will continue to be the case, until we are known and understood in our true light; and it is a remarkable fact that those who have fought against us, and sought in the manner to which I have made allusion to heap all kinds of obloquy upon us, have not succeeded at that business, they have not succeeded, it has not paid them. They may have thought while doing this that it would injure us; but it has not injured us, it has advertised us, it has made us more widely known. There are public men whom I have met in my life who would rather have evil spoken about them than not be no– ticed at all. They would rather have newspapers attack them and tell that which is not true concerning them than to maintain silence about them and their movements. In this way we have certainly had the benefit of advertising now for a great many years, and people have known us either for good or for evil in a great many quarters of the earth where, if it had not been for this publicity, we might not have been known. It has been of great advantage to our missionaries in foreign lands. For instance, I have been very much pleased to hear by letter and otherwise through our missionaries in Europe, concerning the effect of Secretary Evarts’ circular which he sent abroad respecting emigration to Utah Territory. I do not suppose that he would have given that circular the publicity he did, or even written it at all, if he had been conscious at the time that it would have been so good an advertising power for the “Mormon” missionaries as it has proved. I am told that a great many journalists and public men of various kinds have had their attention drawn to us and to our doctrines, and to this organization in these mountains, in consequence of that circular, who probably would not otherwise have known anything about us. So that, as we have been taught, all things work together for good to all the people who serve the Lord. Everything is overruled for good. We have been told this afternoon, by Elder Cummings, respecting the wonderful organization that sprang up immediately upon the death of the Prophet, in New England. It had only been a very short time before this that the doctrine we believe in—the vicarious submission of the people to the ordinances of life and salvation had been taught.

Well, in all these things we behold the hand of God, and in witnessing His hand acknowledge it. It is the great strength—as I have, I think, told you very frequently—of the Latter-day Saints. We believe in God. We believe in Him as He is. We believe that He is a Being who hears and answers prayer, and who protects and blesses those who put their trust in Him. If I did not have that faith, you would not find me go to Washington as your representative. I would not go there for all that could be piled up as an inducement. But I go there, not strong in my own strength, but strong in the strength of that God whom we worship, and whom we know controls all the affairs and all the destinies of the children of men to suit His own purpose and to bring to pass His own designs. I know further, that the prayers of this people here, and of the thousands of others who live throughout all these mountains, which ascend every night and morning unto the God of Sabbaoth, from the humble habitations and from the humble hearts of the people, are heard of God, and are answered, according to the faith and good desires of the people who offer them. What else is there that could have sustained or preserved us, or could have delivered us as we have been so wonderfully delivered up to the present period? Is there any other power that could have done it? I am satisfied that there is no power beneath the heavens—no power of man, no combination of men, no wisdom or shrewdness or cunning of men, could have effected such great deliverances as have been wrought out for this people called Latter-day Saints; nothing of this kind could have been brought to pass but by the power of God. He who created the heavens and the earth, and who placed man upon the earth, and who sent His son Jesus in the meridian of time to die for man, the Redeemer and the Savior of man—no power but His could have brought about that which we witness and preserved to us that liberty which we now enjoy and for which as a people we should feel so thankful. Take the entire history of this people from the inception of the Church, its first organization, until today; you trace it from its beginning at Fayette, Seneca County, in the State of New York, and through its travels, through the journeyings, the mobbings, drivings, and persecutions to which the people have been subjected: you trace it through until this day of grace, June 27th, 1880, the anniversary of the death of the Prophet Joseph, and his brother Hyrum, and if a man can do so and not acknowledge that there is a God in heaven that overrules the affairs of the children of men, then he is in a worse condition than I can conceive it possible for a thinking man, who has ever had any of the light of truth in his heart to be in.

Let others then do as they please concerning these matters. Let others say that there is no God, that the universe is governed by unalterable laws, that there are no special interpositions of Providence among the children of men, that God governs the universe, governs the earth and the inhabitants of the earth by great unalterable laws, that there is no variation in these laws, that God does not operate to deliver men except they do it by their own wisdom and by their own management, that every man reaps the fruit of that which he does, and that his fate is unalterably fixed, and a great many have that idea—let others, I say, think as they please concerning these matters; but let us, as a peo– ple, cling to the old faith, to the old doctrine that has come down to us through the Bible, that God is, that He is today as much as He ever was, and put our trust in Him. Let us train up our children to the faith that He is a God who hears and answers prayer, so that they will have faith in Him, that in times of trial, in times of difficulty, when they are encircled by danger and it would seem as though there were no possible way of escape from the danger with which they are threatened, they can humble themselves and call upon God with a faith that cannot be overcome, to deliver them and to give unto them those blessings which they need. It is the greatest comfort that a human being can have to be in close communion with his Father in heaven or her Father in heaven. If children grow up with that sort of faith, you will find many of the things Elder Cummings has alluded to, such as the healing of the sick, and the works that were done in ancient days by that same sort of faith, will be done, as they are done, in our households and in our communities.

I have given expression to a few of my feelings. I am thankful to find you in such favorable circumstances. I say to you, live the doctrines that you profess. Be Latter-day Saints, not in name, but in word and in deed. Be an example in your lives. Live the religion you profess. Be meek, be gentle, be kind. If others revile you, revile not again. How easy it is to revile back when a man calls you something that is vile and low; how natural it is to say something equally sarcastic, equally severe, in return. Let us study to control our tongues in our households. Let no father give utterance to any word that he would blush to have any person of the world hear. Let no mother do such a thing. Let every child be taught to respect and reverence not only their parents, but old age. Let us endeavor to raise up a generation who will respect age. One of the great and growing evils that exists today in our land is the disrespect that is manifested by the young to age. Let us train our children to be respectful and to honor the gray hairs of the aged, to honor their parents that the great promise that was made in olden times may be bestowed upon them, namely: that their days may be long in the land.

I pray God, my brethren and sisters, to bless you and let the peace of heaven descend upon and abide with you in your homes and in your habitations, which I ask in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered at Hyde Park, Sunday Evening, November 2nd, 1879.

I will read a portion of a revelation given through the Prophet Joseph Smith, previous to the organization of the Church, dated April, 1829: “Oliver Cowdery, verily, verily, I say unto you, that assuredly as the Lord liveth, who is your God and your Redeemer, even so surely shall you receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you shall ask in faith, with an honest heart, believing that you shall receive a knowledge concerning the engravings of old records, which are ancient, which contain those parts of my scripture of which has been spoken by the manifestation of my Spirit. Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart. Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.”

The point I wish to call your attention to is contained in the second and third verses of this revelation. The Latter-day Saints are in many respects like other people who are not Latter-day Saints. We are apt to entertain views which are not very correct, and which may be the result of our traditions and preconceived ideas. This is a peculiarity that pertains to mankind generally, that whenever they deal with the things of God, or speak about them, or contemplate them, and especially when they read the predictions made by the servants of God concerning future events, or events that may transpire right before their eyes, they are apt to get, sometimes, erroneous ideas, or, at least, exaggerated ideas, in relation to them. The prophets have foretold the events that should take place in connection with this work. There is one prophecy that comes to my mind, recorded by Isaiah and Micah, respecting the building of the house of God in the top of the mountains and the gathering of the people there, and the object for which they should gather, that they should come up and be taught of the Lord, etc. Now it might be supposed that when that prediction would be fulfilled it would be so prominent and remarkable in the midst of the nations of the earth, that all the inhabitants thereof who should witness it would say, “This is the fulfillment of the predictions of Isaiah and Micah.” And it might be thought that all the inhabitants of the earth who witnessed it would be convinced of the truth of it, and would say, “We have no further opposition to this work, because we behold the fulfillment of the predictions of those holy prophets whom we have been taught to regard, and whose writings we have read as authority from God.

And, doubtless, there are many of the Latter-day Saints who have thought, in the early days of their experience in this Church, when they have heard the elders predict concerning the great events that should take place in connection with this work—they have thought and felt in their hearts that when the wicked and those who oppose this work should see the fulfillment of these predictions they would be constrained to acknowledge that this is the work of God, and would cease from hostility and opposition, and would say they had been mistaken. For instance, the elders in the early days of this Church, predicted concerning calamities and wars and troubles of various kinds that would come upon the inhabitants of the earth. There was a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, in December, 1832, concerning the war that should take place between the Southern States and the Northern States. This was a definite prediction, stating the exact point where a certain trouble or rebellion or division in the nation should take place. Most of us who have been brought up in the Church knew about this revelation from early days. It has been published so that all the members of the Church, and the world also, could have it, and it was but reason– able to expect that so definite a prophecy as this, which stated the exact character of the difficulty that should take place between the south and the north, and that also stated with such definiteness the exact point where the division should occur—I say it was but reasonable to expect that when it should be fulfilled, it would have the effect of convincing unbelievers of the truth of the mission of Joseph Smith, and that he really was a man inspired of the Lord to speak the word of God to the people.

In 1860, Brothers Orson Pratt, Erastus Snow, myself, and others, were going on missions, and we arrived at Omaha in the month of November of that year. A deputation of the leading citizens of that city came to our camp and tendered to us the use of the Court House, as they wished to hear our principles. The invitation was accepted, and Elder Pratt preached to them. During the service, there was read the revelation to which I have referred—the revelation concerning the division between the South and the North. The reason probably, for reading it was that when we reached Omaha, the news came that trouble was already brewing, and several States were threatening to secede from the Union. Its reading made considerable impression upon the people. A good many had never heard of it before, and quite a number were struck with the remarkable character of the prophecy. It might have been expected, naturally speaking and looking at it as men naturally do, that the reading of such a revelation, at such a time, when the crisis was approaching, would have had the effect to direct men’s attention to it, and they would be led to investigate its truth and the doctrines of the Church and the found– ation we had for our belief. But if there were any converted in that audience I am not aware of it. Good seed was sown, but we did not remain to see what effect it produced. The revelation being so remarkable, and the events then transpiring being so corroborative of its truth, one might naturally think, as there were present on that occasion the leading and thinking portion of that community, that a great number would have been impressed with the probability of its truth, and would have investigated and joined the Church. You doubtless remember it was for a good while doubtful whether the rebellion should commence at South Carolina or not. I was in England at the time, and was engaged in publishing the Millennial Star, and took a great deal of notice of the American papers, and I well remember that to all human appearances it seemed for a while as though the trouble would break out at Fort Pickens, Florida. But the word of God had been spoken concerning that event, and consequently it had to be fulfilled as predicted, and the war did commence at South Carolina. It was fulfilled, as you all know, to the very letter, Fort Sumter being the place where the rebellion broke out.

Now, I allude to that, in connection with this subject, to show you that not only is the world mistaken in its views respecting the fulfillment of the predictions of the prophets, but even Latter-day Saints have doubtless, in many instances, entertained erroneous views respecting the fulfillment of revelation and prophecies of the Bible. I have no doubt there are many here tonight, who have had some experience in this, and can look back at times in their own lives, when they have thought: “Surely when these things which the prophets have foretold are brought to pass, the people will be convinced. My friends who now ridicule me will then be convinced, and they will be forced to confess that I did right in embracing the Gospel.”

No doubt there are some in this audience tonight who have had these ideas, and certainly there are good reasons for entertaining them. But experience has taught us that, while there may be a few who, when they have seen the predictions fulfilled, have acknowledged that our course is right, in the majority of cases throughout the earth where the Gospel has been preached, the fulfillment of the predictions of the prophets has not had the effect to convince the people of the truth of the ministry God has given unto us.

Even with this experience in the past, the Latter-day Saints themselves are not entirely divested of extravagant views respecting the effects which are likely to follow the fulfillment of predictions yet in the future. Are we not all inclined to look forward to many events which have been predicted by the servants of God as being of so great and wonderful, and I may say so supernatural a character, that when they shall be fulfilled they will even startle us, who believe they are coming, and will compel the unbelieving inhabitants of the earth to accept them as evidences of the truth? In our thoughts this seems to be the natural tendency. I notice it in myself; I notice it in others. When we read respecting the great events which are to take place in connection with this work, as predicted in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, are we not inclined to think that, surely, when these things shall come to pass all the earth, as well as ourselves, will be constrained to acknowledge this to be the work of God, and these events to be indeed those which have been predicted by the prophets?

Now I would not, for the world, say one word to lessen in the minds of my brethren and sisters the importance of these events; I would not say one word to weaken your proper expectations; but my experience has taught me that the Lord works in the midst of this people by natural means, and that the greatest events that have been spoken of by the holy prophets will come along so naturally as the consequence of certain causes, that unless our eyes are enlightened by the Spirit of God, and the spirit of revelation rests us, we will fail to see that these are the events predicted by the holy prophets.

I refer you again to that prophecy of Isaiah and Micah, respecting the gathering together of the Israel of God from the various nations to Zion. As we read of that in the Bible, we might think when that was fulfilled it would be done with such supernatural manifestations that the people would be constrained to acknowledge it was the work of God. Yet we see it every day. Our people are gathering, and men and women who emigrate bear testimony to the friends they leave behind, in almost the exact language that the prophets said they would, and yet it is not thought very extraordinary. Why is this? Because it has come along so naturally. And so with the great events that will take place in the future; they will come along in so natural a manner, the Lord will bring them to pass in such a way that they will not be accepted by the people, except by those who can comprehend the truth, as the fulfillment of the predictions of the prophets. It requires the Spirit of God to enable men and women to understand the things of God; it requires the Spirit of God to enable the people to comprehend the work of God and to perceive his movements and providences among the children of men. The man who is destitute of the Spirit of God cannot comprehend the work of God. A woman whose mind has not been enlightened by that Spirit, cannot see or comprehend any of these events that take place in fulfillment of the prophecies of the holy prophets.

You take two persons, one who has the Spirit of God, whose mind is enlightened by that Spirit—the spirit of revelation, the same spirit, that rested upon the prophets who wrote the revelations and prophecies we have—you take a man of that kind, and then take another who has none of that spirit, and put the two together, and the one man’s eyes will be open to see the hand of God in all these events; he will notice his movements and his providence in everything connected with his work and they will be testimonies to him to strengthen his faith and to furnish his mind with continual reasons for giving thanks to and worshipping God; while the man, who has not the Spirit of God, will see nothing Godlike in the occurrences: nothing which he will view as supernatural (as many suppose everything which exhibits God’s power to be), or nothing which he will accept as a fulfillment of prophecies; his eyes will be closed, his heart will be hardened, and to all the evidences of the divinity of these things he will be impenetrable.

To those who have mingled with the world, the reasons for this are very plain. Men do not believe in these days in the direct interposition of God in the affairs of men. If they even believe in God, they believe that he governs the universe by great natural laws. When, there– fore, a great and wonderful event occurs, they seek for its origin and explanation in some natural law. They ignore the fact that God works through natural laws; but seem to think that if he were to interpose at all, it would be by manifesting his power through the suspension of natural laws, by overriding and violating them, and in such a supernatural manner that mankind would be compelled to acknowledge it was his act, as they would be utterly unable to account for it by any laws known to them, or in any other way than as being through his power. Wars, famines, pestilences, cyclones, earthquakes, and the great variety of calamities which God has said shall be poured out upon the wicked nations, are therefore looked upon by men generally in these days as the results of certain well-defined and easily explained causes. When any of these calamities visit a city or a nation they immediately commence to investigate the laws which govern them, and by the violation of which they assert they are produced; and when they discover what they allege is the cause, they triumphantly point to it, and that is sufficient proof that the Lord has nothing special to do with it; for if it were a visitation from him, it is supposed it would be so supernatural as to be inexplicable. And thus men go on, hardening their hearts and denying God’s power, until they will be so completely given over to the evil one, that he will lead them captive according to his will.

My reason for calling your attention to the word of the Lord I have read to you is, that I have sometimes thought that our people do not appreciate as they should do the spirit of revelation, the spirit of prophecy, the power of God, that has been poured out upon us as a people. The fact seems to be overlooked that it was in the manner in which the Lord tells Oliver Cowdery that Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Lord said to Oliver: “I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you, and which shall dwell in your heart. Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.” How many of the Latter-day Saints are there who understand that this is the way in which Moses led the children of Israel so miraculously? How many are there who think that if we had a man like Moses among us, the people would be led differently and with greater manifestations of power than they are? How many are there who are dissatisfied with what God is doing at present, and are looking for some one to appear in the future who shall exhibit convincing and overwhelming manifestations of power? How many are there at the present time who are neglecting the precious and inestimable gift of revelation which God has bestowed upon his people, because it does not come to them in the way to suit their preconceived notions and ideas—or who are not suited with the way the Church has been and is led, because there is not that wonderful degree of power exhibited which they imagine should be?

Apostates have asserted that there was not the power in the leaders of the Church which there should be. They said so during the life of the Prophet Joseph, asserting that he was a fallen prophet. After his death they made the same statements respecting President Young, his counselors, and the Twelve Apostles. And, if I am not mistaken, there are some members of the Church who have appeared to think that there has been some power lacking, and have manifested a feeling of restlessness, anticipating the rising of someone who should have greater authority than at present exists. While I would not wish to detract from the reasonable expectations of my brethren and sisters upon this or any other point, my view is that the apostleship, now held in this Church, embodies all the authority bestowed by the Lord upon man in the flesh. Yet I believe that the power of God will be increased among us, that we will have manifestations of his power such as we never have before witnessed. For the day of God’s power in the redemption of Zion will come. But I do not expect that to come upon us all of a sudden. I expect that it will be the natural result of the natural growth of the people in the things of God. I expect that we will go on step by step from one degree of knowledge, and of power, and of faith to another, until we shall be prepared to receive all the Lord has in store for us and be prepared to enter into that glory promised to the faithful Saints. The Lord has given unto his people and to his church every gift and every qualification and every key which is necessary to lead this people into the celestial kingdom of our father and our God. There is nothing wanting. When the Lord restored the Apostleship to the earth he restored all the power that was possible for a human being to hold in the flesh. When he restored the keys of the holy priesthood unto his servant Joseph, when he gave unto him the sealing powers, when he gave unto him the endowments and the keys of the holy priesthood associated therewith, when the Prophet Joseph received the keys from Elijah, and from all the prophets that had existed upon the earth from the beginning down—each one, as he says himself in one of his epistles—each one in his dispensation coming forward and bestowing upon him the authority pertaining thereto, there was embodied in him all the priesthood they held, and he bestowed upon his fellow Apostles all the priesthood he exercised and all the power and authority bestowed upon mortal man to exercise here upon the earth, so far as the present is concerned; that is, all the keys of the priesthood and everything that is necessary in this preparatory state, and to make man a fit subject for the celestial kingdom of God. By the command of the Lord he conferred that authority upon his fellow servants to bind upon earth and it should be bound in heaven, to seal the children to the father and the mother, and to seal the wife to the husband, and to weld all the links necessary in order to complete the salvation of all the children of men from the days of Adam down to our day, and also to prepare men and women for the future that lies before us, the millennium to which we are all hastening. Who can conceive of any power that was lacking? Who had power to promise unto man that they should be kings and priests unto God? And in addition to that, who had the power to seal upon them the actual kingly and priestly dignity and confirm upon them the fulness of it, and also to give them promises respecting the Godhead that should be fulfilled upon them, and if faithful, to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection? Now, there was nothing lacking, and there was no power, there was no gift, there was no authority, there were no keys lacking, and these keys have been handed down through him. Others may have claimed to have had them. We have had Strang, John E. Page, William Smith, Gladden Bishop, and a host of others; each has claimed to have received that authority, either through Joseph Smith or from some other source. Some have claimed that Joseph was a fallen prophet; and some have set up one claim and some another. But the fact remains that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as it is organized in these mountains, has had the apostleship; that the men who have stood at our head, President Young and the Twelve Apostles, whose President at the death of the Prophet Joseph he was, actually received under the hands of the Prophet Joseph, every key, and power, and authority that he himself possessed, and that they actually did take hold and complete the temple he started, and endowed their fellow servants therein with the same authority and the same priestly and kingly dignity that they had received from under his hands. And from that time to the present this work has gone forth with might and power, and the power of God has attended the labors of his servants who have been sent forth by these apostles, chosen by revelation to take charge of this work; everything they have done, God has blessed. They have gathered the people together, they have led the people, they have been delivered by the mighty power of God when it seemed that they would be overwhelmed by opposing influences. They have gathered the people together from the nations of the earth in fulfillment of the predictions of the holy prophets. Not only that, but they have laid the foundations of temples here; one temple, at least, has been completed, while three others are in process of erection, which we hope will soon be completed, into which buildings the Saints of God can enter and receive their endowments, receive their washings and anointings and sealings and ordinances, and have the keys of the holy priesthood bestowed upon them, which they can exercise in the right way for the building up of the work of God. And this is the work of God, although men may say there has been no supernatural manifestation of power, such as some suppose ought to attend his work. This work has gone forth with a rapidity and impetus that has been irresistible, and there is no power able to stand against it. It has gone forward to the fulfillment of all that has been spoken thus far concerning it, that is as far as we have gone. And the people have received the Holy Ghost, they have been filled with it, they have been filled with the spirit of revelation. The same spirit of revelation that Moses had, concerning which God speaks through the Prophet Joseph Smith, has rested upon men that have held the keys of this kingdom, whether it was during President Young’s life or at the present time—that same spirit of revelation rests upon him who holds the presidency as senior apostle in the midst of the people of God. The apostles of this Church have all the authority, they have all the keys, and it is within the purview of their office and calling to have all the spirit of revelation necessary to lead this people into the presence of the Lamb in the celestial kingdom of our God.

I have desired to say this much, because I have felt at times there was a feeling among some people that there was not that manifestation of power, neither was there that authority wielded by the men who preside over this Church and king– dom that should be.

But it is the truth, that the same spirit of revelation that rested upon Moses, and which enabled him to lead the children of Israel through the Red Sea, rests upon the servants of God in the midst of this people, and you will find it so to your entire satisfaction if you will listen to their counsels and be guided by them. Does God reveal himself to his servants now? I know he does. The same spirit that rested upon Joseph—the same spirit that rested upon Moses, I know it is in the midst of the Latter-day Saints—precisely the same spirit. But then we are a nation of Gentiles. We who have come here, what are we? We are called from the Gentile nations. The promises are not made to us that are made to people who are the unmixed descendants of Israel. In many respects, when they come into the covenant and are baptized, and the power of God rests upon them, you will see a different work than you see at the present time. It is just as much as we, with our Gentile traditions—an inheritance we have received from our fathers, which have come down through generations—it is as much as many of us can do, with all the power we can exercise, to remain in the Church.

I was speaking with Brother Simpson Molen this evening, who, as you know has lately returned from a mission to the Sandwich Islands. It is now 29 years since the Gospel was introduced to the people of that country. I labored there for four or five years, and was the first to preach the Gospel to them in their language in this generation. During my experience among that people, a red skinned race, I never knew a man, because of transgression or anything else, after he received the truth—I never knew one of them to turn around and fight this cause in the manner that we witness men doing among our race. How is it with the Gentiles, the race of which we are a part? When a man gets a testimony from God and falls into transgression he is almost immediately seized with the spirit of murder. He wants to shed the blood of innocence. He wants to kill the servants of God, is full of bitterness and hatred, and seeks to find vent for his wicked passions. We have seen this spirit manifested in our history among our own race. But here is a people who receive strong testimonies concerning the Gospel, and from all that I can learn there has not been an instance of a man’s turning around and bitterly fighting this work. There seems to be a natural receptiveness about them to receive the truth. The Indians will be the same in my opinion. You will find the same peculiarity, you will find them ready to receive the truth, and they will cleave to the truth. It is difficult for the Gentiles to receive the truth. It will be easier for them, because unto them are the promises. I look for a very different condition of things when these races come into the church and are brought into the covenant, I expect then to see the work accomplished by a power that we do not witness just now. But it is not because something is lacking in the organization or in the authority of the priesthood. We have, as I have said, all that is necessary, and we have this spirit of which I have spoken and which is alluded to in this revelation—the same spirit of revelation which reveals to us that which we should do and the course we should take in order to please the Lord and in order to build up his kingdom, and this Church will al– ways be led by that authority from this time henceforth until Christ himself shall come to preside over us and be our king.

My brethren and sisters, if you want more revelation, here is the principle upon which to obtain it. Are you entitled to it? Yes, every one of you—the same spirit of revelation that Moses had, the same spirit that all the prophets and apostles had, it is your privilege, it is my privilege, it is the privilege of every man and woman who possesses the Gospel to receive the spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, to have that same spirit resting upon him and upon her, and the more we seek after it and cherish it the more we will have.

My time is exhausted. I pray God to bless us and fill us continually with the light of that spirit, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Geo. Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, October 6th, 1879.

I have been reminded, while listening to Brother Rudger Clawson’s remarks, of the sayings of the Savior, recorded in the 6th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, 22nd and 23rd verses—

“Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.

“Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.”

It is frequently remarked concerning the Latter-day Saints that there being so many stories told about them, there must be some truth in some of them; in other words, to use the familiar saying, “Where there is so much smoke there must be some fire.” But it is worthy of remark that, from the beginning, according to the history that has come down to us of the dealing of God with the children of men, every man and people who pro– fessed to have a knowledge of God, and who really did have that knowledge, or a portion of it, and who were raised up by him, or called by him, had to suffer persecution. Stephen, the martyr, when he was being stoned at Jerusalem, said to the Jews: “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One”—scarcely a prophet that had ever lived among them who had not suffered persecution. Even Moses himself, the great lawgiver, the great deliverer of the Hebrew nation, who had led them out by the exhibition of mighty power, several times during his career came very near being stoned to death, or killed by the people. It is an evidence, an infallible evidence, of truth to have persecution accompany it. It is not that every one who is reviled and who is persecuted possesses the truth. This does not always follow. But there never was a prophet of whom we have any account, raised up in the midst of the children of men to proclaim unto them divine truths, who did not receive in his life and experience these very things of which Jesus has spoken. They were hated, they were separated from the company of their fellows, they were reproached, their names were cast out as evil, they were reviled, their lives were sought; and this was especially the case with the Son of God himself—a Being who spoke as never man spoke, whose life was an exemplification of purity, who was without sin, whose doctrines were holy and pure, who performed mighty miracles among the children of men, whose work and labors were accompanied with great power; and notwithstanding these evidences of divinity which accompanied him, the generation in which he lived, and by which he was surrounded, were not satisfied until they had slain him. It is also recorded that every one of the Twelve Apostles, excepting John, died a violent death. There are reasons for this which are made plain in the Scriptures. There are two powers; there is God and there is Belial; or in other words, there is the Spirit of God and there is the spirit of Satan. These two powers, or forces, have been in existence since man was expelled from the garden of Eden. Satan has opposed God. He has contended against goodness and purity. Each of these influences has been operating upon the hearts of the children of men. When the adversary has succeeded in overpowering the truth, in slaying the servants of God, in shedding the blood of innocence, and the extirpation of the power and authority which God had bestowed upon man has been accomplished, then there has been a lull, there has been a cessation of that violence which has attended the proclamation of the truth. The extirpation of those who had authority to proclaim it has left the field to the adversary. Then he had his own way. One of the greatest evidences of the bad condition of affairs now existing in Christendom is the popularity that attends what is called the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever a preacher is popular in the midst of a wicked generation, or a man is popular who professes to be a minister of truth, you may set it down as a certain fact that that man does not preach the truth as it exists in Christ. There is no disputing this, if this book (the Bible) be true; if there is any reliance to be placed in the word of God. As true as there is a God, and as true as there is a devil, the man that preaches the truth to a wicked generation will bring about the hatred of which I have read in your hearing. This is just as true as that God lives and that there is evil to combat, or that Satan has power over the hearts of the children of men. Satan knows very well that his time is short. He knows very well that if the truth is proclaimed and believed in and practiced by mankind his kingdom is overthrown, that his power will soon cease. Hence it is that he has aroused in every age and at all times the children of men to rage against the truth.

Whether the Latter-day Saints preach the truth or not it is for those who hear them and examine their doctrines to decide; but there is this noted fact connected with the preaching of this truth, as imparted in this system which we call the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that wherever it has been preached it has raised hatred, it has stirred up animosity, it has enkindled the fires of persecution, it has caused blood to flow, mobs have been raised, houses have been burned, fields have been destroyed, grain has been burned, cattle have been shot down, men and women have been expelled from their homes in the depths of winter, the blood of innocence has flowed, and all because men and women chose to believe a system of religion that differed from that which is popularly entertained. And there is this remarkable fact connected with the persecution of the people called Latter-day Saints—and it is the same characteristic that attended the preaching of the Gospel of the Son of God by himself and his Apostles the chief persecutors, and those who have stirred up strife in the hearts of the people have been popular preachers—have been themselves, in too many instances, the professed ministers of Jesus Christ. It was the High Priests, it was the Pharisees, it was the religious people in the days of the Savior who were his chief persecutors, and I am sorry to say the chief persecutions which we as a people have had to endure have had their origin with the same class. Why, I am informed that one or two if not more, of those men who formed the mob that shot Elder Joseph Standing, were circuit riders; preachers who professed to have great zeal for holy religion and pure morality. They were so filled with zeal that they could not let two young men travel in their country and preach from the Bible, without mobbing them!

As Latter-day Saints this ought to cause us to rejoice. We should not be angry, we should not indulge in the spirit of revenge. Such a spirit is foreign to the Gospel. It is our duty to endure all things patiently, uncomplainingly, and with long-suffering, putting our trust in God, relying upon his arm, awaiting the deliverance which he will bring to pass in his own time and in his own season. If I am persecuted and I turn upon my persecutors in the spirit which they manifest, do I exhibit a spirit that will bring down the blessing of God upon me? Certainly not; I would be no better than my persecutors. If a man strike me on the one cheek and I turn and strike him again, retaliate, give him blow for blow, do I by so doing manifest that I have received any better spirit than the man who struck me? I think not. It is very natural, I know, when we are reviled to turn round and revile again; when we are struck to turn round and strike again; when we are abused to turn round and abuse again. This is the natural prompting of the human heart; this is the natural feeling of every man of spirit—not to submit to indignity, but to resent it instantly. Our codes are all formed upon this. The training that we have had from our childhood upward, in the society of the world, has been that a man who submits to an outrage quietly is unworthy of the name of man; that the man who submits to be called a liar, or to rebukes, or to abuse quietly, is unworthy of the name of man. Now, that is certainly not the teaching of the Savior; all his teachings are to the contrary. His people are to be a meek people. His people are to be peacemakers. His people are to leave the results with him; to submit to these things quietly, uncomplainingly, that is, so far as outward manifestations are concerned; to pray unto him, to leave it with him. He has given unto his people a law upon this subject. If our enemies come upon us, or our families, once, we are to bear it patiently and revile not, neither seek revenge, and we shall be rewarded. If our enemies come upon us the second and third times, we are to bear it patiently, as on the former occasion, and great rewards are promised. If they come the fourth time, then the law in ancient days, and as the Lord has revealed it to us, is that they are in our hands to do to them as we may please; but if we then will spare them, we shall be rewarded for our righteousness. I speak of these things because I know how painful it is to submit to outrages such as have been heaped upon us. There are many such committed that are almost unbearable, men feel as if they could not submit to them; but as I understand it, it is far better for us to submit to these things patiently, and without retaliating, and leave the Lord to deal with them, than to indulge in the other spirit and the other feeling.

There is a great anxiety in the minds of many of the Latter-day Saints respecting the future. “How long must we submit to such wrongs as we many times have to endure?” is a question that arises very frequently in the minds of the people. We have been in these mountains nearly thirty-three years—thirty-two years last July. We had more freedom in some respects the first few years we were here than we have today, notwithstanding our growth, notwithstanding the numbers of the people have increased to so great an extent, notwithstanding the labors that have been performed; and there is a natural anxiety in the minds of a great many people as to how long these things will go on as they are, and some are almost discouraged. There was a time when throughout these valleys, from one end to the other, drunkenness was comparatively unknown. Drinking saloons were not permitted, gambling saloons were not licensed, nor did they exist; other places which I need not name had no foothold, nor existence, in our midst, and from one end of the Territory to the other there was a condi– tion of affairs which everybody who loved good order and peace admired. I frequently meet with gentlemen who knew us a few years ago, who speak of the unfavorable change which has taken place in our affairs. The Latter-day Saints realize very fully how great this change has been. Our sons and daughters are now exposed to temptations of which they knew nothing in former years. We had the power, which we exercised, to control these affairs, but as I explained here not a great while ago, we have now found out that the charter of this city, which we supposed gave unto the municipal authorities all the power necessary to control, regulate, and, if necessary, prohibit the institutions and practices to which I have alluded, is limited in its power to stop the sale of liquor. So the judiciary have ruled. Monster petitions have been gotten up by the women of this city and presented to the City Council, asking for the prohibition of liquor saloons; but in vain. The City Council are powerless in the matter, because of judicial ruling. Naturally the inquiry arises, how long shall these things continue? Shall all the hopes respecting the future of this country, respecting the future of Israel, be blotted out? Are we to be disappointed, and a condition of affairs be established here which will perpetuate all the evils existing elsewhere, from which we have fled? If I thought this would be the case I should be discouraged. If I thought for one moment that we should not have power in the future as we have had in the past to maintain righteousness and a righteous rule and good order in this country, I should feel exceedingly discouraged. But I do not look for a perpetuation of these evils. I expect the day will come when this people, if they will be true to themselves and the principles which we have espoused, will have power to control affairs throughout these mountains. Shall we do this by violence? Not at all. By overstepping the bounds of the Constitution, or of the legal rights of individuals? Not at all. I do not look for any such thing; but I look for the time to come when this people throughout these mountains shall have the power they ought to have—the power to elect their own officers, enact their own laws and to enforce them; when the majority of the people shall have the right to say what shall be the rule in this land, a right that has been denied us up to the present time. Why is this right denied us? Partly because of the fears of people who live in our midst—their imaginary fears, or their pretended fears. There is a class of people in these valleys, particularly in this city and the country round about, who are using every influence in their power to prevent the Latter-day Saints from having the power that citizens of the United States have elsewhere. They say that if we get this power and this authority it will be impossible for them to live here, that they will have to leave the land; that there will be such a reign of terror, or such a condition of affairs that no one will be able to endure it, except the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, themselves; and by the publication of such stories as these, by magnifying all the trifling things they see done, by calling attention to plural marriage, and by giving a false representation of the power that is wielded by the leaders of the people, and by the circulation of the most infamous falsehoods, they create an impression abroad that is unfavorable to us and to our rights.

In the providence of God I recog– nize all these things as likely to accomplish much good for us. I myself feel it is important that we as a people should be trained; that we should learn those lessons that are necessary to enable us to temperately and properly exercise power when we gain it; and I have hoped that, by submitting to these things, by enduring them—as we have had to do for many years—a lesson would be taught to us that neither we nor our posterity should ever forget; and that when the time should come for us to exercise our full rights as American citizens, we might be able to administer the laws and govern in such a way that all should be protected, that every man of every creed, of every nation, and of every people, should enjoy his rights in our midst as perfectly as if he were in full faith with the majority of the people. Not the right to do wrong, not the right to practice iniquity, not the right to trample upon his neighbor, to intrude upon his rights, but the right to do that which may seem good in his own eyes, so long as he should not thereby interfere with the rights of others; the right to worship God as he pleases, to call upon him in any form that may be acceptable to him or his conscience, to believe in God, or not to believe him if he choose, so long as the belief, practice and rights of his neighbor shall not be interrupted. Until we can reach this condition and entertain these views and carry them out, it would not surprise me if we should be kept in subjection.

I wish to say for the encouragement of the Latter-day Saints, because I have sometimes thought there was a feeling of discouragement creeping over some of the people, that some were letting down bars and yielding to the influences around them and almost giving up in despair, feeling that all that had been spoken concerning our future is very doubtful or not likely to be fulfilled—I therefore wish to say for the encouragement of the people today that the time will come, as sure as God lives, that all that has been said concerning us will be fulfilled. There is a great destiny in store for this people called Latter-day Saints. They cannot be repressed. Mr. Evarts may issue his circular, he may send to the nations of the earth, and the ports of the United States may be closed against our emigration. The law of 1862, against plural marriage may be enforced with rigor, and everything be done that can be by those who are determined to check the growth and development of this people, and yet there is a power connected with them that cannot be unless the people themselves be extirpated. Anything short of this will fail, will fail entirely, in accomplishing the stoppage of this work. A people such as this, with all their faults—and our faults are numerous—but possessing such qualities as are being developed among us, must rise to the surface and become a governing people. Where in the race of life, as you witness it among private individuals, do the qualities that characterize the Latter-day Saints fail to win success? We have temperance, frugality, union, true love, honesty, industry and chastity. “No,” says one, “not chastity.” Yes chastity! For among no other people upon this continent is chastity respected as it is among the Latter-day Saints. Where will you find these qualities fail in being successful? They are always successful in private life. If you want a man to succeed, if you want your son to succeed, you say to him, “my son, be truthful, be honest, be indu– strious, be frugal, be chaste, avoid drunkenness, avoid wicked society, avoid taking the name of God in vain, govern your speech, be temperate in all things, and you will succeed.” What father who loves his children does not impress upon them the importance of these qualities? And these are the qualities that dominate among the Latter-day Saints.

I had occasion to go to a gentleman here, within a week, to transact some business. He has been doing business here for some years. Without my leading him on at all he said to me, “I never dealt with so honest a people as the Mormons. They pay their bills, they meet their engagements; you can rely upon them. Any money that I have lost I have not lost it through the Mormons.” I felt thankful that this man could say this about us, and yet we are not near so honest as we should be, but there is this to be said in our favor, we are struggling in this direction, struggling to be honest, struggling to be truthful. We have raised a standard which is much higher than we have attained unto. It is an elevated standard, but there is this to be said for the people, if their standard is high they are struggling to attain to it. If not done to so great an extent as we ought to do, still it can be said we are struggling to be truthful, honest and temperate, and we deplore intemperance, profanity, litigation and strife, enmity and hard feelings. I say there is a hope for a people who have a standard of this kind, and especially so when they have men in their midst—as I thank God we have—who are not afraid to tell the people when they do wrong, to tell them their faults to their faces and say unpleasant things to them. There is one thing about the leading men of this Church; they do not depend upon the people for their support. It is not necessary for them to tickle their ears by fine speeches and pleasant things. They can say rough things, unpleasant truths, because they are independent; they can live without the aid of the people by the industry of their own hands, and they are not afraid of some of their deacons or some of the congregation taking exceptions to their manner of speech and cutting off their salary. Why if such unpleasant truths were told, as have been told to the Latter-day Saints, by ministers of different denominations, who do you think would give them a call? Would they receive a call to some other places and be paid a higher salary? No, their style would be too unpleasant to be popular. Well I have hope for this people while this is the case, and I pray that we shall always have men here who are not afraid to tell you and me our faults and warn us of them and reprove us, for “better the reproof of a friend than the kiss of an enemy.”

It is not going to be a great while—and many of you will see it too—before there will be a great revolution in the earth. Just as sure as the Lord lives the day will come when there will be consternation not only in foreign nations but in our own nation. The people of this Republic are actually treading upon a volcano and they do not know how soon the fires may burst forth, how soon the governmental fabric of this nation, the most glorious the sun has ever shone upon, the best that man without the priesthood has had upon the earth, shall tumble. And why? Through the corruption of the people. The best government becomes the worst government when the people become corrupt, when bribery in high places rules, when political parties condescend to purchase votes. The power of a government is weakened when Senators, Representatives, and Presidents get their places by the use of money. Woe to a nation when this becomes the case. It is doomed and sooner or later it must fall. What is the remark respecting the election of United States Senators in many of the States? It is that a man cannot get that position except he be wealthy. What does that mean? Every one can draw his own conclusion. But that is not the worst feature either. There is disunion and animosity and the fires of sectional hatred burn fiercely. They may smolder at times. They may not always appear on the surface. But let the breeze blow and quicken them into life and how fierce the flame burns.

It may be asked what has all this to do with the Gospel? The Lord has restored the everlasting Gospel for the express purpose of raising up a pure people upon this land. This American continent is the choicest land upon the face of the whole earth. God kept it hidden until the 15th century that it might not to be overrun by the people of Europe or of the rest of the world. He kept it hidden in darkness and covered with clouds until the set time had come when he could accomplish his purpose and prepare the way for the American Republic, under which his kingdom could be established. Could it have been established in Asia, in Europe, or in Africa? No, it required the Declaration of Independence framed by men inspired of God; the Constitution of the United States framed and adopted by men whom he had raised up; it required a people who had fought for their liberty, religious and civil, and who by his divine blessing had succeeded in gaining it and in establishing a free form of government. It required such a republican government as we have, to permit this people called Latter-day Saints to be organized, to grow and increase and become a mighty power. Is there anything incompatible with true republicanism in the growth of such a people organized as the Latter-day Saints are? Let me say that the men and women who live in accordance with the Gospel are the best people in the world. They make the best members of society and live above all earthly law, that is constitutional law. Now I take issue, you know, with some laws. Some laws are constitutional, and some laws are unconstitutional, but a man who believes in and practices the Gospel of Jesus Christ will live so far above every constitutional law that he will never violate it. He may be guilty of mistakes, he may fall into error, but there will be nothing culpable in his conduct.

As the people of God, we must be meek and lowly of heart. We must confess our sins one to another, help the poor, clothe the naked and administer sustenance to those who require it. We must cease our backbiting, our strife, our fault finding, our evil speaking, bearing false witness and all other practices of this kind, and live as Latter-day Saints should who are worthy of the name, then we will be the best citizens of the country, the best citizens that can be found, citizens of whom people will be proud—that is all good and honest people—and whom God will bless. These are duties that devolve upon every one of us. We should not be Saints in name alone, but in deed and in truth, striving to make our lives an exemplification of the principles we profess, and then if men revile us and cast out our names as evil we can leave our case in the hands of God. We can call upon him and ask his blessing, and then what difference does it make what the wicked think or say about us? None in the least. We do not live for the opinion of the wicked; but if we live as we should do, if we live for God and pursue a straightforward course, and then if our enemies malign us, God will be our friend; he will deliver us and it will be all right with us in the end. “But,” says one, “how do you know God is your friend?” Pray to him in faith and you will find out. Man may deride and say there is no God, and say that it is all humbug. But I know for myself that God lives. I know that when I pray to him he hears and answers my prayers. If I pray to him in secret and he rewards and gives me the desires of my heart, supposing all the rest of the world should say that God does not live, does that alter my position, or detract from any of the blessings I enjoy? Not in the least. It does not interfere with them. It is my right to believe there is a God, and if another man chooses to believe there is not, then that is his business. Shall I quarrel with a man because I think my religion is better than his? Not at all. If my religion is better than his, why I will show it in my life and not descend to ridicule and violence. When people take up pistols and use violence they give to the world the best proof that their religion is not of God. But that is the way we have been treated. For believing in the true Gospel we must be mobbed, we must have our houses burned, we must be driven from our homes, our children and aged people must die by the way side, our track being marked with the graves of them that fall, all because we have a religion that happens to differ from the religion of others. It is curious that men will do such things in the name of religion! Now if you have true religion—as I know we ought to have—show the world that your religion is what it is proclaimed to be—the Gospel of Jesus Christ; show the world that it is a pure, a better and a loftier religion than any other, and not with our lips alone, but proclaim it to all, by our words, and by our deeds, and then the time will come when it will receive its proper recognition. Belial, or Satan, is not going to rule always. His end draweth near, and the time is nigh when misrule and wickedness shall be banished from the face of the earth.

I pray that the blessing of God may rest upon us. I pray God to fill us with the Holy Spirit, to inspire our hearts with pure desires, that we may serve him to the best of our ability and knowledge, which may God grant in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, October 5th, 1879.

In standing up to address this congregation there is one feeling that rests upon me, and that is, my inability to instruct so numerous a people unless God shall pour out his Holy Spirit upon me and upon you.

We have come together today according to our custom to be instructed in those duties that devolve upon us and also in the principles of our holy religion. These meetings are to me exceedingly precious; they are seasons of great rejoicing. And having the opportunity as we have today of assembling in peace and quietness without any to molest or make afraid, we should feel thankful, to that God who has brought us here; who has preserved and protected us since we came.

The instructions which we have had today since we have assembled together, if fully obeyed by us and carried out in our lives, will make us a people who shall be worthy the name we bear, the name of Latter-day Saints. And as was remarked this morning the great object in teaching the people and impressing upon them the counsels that are given from time to time, is to have us carry out practically in our lives the principles of that religion which we have espoused. This is the great labor devolving upon us. It is not to be theoretical alone; it is not to dwell with great interest and with great eloquence upon those heavenly doctrines that God has revealed and to become enraptured over them while listening to them, but it is to make a practical application of them to our thoughts, to our words and to all the actions of our lives. And in this way alone can we acceptably serve the Lord our God, whose name we bear and whose people we profess to be. There is no reason why this people called Latter-day Saints should not have all the powers and all the gifts and all the graces that ever characterized the Church of God upon the earth at any time; there is no reason, I say, why they should not have all these if they themselves are true to the principles which have been revealed, and seek to carry them out. Who is there of this congregation, who is there that belongs to this Church in any part of this Territory, who does not have a desire in his or her heart for those blessings and those gifts and qualifications that were promised to the ancient Saints and which have been renewed in our day to those who embrace the Gospel with all their hearts? The Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever. This is the cornerstone, it may be said, of our faith. It is upon this foundation we have built; that he is an unchangeable God; that he does not manifest his mind and his will in plainness and simplicity to one people, and hide the same from a succeeding people who are equally faithful. But the great truth has been impressed upon us; the great truth that runs through all the writings of every man of God concerning whom we have any account from the beginning down to the last revelation that has been given, that God is no respecter of persons, that he is today as he was yesterday and as he ever was, and that he will continue to be the same being as long as time endures or eternity continues. And we have been impressed with this as I have said, by every man who has spoken concerning God and spoken by authority from him. I say, therefore, there is no reason why the Latter-day Saints today should not obtain and enjoy the gifts and graces and blessings of the Gospel the same as they were enjoyed in ancient days by the ancient servants and people of God.

Has God grown old? Have God’s ears become heavy? Has his sight become dim? Has his arm become shortened? Has age affected him or the lapse of time detracted from his powers? Has it had the same effect upon him as upon mortal beings who are subject to decay and death? Is this the kind of being we worship? Is this the kind of being concerning whom the prophets and apostles have spoken and written? Certainly not. We worship him, we adore him, we lift up our eyes to him, we rely upon him as the Supreme Being, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the founder of the universe, the builder of the planet which we inhabit and which we tread, the being over whom centuries have passed without making any change to his injury; eternity has rolled and continues to roll and will continue to roll without in the least affecting his power or his capacity for good, his eye does not grow dim by the lapse of ages; his ear does not become heavy by the passage of time, neither does his arm become short or feeble. He is the God whom we worship. When we call upon him, though he may be remote from us, dwelling in his holy habitation in the midst of the eternities, the very thoughts of our hearts, the very conceptions of our minds, the feeble whisperings of our voices, they ascend to him, are carried to him, his ear comprehends them; his bowels of compassion are moved towards us his children, his all-piercing eye penetrates eternity, and the glance of his vision reaches us.

There is not a single thought of our hearts which he does not comprehend; there is nothing connected with us he does not know. We may hide ourselves in the bowels of the earth, but we cannot conceal ourselves from his all-piercing sight. We may climb the highest mountains or descend into the deepest valleys or we may go to the uttermost parts of the earth, but wherever we may go he is there, his power is there, his vision is there to hear and to comprehend the desires and the wishes of our hearts.

This being the case, why should we not approach him in faith? What reason is there that men and women living in this the 19th century should not approach him with the confidence of those who lived in the 15th century of the world, or the 20th or the 4,000th year of the world? If he could hear their cries, if he could answer their prayers and if he could grant to them the desires of their hearts; if he could open the heavens to them and reveal his mind and will unto them when they called upon him in faith, believing that he would do so, is there any reason why we should not have that same faith and exercise it and obtain those same blessings and receive them at his hands? Who is there that can stand up and say, there are reasons why this should be the case? If we admit, as we must do, that he is this being which I have attempted so feebly to describe; if we admit that he is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the creator of all, the father of all, the sustainer of all; if we believe this, why cannot we believe that if he bestowed his blessings upon other generations and other people, he will do so to us, also that he will hear our prayers, that he will grant unto us the desires of our hearts?

Now, my brethren and sisters, I look upon these conferences and these assemblages as having for their object the enforcement of these great truths upon us and upon our attention; the object of them as I understand them, is to make us Latter-day Saints not in name alone but in word and in deed; to be men and women of God; to place us in communion with God; to receive communication from him; to have our false tradition, our improper ideas, our unbelief, our hardness of heart, and those feelings that surround us, that grow up with us, to have them removed from us. Is there any reason why this should not be the case? No reason except that which may be found in ourselves. There is no reason outside of this. God is willing, he has made promises, and he has fulfilled his promises so far as we have placed ourselves in circumstances to receive them. When we have complied with the conditions he has never from the beginning up to the present time failed in his part, he is incapable of failing. If there be failure it is due to us, the fault is our own, we are the guilty ones. Let me ask of you, when did you ever, anyone of you, humble yourselves before God, when did you in secret call upon him in the name of Jesus and ask him for his Holy Spirit and the blessings thereof, and fail to receive an answer to your prayers? If there are any Latter-day Saints in this condition then there is something wrong with them. God has made promises unto us that if we will do certain things, if we will obey certain commandments and ordinances, he will bestow his blessing and he will answer the prayers of those who take this course. But how many are there of us who go on from day to day and from week to week and from month to month careless upon these points, failing to live so as to receive the blessings that he has promised, until it would seem when they bow down to call upon him that their prayers scarcely ascend higher than the tops of their heads.

As I have said, God in ancient days was a God of revelation; God in our day is a God of revelation, and he communicates his mind and his will unto those who seek after it, not to the President of the Church alone; not to the apostles of the Church alone; not to the high priests or seventies or any of the officers or all of them alone, but he communicates his mind and his will to all who seek after him in humility and meekness and lowliness of heart, obeying his commandments. To the Latter-day Saints alone? No, not even to them alone for there is no human being that is born of woman, there is no son or daughter of Adam that has ever lived upon the face of the earth who has not the right and who has not obtained at some time or other in his or her life, revelations from God, but who may not have understood what those revelations were. The Latter-day Saints are not so cramped in their feelings as to imagine that they are the only and peculiar people above all others who have, in this sense received revelation. They believe themselves to be the people of God and the only people who have obeyed the commandments of God; but they do not think that, of all the children of God, they are the only recipients of his blessings.

God has revealed himself at various times and in various ways to many people. The heathen have had communication from him. All the light that exists; all the truths that are taught and all the correct principles and knowledge that have been communicated and existed among the children of men, have come from God; he is the author of all. Socrates, Plato, Confucius, the heathen philosophers who knew nothing about Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation, received important truths from him, and so did many other people to a greater or less extent, according to their abilities in improving upon the knowledge communicated to them. But the difficulty has been concerning these matters that mankind have not recognized God in all this. A man has a dream. It is most wonderfully fulfilled. He has a presentiment; his presentiment is fulfilled, and he relates it to his friends as a most remarkable thing. A man has a truth communicated to him after study and research. He communicates it to his friends as a wonderful discovery. Does he acknowledge God in it? Sometimes; but in many instances he does not acknowledge God; but, on the contrary, he thinks it is the product of his own thought, of his own mind. If it be a dream or some remarkable manifestation that partakes of the supernatural, instead of giving God the glory and praising God for having made the communication, some other principle is glorified or some other thing is talked about, the remarkable character of it is dwelt upon without the person thinking that God has anything to do with it.

Well, there is, as I have said, no human being but that has, at some time or other, had communication from the Almighty Father. Some have recognized God and have given the glory to him for it; others have not done so. The remarkable discoveries that are being made in the world of science; in fact, all the remarkable discoveries that have been made from time to time are produced by the operations of an unseen influence upon the mind of the children of men. For instance, it has frequently happened in astronomy and other branches of science that when an important discovery has been made, two or three men about the same time, widely separated from each other, have received the communication; and disputes have arisen as to which of them was entitled to the credit. This was the case as to the application of steam and the principles of telegraphy and also many discoveries in astronomy and other sciences. Disputes have arisen in various nations upon these points; whereas the truth is that God is the Author; it is God that moved upon the minds of those individuals. It was God that inspired them to do as they did; it was he who led on from step to step until they achieved the results which have made them famous, and sometimes quite unexpectedly to themselves.

What is this which has led these famous men in the path of discovery? The Latter-day Saints call it the spirit of revelation; the spirit of revelation resting down upon the children of men. Some men possess it to a greater extent than others. Some have the gift in one direction and they are capable of receiving communication from God in a direction that others are not, their minds are better prepared to receive revelation upon a given subject, than are the minds of others. Some will receive great moral truths, and these men differ in their organisms; but the light they receive all comes from our heavenly Father; it is he who gives the inspiration. And so man has progressed from one degree of knowledge to another, from the rude canoe of the Indian, with which he navigates the stream, to those mighty steam ships whose keels plough every sea and circumnavigate the globe.

Now, in what respect do the Latter-day Saints differ from the rest of mankind in relation to these matters? In this: We acknowledge God as supreme, the fountain of all knowledge, the fountain of all power, the fountain of all intelligence, the fountain of everything that is good. Who are men? The creatures of his workmanship, if you please, his descendants, his own children begotten by him, descended by lineal descent from the God we worship. The same being whom we worship is our God, is our Creator, is our Father. When I worship him I worship him as my Father. That which I possess, if there be anything godlike in it, I attribute it to him, as having come from him by lineal descent. Every aspiration, every noble thought, every pure desire, everything that is good and holy and pure, elevating, ennobling and godlike comes from our Father, the God of the universe, the Father of all the children of men. In him we move, in him we have our being. He can extinguish life; he can create life; he can perpetuate life. There is no power that human beings can conceive of which he does not possess. The light that now shines comes from him. The revelation we may get, imperfect at times because of our fallen condition and because of our failure to comprehend the nature of it, comes from God. The Latter-day Saints glorify him for it. If there is anything good or great or noble, if there is anything to be admired it comes from God, not man. Man is but the medium, but the instrument, is but the conduit through which it flows. God is to be worshipped; God is to be adored; God is to be glorified, and he will be. And when we are saved, when we are delivered from death, hell and the grave, we will glorify God, not man. Man will receive no glory; it will be the eternal Father, through Jesus Christ, who will receive it all.

This is the position occupied by the Latter-day Saints. We believe in revelation. It may come dim; it may come indistinct, it may come sometimes with a degree of vagueness which we do not like. Why? Because of our imperfection; because we are not prepared to receive it as it comes in its purity; in its fullness from God. He is not to blame for this. It is our duty though to contend for more faith, for greater power, for clearer revelations, for better understanding concerning his great truths as he communicates them to us. That is our duty; that is the object of our lives as Latter– day Saints—to live so near unto him that nothing can happen to us but that we will be prepared for it beforehand. And I know many, many Latter-day Saints who are in this condition, who do live so that there is nothing of any importance that can occur for which they are not prepared, and the mind and will of God is made known to them, and they walk according to it, and seek earnestly and humbly to have it revealed to them; and in taking any important step they seek to know the will of God concerning it. Are they perfect? Far from it. They are mortal, full of weaknesses, and nobody is better aware of the character of earthly weaknesses than the man or woman who thus lives.

It is the duty of all to live in this manner, and if the inhabitants of the earth could comprehend it as they should do they would seek to know the mind and will of God concerning themselves. But what is the spirit of the world today? Let a preacher in the world deliver a fine discourse and who thinks about giving God the glory for it? Who thinks of the Holy Ghost under such circumstances? God is removed far from them, he does not exist in their thoughts, the preachers who attempt to preach Christ and him crucified, they are glorified. Who gives glory to God for Henry Ward Beecher’s discourses? Who gives glory for Dr. Fotheringham’s or Mr. Talmage’s or any of the popular preachers of today? Do men glorify God for Spurgeon’s? No, he himself is glorified. Beecher himself is glorified, and Fotheringham is glorified. Is God glorified? No, he is not thought about. Morse discovered the principle of telegraphy. Who gave the glory to God? I was in the hall of the House of Representatives when a grand meeting was held. What for? To glorify Morse, the discoverer of that great principle and who practically applied it and made it useful. Now, I do not mean to say that there are none who have God in their thoughts. I am speaking now of the general feeling that prevails, of the general course that is taken. Inventions, no matter how grand they may be, are not attributed to the Father of them all, the Creator and Fountain of all knowledge. But man, whom he has chosen to be his instrument, he has blessed with knowledge concerning all these things, as the result of his earnest, study and his untiring efforts to obtain knowledge. The Being who does this is very seldom thought about by man.

Latter-day Saints, is this the course for us to take? Shall we glorify the creature at the expense of the Creator? As a people, I believe we are tolerably free from this. But we have to make a degree of progress much greater than we have in these things. We have got to seek after God with an earnestness, a fervor and devotion that we at the present time cannot comprehend. It is our duty as Latter-day Saints to seek for knowledge. Will God bestow it upon us if we do not seek for it? He may in his condescension at times do this. Brother Rich said this morning that he believed some people were too lazy to think. It is a truth plainly expressed. There are too many too lazy or too indifferent—it may be indifference and not laziness in every instance, to think, to feel after, to seek for and receive the blessing of God, although they make the profession of being Latter-day Saints.

Now, I do not think a man’s religion amounts to anything if he only makes a profession of it and does not practice it. I would rather have an intelligent heathen, if he is honest and determined to do the best he can, living up to the light he has, than a Latter-day Saint who is careless and indifferent, who does not seek to enjoy the spirit of his religion.

I am in hopes that after awhile we will begin to realize as we never have yet, that there are practical duties resting on us Latter-day Saints; that there is something more than being members of the Church required of us. How is it with a great many? Why, every evil thought, every wrong speech that comes in their hearts, either to think or to utter, they entertain and express, and then take credit to themselves for not being hypocrites. Is not this great folly? Men and women think evil thoughts, they give place to angry feelings; and they think it a meritorious act, and pride themselves upon their conduct because they give them utterance instead of quenching them! Is not this extraordinary? Lacerate the feelings of their brethren and sisters and friends, because they think they would be hypocrites if they did not utter their evil thoughts, however unfounded or repulsive they might be! What right have I to do this? If my heart is wicked does that justify me in giving utterances to its foul conceptions? Certainly not. If my heart were such that I could not think good thoughts nor entertain good feelings; if I were possessed of anger and could not contain myself, then it were better for me to sew up my mouth and stop my utterance. It is no merit in a man or woman because he or she thinks an evil thought or indulges in an angry spirit to give utterance to it; and they are not hypocrites because they do not do it either. It is not hypocrisy to quench the evil thoughts that arise in our minds. Our hearts are evil in consequence of the fall. As the prophet Jeremiah says: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” There are a great many things that are conceived in our hearts that it would be well for us to stifle before they received shape. What is frequently the result of these evil conceptions? Innocent people suffer wrongfully; injury is done; slanders are circulated; while those who start them justify themselves, because forsooth they concerned them. Just as well might the counterfeiter, the bogus-maker, say that because he makes a bogus bill he has the right to circulate it. There is not any of the Spirit of God connected with such conduct.

It is my duty and your duty to think pure thoughts, to have holy desires, to be charitable, to be kind, to be long-suffering, to be full of love, and not any of those evil influences. Why, the devil would have no power on the earth if it were not for some people who allow him to use their tabernacles. I have often thought of this valley when we first came here. There were a few Indians; but who witnessed the devil or his power here? If there were no wicked men nor women here how could the devil manifest his power here? Who heard tattling? Who heard backbiting? Who heard of litigation? Who heard of fighting? Such things were never heard of. But no sooner did men come and the adversary obtain power over them, than all the evils we now witness throughout this land and in this city, which grieves us so, began to manifest themselves. And the more there are who will yield to the influences of the evil one, the more there are who will be guided by him, and the worse the conditions become. There are those who would have here gambling houses and liquor saloons and houses of ill fame and other deplorable evils which abound in the earth. Why? Because they are willing to yield themselves to the devil, I speak it plainly, it is the truth. If such people who practice these and kindred evils would not lend themselves to the devil he would have no power here. What is our duty? It is not to lend ourselves in any particular to the devil, but it is to obey God; to let the fruits of righteousness be manifested in our lives. If we are Latter-day Saints, let us live up to the profession and be that in truth and in deed, and not think that we have no labor to perform in the controlling of our thoughts and our evil desires; neither to allow ourselves to imagine that because we have become members of the Church God will do it all without any efforts on our part.

There is a work devolving upon every son and daughter of Adam; there is a fight that we have to fight against—the evils of our own natures, for the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked. The natural man is at enmity with Christ and with God; and unless he seeks to conquer his nature by bringing it into subjection to the mind of God, he is not a son, or she is not a daughter of God. This is the labor that devolves upon us. This is why we meet together at conference; it is to impress upon the people the character and the magnitude of this work that rests upon each individual man and woman. As I have said once before in this Tabernacle, we may be heralded through the earth as famous; but unless we conquer ourselves it is in vain that our names are known and that our deeds resound through the earth. I care not how famous a man in this Church may be—he may be an apostle, he may be a high priest, a bishop, or hold any other important office or position; but unless that man conquers himself and carries on the work within himself of self-improvement, and brings himself and all there is within him in subjection to the mind and will of God, I tell you his fame is as empty as the sound of a trumpet when it passes away. We hear it; it strikes the ear, but it presently dies away, and that is the end of it. So it is with fame of this character. Therefore I say to you that that which is applicable to the individual is applicable to us as a people. Our fame may go forth for great works and mighty things that we have done; but unless we ourselves bring forth the fruits of righteousness in our lives; unless we conquer our evil passions, our evil habits, our evil inclinations, our evil desires, and bring them under complete subjection to the Spirit of God our labor is comparatively profitless, for that is the object of preaching the Gospel to us.

I would like to have the power to impress upon your minds the importance of this great truth. There is nothing so important to me as an individual, as my own salvation. This is the most important thing to me that can be—that I myself shall be saved; that I myself shall so live as to be counted worthy by the Almighty to receive an exaltation in his kingdom. This is of the utmost importance to me individually. As Brother Rich said, if all the rest did certain things, and he did not, he could not receive the blessing, the reward of such works; or if he did, and all the others did not, they could not have the blessing. That is a great truth; and it should be impressed upon us.

You may think it a grand thing for men to go on missions. I remember the time, and probably the feeling still exists—I hope it does—when it was deemed a great honor for a man to go upon a mission, especially a foreign mission. It is right that we should value these labors. It is a great thing to preside as a bishop or president of a stake, or to act in the calling of an apostle. All these things are great in and of themselves, and they reflect honor upon those who bear these offices, and especially when they seek to magnify them. But after all, the great labor, the most honorable labor that any person can perform, is to do that which I have attempted to describe to you—to improve ourselves; to be Latter-day Saints in deed and in truth, to live our holy religion. When we arise in the morning, to examine ourselves, to see if there is anything that is in opposition to the mind and will of God within ourselves; and through the day to pursue the same course of self-examination. And at night before we retire to rest, to bow ourselves before our Father and God in secret, and pour out our souls in prayer before him, supplicating him to show unto us wherein we have done wrong during the day, wherein we have come short in thought, word and deed; and then repent of the same before we lie down to rest, and to obtain from him a forgiveness of our sins. And then, going on day after day, week after week, and year after year until the end shall come. If we do this, the promises of God are sure, and they cannot fail.

That it may be our happy lot to attain to an exaltation with our Father, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Geo. Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, on Sunday Morning, August 3rd, 1879.

I will read a portion of the 23rd chapter of St. Matthew, commencing at the 34th verse:

“Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.”

There is another portion of Scripture which I will read. It will be found in the 6th chapter of the Revelation of St. John:

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”

Very unexpectedly I have been called upon to make a few remarks to you this morning. Naturally I would prefer to sit still and to reflect upon the sad event that has called us together. It is plain from the reading of these passages of Scripture that you have heard, that innocent blood—the blood of the servants of God, of the prophets, of the wise men, of the scribes, all those who have the testimony of Jesus, who are the bearers of the word of God—when shed wickedly, remains as a heavy debt to be atoned for at some period by the inhabitants of the earth. Also that in the days of John the Revelator, one of the apostles of the Lord, in the visions which he saw it was made manifest that there were yet more lives to be offered up for the cause of truth before the blood that had been shed could be avenged upon those that dwelt upon earth. It doubtless seemed strange to the inhabitants of Jerusalem when Jesus said unto them that all the righteous blood that had been shed in past generations from the blood of righteous Abel to Zacharias, son of Barachias, should be required of that generation. There were reasons for this which he well understood. There are reasons existing now and that will continue to exist and operate, why the blood of those who have been slain for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus in ancient days, should be avenged upon some generation in the future, from the time that John spake and wrote the revelation he had received. Jesus said when he was upon the earth: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light.” They were held to a strict accountability after light was revealed. The generation in which he lived were held to a stricter accountability than any preceding generation, because he himself, the Son of God, was in their midst, performing mighty works, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom in its purity and in its power, and communicating unto them the mind and will of heaven. Every generation who have the privilege of hearing the pure Gospel of Jesus preached in its fulness are held to a similar accountability. Their position is different to that of the generations who do not have that privilege. The generations that intervened between the time that Zacharias lived and the coming of the Son of Man in the flesh, were not held to the same strict accountability as the cotemporaries of the Savior. Why was this? Because they did not have the truth in its fulness revealed unto them; they did not have the prophets and apostles and righteous men in their midst to communicate unto them the will of heaven, as the generations in which the Savior lived had; and for the same reason the generations that have lived since the death of the Savior, and since the visions that John the Revelator had, are not held to the same accountability as this generation, unto whom the fulness of the everlasting Gospel has been revealed. When God communicates his mind and will unto his children by the medium of angels, by the medium of prophets, by the medium of holy men whom he has raised up, those who hear that testimony, those unto whom that message is communicated, are held to a strict accountability to obey the same or be held in great condemnation for their rejection of it. If you will read the history of God’s ways of dealing with the children of men throughout all ages, you will find that it is invariably the case that judgments and calamities, the fiery indignation of the Almighty, always follow the rejection of his truth, when that truth is proclaimed by his authorized servants, such as are apostles and prophets. If Nineveh had not heard the voice of Jonah, the Ninevites could not have been held to the same accountability as those to whom the word of the Lord had been proclaimed; and when prophets arose in the midst of Israel, prophets whom God raised up to declare his word, when the children of Israel repented of their sins and obeyed the warning voice of the servants of God, then the blessings of God always followed their obedience. But on the other hand, when the children of Israel rejected the testimony of the servants of God, when the prophets preached in vain, when they testified and warned the people without the people obeying their testimonies or their warnings, then invariably the judgments of God followed, his anger and indignation were kindled against that people or generation, it rested down upon them and in many instances to their destruction.

This is our position today. In this respect the Latter-day Saints occupy a unique position in the midst of the inhabitants of the earth. Men wonder very frequently at the testimonies that we bear. They express surprise that a people so few in number as we are, should imagine that there is so much importance attending the testimonies that we bear, or the Gospel that we preach. But it is a remarkable fact, abundantly sustained in the history of God’s dealings with the children of men, that he does not hold mankind guiltless because there are only a few who are the oracles of truth in their midst and who have the authority to proclaim that truth. If there was but one prophet on the face of the earth, and he had no followers, but stood alone in the midst of the nations of the earth, his warnings would be followed by terrible results if they were disregarded by those who heard them. The Lord does not look upon men according to their numbers; the importance of his work and his dealings with the children of men is not to be measured by the number of those who adhere to the principles that he proclaims. When Joseph Smith stood alone, when he had only two or three followers, and he declared unto those by whom he was surrounded that God had spoken to him from the heavens, that God had revealed the everlasting gospel in its ancient purity and power, that God had sent his holy angels to him, and that those angels had laid their hands upon his head, and upon the head of Oliver Cowdery, and ordained them to the everlasting Priesthood, his testimony was as binding upon those who heard it as if millions of men had testified to the same truths. His testimony was binding from the moment that he commenced to bear it to those by whom he was surrounded, and the accountability of the people who listened to him and heard his voice, and heard his testimony, began from the moment that he opened his mouth and bore testimony of these things. And so it has been from that day unto this, wherever the Elders of this Church have gone and have borne testimony to the inhabitants of the earth respecting the work that God has commenced—from that very moment the condemnation of the generation commenced if they did not obey these testimonies and warnings. This seems to some minds scarcely what it ought to be, that is, it seems to many that we attach too much importance to what one or two men might say, when we assert that condemnation follows their testimony; but there is this to be considered connected with the testi– mony of God’s servants in ancient days, as in the days in which we live: God has not left the inhabitants of the earth without a witness, God has not left them without some testimony which they can obtain to assure them that the words of God’s servants—that is the true servants of God—which they hear are from him. When he called Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, and when he sent his angels to lay their hands upon their heads to ordain them to that priesthood which had been withdrawn from the earth, he also sent his Holy Spirit to accompany their words and to seal the testimony with power upon the hearts of all that were honest, and who prayerfully sought for a knowledge from God concerning the truth of their words. When Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery laid their hands upon other men’s heads and ordained them to the same priesthood which they had received from heaven, God confirmed the ordination by bestowing the Holy Ghost upon them, and when they went forth and proclaimed the truth, the Holy Ghost accompanied their words, and those who were desirous of knowing from God respecting the truth of their testimony had the opportunity of receiving a knowledge direct from heaven that it was of God, and on this very account condemnation commences because light hath come into the world, and when men reject it they reject it because they love darkness rather than light. God does not hold people accountable for that which they do not know, or that which they have not had an opportunity of knowing. Where there is no law, there is no transgression. Transgression commences when the law is received and men reject it. What is the duty of the inhabitants of the earth when they hear a man stand up and proclaim in the power and authority of the priesthood, and in all solemnity, that God has spoken from the heavens, that God has revealed the everlasting gospel, that God has established his church in its ancient power and in its ancient purity, that God has endowed man to go forth and administer in the ordinances of life and salvation as in ancient days. What is the duty of the inhabitants of the earth under such circumstances?

Situated as the world is today, there is no voice from God. You travel throughout the whole of Christendom and there is an unbroken silence reigning between heaven and earth; no voice to disturb the solemnity of eternity. Go visit all the different churches, and all the ministers of the various denominations, and talk to them who profess to be the followers of Jesus Christ; ask them, “Do you know anything about God? Has God communicated his mind and will to you?” And the universal answer from all sects is “No, revelation has ceased, God no longer speaks to man; we depend upon his written word in the Bible for our knowledge of God. We are divided into sects, we are split up into parties, we have all our own way of worshipping God, but there is no voice from God, there has been no revelation from God to disturb the silence of ages, since the death of the Apostles, and our knowledge concerning the plans and purposes of God is derived from the Bible.” This being the case, then, what is the duty of the inhabitants of the earth when a man comes as Joseph Smith did, and as the Elders of this Church are doing, proclaiming the truths which I have alluded to? Why, they being in ignorance of God, they having no revelation from God, they not having heard the voice of angels, they being split up into parties and sects, and divided and quarreling respecting the points of doctrine which Christ revealed—they being in this position should humble themselves and ask God, in the name of Jesus, and in mighty prayer to reveal unto them whether the testimony of those men who come with this new revelation be true or false. That is the duty of every living soul upon the face of the earth who hears the testimony of God’s servants concerning this truth, and there never has been, from the time that Joseph Smith made his first proclamation until this day, the 3rd of August, 1879, a time when a man who took this course did not receive a witness from on high, the testimony of Jesus Christ, that these truths, proclaimed by the servants of God are divine and from heaven. Wherever the Elders of this Church have gone and lifted up their voices in humility, in meekness, calling upon the inhabitants of the earth to repent—and they have gone to many lands and spoken in many languages—and the people have repented and sought unto God in the name of Jesus Christ for a testimony of the truth, there has never been a single instance where they have failed to receive that testimony; not one. Who have rejected this gospel? The indifferent, those who would not take the trouble to investigate it, those who would not take the trouble to bow in submission before the Lord and ask his testimony concerning it, those who thought it beneath them, those who have been too proud, or too rich or too well situated or who, for some other reason, have failed to take any interest in this work; these are they who are not members of this Church and who have failed to obey this gospel when they heard it preached in its simplicity and its purity amongst the nations of the earth. Well, now, will this generation escape condemnation? I say unto you, nay. There will be a heavy condemnation fall upon this generation because of their inattention to these things. Judgments and calamities will be visited upon the inhabitants of the earth in consequence of neglecting the word of God written in the Scriptures, and also the word of God to his servants in these days. The Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, and numbers of others have been slain. What for? Why, said the mob who killed him, because they could not reach them by law. They were brought before courts, Joseph Smith particularly, as you all know, from time to time, but they failed to find any cause of condemnation against him, and at last his blood was shed. He sealed his testimony with his blood. Like other apostles and prophets, he laid down his life as a witness before God and before all men of the truth of the testimony that he bore. Others have done likewise.

We have met here today on this mournful occasion to pay the last rites, to offer the last testimony of respect to the remains of one who has in like manner laid down his life for the truth, one of the many who have been slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God which he bore. Was there anything wrong in the testimony that he declared when he lived? Was it wrong to call upon men to repent of their sins, to be baptized for a remission of them, to have hands laid upon them for the reception of the Holy Ghost? Was it wrong to entreat men to forsake sin and to lead better lives, to be more pure, more holy, to live near unto the Lord, to seek knowledge from God, to contend for the faith that was once delivered to the Saints? If these things were wrong, then our brother, whose remains are before us, was guilty of wrong. This was the extent of his offense and no more. He endeavored to persuade men to lead purer, holier lives, and proclaimed that the days of God’s judgment was near at hand. He went forth to declare these principles, filled with zeal, filled with good desires, exemplary in his life, pure in his conversation, the admiration of all who knew him, the joy of his father’s household, an example to all his associates of the same years, and even to those older than himself, a young man of whom we all had great hopes, whose future we thought was bright. In reading his letters, in listening to the accounts of his labors, in hearing from his co-laborers, we could not help feeling gratified. We indulged in bright anticipations for his future, not because of his birth, not because his parents were rich, not because of any extraordinary talent which he possessed, not because of any earthly advantages, but because in his youth he humbled himself before God and attained a knowledge concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and burning with zeal, he had a heartfelt desire to proclaim the great truths which God had revealed to him, to a fallen world and tried to save the children of men from the pit into which they were likely to be engulfed. The same spirit that animated the breast of the Savior, animated the breast of Joseph Standing, that is, he had a portion of that same spirit. He did not count bodily fatigue anything, he did not count toil anything, he did not take into consideration his health, the feebleness of his frame; none of these things had weight with him. He did not think how, by staying at home and attending to his business, he could benefit himself and receive worldly advantages; none of these things were thought of, but the very moment he was called to go from home he dropped everything, although in somewhat feeble health and although he had already filled an honorable mission, he felt it his duty to go when he was called, to go without purse and without scrip, without hope of earthly reward, putting his trust in God, laboring with unselfish zeal for the salvation of his fellow men, and thus he labored until he fell a victim to the ungodly hate of those who knew him not, who understood not the objects for which he labored, and the purpose which animated his noble heart.

Who shall mourn today? The Latter-day Saints? No. Who shall mourn today? The family and friends of Elder Joseph Standing? No. It would be difficult and it would not be right that we should repress the natural emotions of our hearts, that we should stifle those natural affections; it is right and proper that we should shed sympathetic tears, allow the heart’s affection to flow out in this manner and receive relief by the tears that are shed. But there is no cause for grief today in this Tabernacle. A servant of God who has occupied a faithful position, who has been true, who has been upright, who has been blameless, has fallen a victim—a victim to that hate that the adversary of souls seeks to instill into the hearts of all the children of men who will be led and guided by him, and the men who have to mourn today are those who have been guilty of this foul deed. The land that ought to mourn is the land that has been drenched with his blood. If the Governor, the Judges, the Legis– lature, and the other officials of the State of Georgia feel as they should they will not rest satisfied until there shall be atonement made, and the guilty wretches who took part in this great crime shall have been brought to justice. But it will be a most extraordinary thing if such shall be the result. Not but what I believe the Governor is an upright man, and, so far as I am acquainted with him, would do everything in his power to punish these murderers; but there are other influences at work that are stronger than the influence of the Governor, there are prejudices harder to conquer than anything else that can be met with and there are hundreds, and probably thousands of people who think that in killing the “Mormons” they are doing God’s service. Shall we hate them for this? No; they are to be pitied. Men who indulge in such feelings carry with them in their own breasts their punishment, and they will experience a still more severe punishment before they get through.

My brethren and sisters, when we embraced this Gospel, those of you who were old enough to comprehend it, doubtless took into consideration all the consequences that might follow; those who were not old enough, or who have been born in the Church have had experience enough upon these points to see and understand what the results of the espousal of the truth are likely to be. It cost the Savior his life. It cost the greater portion of his apostles their lives. It cost every prophet almost that has lived his life for proclaiming the truth. It has cost the best blood of this Church and this generation to lay the foundation of this Church. We have been mobbed, we have been driven, we have been persecuted, we have been hated, our names have been cast out as evil, there is no crime, there is no evil of which men could be guilty that we have not been accused of, and we all know how falsely and with how little foundation we have been charged with these things. This is part of the results that we have to meet in espousing the truth. The man that holds his life dear, that values it more than the truth is unworthy of the truth. If we value house, if we value lands, if we value good name, if we value property, if we value self, if we value even life itself more than we do the truth we are unworthy of the truth. But God has given unto us the truth; it is worth more than all else beside. He has revealed himself to us. When we pray to him we know that he hears us. When we ask him for a blessing that we need we have the testimony from on high that he hears our prayers, that he is willing to answer and grant unto us the righteous desires of our hearts. These things compensate for the loss of all other advantages; we have this consolation which our persecutors do not have.

The Prophets who have preceded us have been slain generation after generation; they have passed away. The Savior and his apostles likewise passed away, the work, the foundation of which they laid, having been overcome and destroyed by the adversary from the face of the earth. They foresaw that for a long time ahead, apostasy would follow their labors and administrations, and a sorrowful thing it was for them to contemplate: but in our case it is different. We live on the threshold of a new era; the work that God has established in our day shall never be given to another people. The priesthood which God has restored, the authority by which men can ad– minister in the ordinances of God—that priesthood shall never be taken from the earth. Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, David Patten and other martyrs may fall, Brother Joseph Standing among the rest, their blood may be shed, and the blood of others yet living may yet be shed to confirm the testimony that has been borne, but though this is the case, there is this to console us who live, to console us in contemplating the future for ourselves and our posterity after us, and it is that there is no power on earth, nor in hell that can destroy the church that God has established, nor obliterate the priesthood from the earth again as it was obliterated in ancient days. It was necessary when this Church was started that angels should come to restore that which was taken away, the everlasting priesthood, but there will be no future necessity for this. We are at the threshold of a thousand years of peace, we are engaged in laying the foundation of that work which shall stand forever, not only the thousand years but as long as time shall last and as long as the earth itself shall endure. This is the consolation we have that our predecessors did not have, and we can rejoice in the contemplation of the glorious future of this work. As for Brother Standing, no hero could wish to die a more glorious death than his. He will be crowned among the glorious army of martyrs, as one who was willing to lay down his life for the truth without shrinking, without fear, without faltering when the time came. He has borne a noble and untiring testimony all the time to the truth of God, and there is in store for him a glorious crown along with those who have been alike faithful in this work.

That his companion, Elder Rudger Clawson is alive and in our midst today, is due to the wonderful providence of God. My belief has been that had the mob commenced their whipping they would both have been killed. The death of Brother Standing doubtless saved Brother Clawson’s life.

I pray God the Father to comfort your hearts, to pour out the spirit of consolation and peace upon the family and upon all the friends of the deceased. I pray for his enemies and for those who have shed his blood. I would not do them any harm if I could. There is not in my bosom, nor should there be in the bosoms of the Latter-day Saints who have the true spirit of the Gospel resting upon them, a feeling to revenge. We ought to be and I think we are, far uplifted above such feelings, and if we do not have we should have the feeling which Jesus had when he was upon the cross and led him to say, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” They had treated him with the greatest ignominy, treated him as if he had committed the greatest crime, but in his dying hour he could implore the blessing of his Father upon them. And so we may upon those who seek to destroy this work. They think they are doing God service; they are actuated by a spirit of which they know nothing. They are to be pitied, they are to be mourned over, and the day will come when, as we comprehend the sufferings of those who did these deeds, our souls will swell with pity and compassion and sorrow for their wretched condition. I pray that the Spirit of the Gospel may rest down upon all of us, and that the peace of heaven may be and abide in all our hearts, which I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Geo. Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, July 27th, 1879.

There is a little time remaining, which I am requested to occupy.

The theme of the Gospel is one that can be dwelt on for a great length of time and yet not be exhausted; for according to the views of the Latter-day Saints the Gospel embraces all truth, and there is no truth of any nature or name, whether it be scientific, or moral, or religious, that is not comprehended within the scope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, those who embrace the Gospel, as has been said, start upon the path of progress, the end of which no one can see; it is not given to human beings to comprehend; it extends into eternity, and comprehends the wisdom and power and the knowledge of eternity. It has often been remarked respecting our meetings in this Tabernacle, by persons who have not been accustomed to our form of worship and our method of instruction, that we very frequently dwell upon a great many subjects that other people do not deem appropriate to the Sabbath. There is a reason for this; it is found in the fact which I have stated—that the Gospel of Jesus Christ comprehends all truth; and therefore everything necessary for the promotion of a man’s happiness, for the enlargement of his views and his mind, and for the development of all his being, physical and mental, everything of this kind should be treated upon at the time and the season when it is needed. I do not, myself, value a religion that confines its teachings to the Sabbath, that does not enter into the everyday life of those who profess it. Such a religion people may put on as they do their Sunday apparel, and wear to the meetinghouse; and when the day passes, doff it as they do their apparel, and assume their everyday practices. But the religion of Jesus Christ should be taught and practiced by those who believe it, every day of the week and in all the pursuits of life. And in this respect I sometimes think that we, as Latter-day Saints, come short of doing that which is incumbent upon us. We allow our religion to be too theoretical, and do not practice it to the extent that is required by the teachings of the Gospel. It is very well for us to come today and listen to the discourse we have heard, and rejoice in the spirit of it; but if we do not take with us the principles which are taught, and apply them in our lives, our visit today to this Tabernacle would be of very little profit. It is for this purpose that the Gospel has been revealed, it is for this purpose that it is taught, it is for this purpose that the Holy Ghost has been promised and poured out, that those who receive it may become better men, may become better women, may become more pure, that the evil that seems to be natural to us in consequence of our fallen condition, may be overcome and uprooted, and put away from us. Will those who believe and practice the Gospel be dishonest? Certainly not. Will they take advantage of their neighbors? Will they tell falsehoods concerning their neighbors? Will they indulge in slandering and tattling and backbiting? Will they be envious, or filled with malice or jealousies? Not if they practice the Gospel; not if the spirit of the Gospel rests down upon them will they do any of these things. If they do, they will be checked in their feelings, the Spirit of God will reprove them, and if they live as they should, when they bow down at night to ask pardon for the acts of the day that have been improper in the sight of God, it will bring to their remembrance, and show to them in plainness where they have come short on these points, and they will have the spirit of repentance, and will seek to put such things away far from them. In this way they will progress. Now, this is not required of us on this day alone—the first day of the week, the day of worship set apart for us to come together; but it is required on Monday, and on Tuesday, and so on until Saturday. This work of self-improvement, under the influence and power of the Gospel and Spirit of God, should go on every day we live, and it should be a constant subject of thought with us when we rise in the morning and lie down at night: Wherein have we come short of obeying the principles of the Gospel? Have I done any injury to my fellow man? Have I grieved the Spirit of the Lord? Have I neglected some duty? Have I said that which I ought not to have said? Have I done that which I ought not to have done? Have I been just, have I been merciful, have I been upright? Have I allowed any thought, any feeling to enter my heart concerning my neighbor, concerning some of my associates that I should not entertain? If I have, then it is my duty, if I believe the Gospel and desire to practice its principles, to repent of that, to confess it.

There was a time when God required of his people the sacrifice of animals. They brought their animals and they were offered up as sacrifices, and they obtained the remission of sins by that method. This was required under the law of Moses; it was required until the coming of the Son of God, until he made his great sacrifice for man. But what does God require of us? Is it that we shall bring animals and offer burnt offerings unto him? No, he does not make that requirement of us today, but this is the sacrifice required of us: he asks us that we shall come to him with broken hearts and with contrite spirits. If we do he will accept of us, our offerings will be like the offerings of Abel, acceptable in his sight; but if we go to him as Cain did, our offerings will not be acceptable to him, and he will reject them. But if you and I and all who profess to be the followers of the Lord Jesus will bow down before him with humble hearts, each of us with a broken heart and contrite spirit, what will be the effect? Why, we will confess our faults to him, because they will be plain in our sight, we will see ourselves in the light of the Spirit of God, and the spirit of repentance will rest down upon us. Suppose we bow down before him because it is the custom to do so, in a formal manner, worshipping him with our lips while our hearts are far from him, repeating by rote certain sentences we have learned, and to the use of which we have become accustomed, will such an offering be acceptable in the sight of God? Certainly not. He desires that those who worship him shall worship him in spirit and in truth, and that they shall confess their sins not only to him, but, where they have wronged each other, to one another. It is my duty, if I have wronged my brother, to go to my brother and confess and ask his forgiveness. If I wrong my sister, it is my duty to do the same. If I do wrong to my God, it is my duty to bow down before him in humility and confess in contrition of spirit the wrong I have done and beseech him in the name of Jesus to forgive my sins. And this is a duty that rests upon us as Latter-day Saints.

These are some of the practical parts of our religion, and, as I have said, not to be practiced today alone, today, the first day of the week, the Sabbath, but to be practiced tomorrow, and to be carried out in our lives, in our daily intercourse one with another; to be meek and lowly in heart, seeking the Spirit of Jesus, willing to suffer wrong rather than do wrong; not to be rude, not to be harsh, not to be unfeeling, or unkind in our intercourse with our families, but to carry with us the spirit of meekness and of love, that when we enter our homes we shall be welcomed with gladness, our children shall delight in our visitations as they would in the visitation of an angel if they knew one was coming. How many are there of the men in this assembly and of this Church who, when they enter their houses, enter with scowls on their faces, bringing all their cares with them, intruding upon the serenity of their families, making their presence disagreeable to all, instead of going in with gladness and peace and carrying with them the consolation that should attend their presence always? Their wives are perhaps fretful from overwork, their nerves affected by the toils of the day, or the heat, causing them to be in an irritable mood, and when the two come together under such circumstances they produce friction, bad feeling and offenses follow. Is it a man’s duty, or right, or privilege, to carry his cares into his family and disturb the peace and serenity existing there by relating his troubles? Certainly not. When his foot rests upon the threshold of his door, no matter what his difficulties, or perplexities may be, he should enter with the spirit of peace in his heart and with the love of God burning within him. If there is irritability existing, his presence should be soothing to every member of his household, and particularly in talking with his children, they should feel the influence of his presence; and if there should be any improper feelings existing, they should be calmed as disturbed and ruffled water is by pouring oil upon it. A Latter-day Saint! Think of the nature of the name. A Saint of God! Why, he should be next to an angel; the most perfect of the human family. He should be per– fect in his sphere, as God is perfect in his sphere. He should be free from fault. If he have a fault he should seek daily and hourly to correct it, and not rest satisfied as long as he is aware of the existence of a fault until he conquers it, pleading with the Father in the name of Jesus for strength to overcome his weakness, for power to put it away, carrying with him the spirit of love, the spirit of serenity, the spirit of peace, that when he appears in society, no matter where he may be, all who come in contact with him may feel his influence and feel purified and strengthened by his example and by his words and by his very presence. And this is what God designs we should be as Latter-day Saints. Tattle about one another; backbite, slander and speak evil of one another; are such things proper for Latter-day Saints? No. They should be banished from our society and from our households. Our children should be taught better. When they speak evil of anyone they should be checked and told if they cannot say something good concerning their fellows, to say nothing. Instead of finding fault there should be charity, which covers a multitude of sins. Instead of looking at the faults of others, they should be taught to look at their own faults. And they are numerous enough; we have plenty of them to keep us occupied closely all our time, with all the prayer and all the faith we can exercise before God. Our own faults, our own sins, our own shortcomings are sufficient to occupy our entire attention, without thinking about those of our neighbors, or ever speaking about them. Those who bear the priesthood have the right, and it is their duty to administer reproof and to point out faults; but it is for the members of the Church to look to themselves. Let any member of the Church who thinks he has plenty of time after attending to his own faults to attend to his neighbor’s, examine himself; let him bow down before the Lord and ask for the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon him, so that he can see himself in his true light; and if he does not arise satisfied that it will take all his time to correct his own weaknesses and follies it will be very strange.

Then, are we honest one with another? Do I do to my neighbor in my dealing with him as I wish him to do to me? If I do not, then I do not carry out the principles of my religion. If I take advantage of his ignorance, of his inexperience or of his circumstances—it may be he is in a strait place, and he is compelled to do something that he would not do if his necessities did not press him, do I perform my duty to him as a Latter-day Saint! If I take advantage of him, then I do not treat him as I would like to be treated if our positions were reversed. Does the spirit of greed enter into my heart, and I think “Now, here is an opportunity for me to make something, or getting the advantage;” if it does, then I am not a Latter-day Saint in that respect; I do not carry out the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I fail in being that which I profess to be, and I have cause to repent truly and sincerely, and ask forgiveness of the Lord and my brother.

This work of self-improvement, under the power and influence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is a work given to each of us. It should be the great work of our lives; it should be the chief thought of our hearts. There is nothing greater. Brother Stayner remarked that if he could be the means of saving only one soul, how great his joy would be. Yes, that is true. And if that soul should be himself alone, his joy will be great. But if he should be the means of saving another soul, his joy would be still greater. But the greatest work we can do is to so live that we ourselves shall be saved, that our own acts shall be correct, and our will and desires and passions be brought into subjection to the will of God. There is no work that I know of so great and important to me as this. A man may perform a mission; he may do innumerable good works; his name may be heralded throughout the Church and to the nations of the earth, and the people may accept it as that of a great and mighty man; but if that man does not conquer himself and live in strict accordance with the principles of the Gospel, his position will only increase his condemnation. Far better is the condition of the humble, the obscure man, the man unknown out of the limited circle of his immediate associates, who is without fame, but who does live his religion, who practices the principles of the Gospel as they are taught by the Lord. Far better is the condition of that man than the other, if he does that and the other man neglects to do it. This Gospel of our’s is a practical Gospel. It is not like our Sunday apparel, to be put on today and put off tomorrow; it ought to be carried with us in all the transactions of life, applied to everything we think, we say and do, and always be remembered by us. And then what sort of people will we be? We will be people whom the Lord will delight to bless; and who will have his Spirit and power resting down upon us. And no matter how much we may be maligned and spoken evil about, we shall have the consolation of knowing from the Lord that we are right, that we have done that which he requires, and that we have his blessing and his approval. This is worth more than everything else that can be brought about. With the experience I have had in my life I would rather have the grace of God, the sweetness and happiness, the blessing and comfort of his Spirit and be in poverty as great as that of the wild Indian of our mountains than to dwell in palaces and revel in luxury and ease without that grace and Spirit. I have tested this to my entire satisfaction, tested it under circumstances when I have proved that a man can be as happy as an angel—that is, as happy in his sphere, in doing the will of God in the midst of poverty and difficulties. It is not these external circumstances that are the sources of happiness. Of course it is right and proper we should take care of the bodies God has given unto us, just as much as our spirits, that they should be kept clean, that our clothing should be comfortable and our habitation suitable. God has given unto us wisdom and power to do this, and he has placed the elements around us, and he would condemn us if we did not use them for our comfort and blessing. But they are not the only things needful. You may pile up money until you fill this Tabernacle and its possession would not make a man happy. You may give men carriages and horses, houses and lands and everything of this character, but unless there is the spirit of happiness within them they would not be happy. The man who lives near to God who has the Spirit of God, be he ever so humble, is a happy man; and without it, there is no true happiness.

It should be our constant study to live so that the Holy Spirit will always dwell with us, that when we arise in the morning our minds and our hearts may be as clear as the sky when there is no cloud in it, that we feel at peace with God and man. It should be the aim of every one professing to be a Latter-day Saint not to leave his chamber in the morning until he comes out feeling that spirit of peace, with his brow unruffled with care, with a consciousness of having communed with God and that he knows his standing with him. When he leaves his chamber having that spirit, he will diffuse joy and gladness throughout his entire household. Should anything occur to disturb the serenity of a Latter-day Saint he ought to step aside and ask God in the name of Jesus to remove it and to pour out the spirit of peace and consolation upon him to fill his heart. At night too, the same Spirit of peace should be sought for. The thoughts, the words and the actions of the day should be reviewed, and forgiveness of wrong should be sought for, then a man can retire in peace; and then if God in his providence should call him home during the night he would feel at peace with Him and with all men. In this manner we should live, and if we do not live in this way we fail to be what we profess to be.

That God may help us so to live, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Geo. Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, on Sunday Morning, July 20th, 1879.

I am greatly pleased this afternoon at having the opportunity of meeting with the Latter-day Saints, and of listening to the testimonies that have been borne by Brother Staines in relation to this work. I, also, have been absent for some length of time. Upwards of 34 weeks ago I left this city to go east; I have been back twice during that period for a few days, and it is a great pleasure and I may say a delight to me to have the opportunity of being here to listen to the instructions, to the singing, and to partake of the Spirit that prevails in this Tabernacle; to me it is the spirit of home, it is the spirit of peace, and I have more delight and satisfaction in mingling with the Latter-day Saints than I have under any other circumstances. They are my people. Their religion is my religion. Their God is my God. Their future is the future in which I hope to share. If they be prosperous I hope to be prosperous. If they have adverse circumstances to contend with I expect to share in them; and it is this knowledge of which Brother Staines has spoken that prompts these feelings to which I refer.

If there is any peculiarity about what the world calls Mormonism, or that which we term the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as taught by his Church, that I admire, that I love, that causes me to feel thankful unto God; it is the peculiarity which reference has been made by Brother Staines, namely, that William C. Staines, or George Q. Cannon, or any other man or woman however humble, who is connected with this Church, has a right, according to the promises of our heavenly Father, to receive revelation from him when needed. I would not give much for a religion, the revelations of which were confined to two, three, four, or perchance twelve men. It would not recommend itself as the religion of that Being who is the Father of all, who has created all, and who has placed us all here upon the earth as his children. This feature to which I refer is one of the most delightful characteristics of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brother Staines has referred to the Prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and to others who have stood in prominent places in this Church, who have re– ceived revelations from God; and who imparted these revelations to the people. Of what value, of what special value, would these revelations be to those to whom they were imparted through the medium of these men, unless they had some means of testing their truthfulness? What a terrible condition we should be in if God, in his providence, were to confine his knowledge in that way—if we were required, as some imagine mankind are required, to submit to the teachings of their fellow men and to accept and practice them because those men say they are from God! Imagine the condition of the Latter-day Saints if this were the case! Imagine the condition of the whole world if one man stood prominent, or three men, or twelve men, or fifteen men, stood prominent, receiving revelations from divinity and conveying these revelations to the children of men, with the requirement that those who received them should submit to them as the voice of God, and the people themselves be destitute of any means of testing the truthfulness of these revelations, except so far as they might appeal to their reason and to the sense of right that is begotten in them! Now, a great many people who are not acquainted with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the teachings of that Church—and I do not know but some who are members of that Church—imagine that this is the nature of the organization of the Church of Christ, and that this is the manner in which knowledge is conveyed to the people, and in which the requirements of the people are submitted to by the people. Why this Church could not stand, could not have endured the trials and afflictions and the opposition to which it has been exposed, one hour if that were the case. It would fall to pieces, there would be no power, no cohesive power, to hold it together. The strength, the power, the cause of the perpetuity of this work, the marvelous character of its operations throughout the nations of the earth, the wonderful attractiveness of this Gospel, the secret of its great success in foreign land, preached by illiterate men, consists in the fact that God the Eternal Father, reveals his mind unto every honest soul who humbly seeks for it. Not to one man, not to three men, not to apostles, not to bishops, not to high priests, not to seventies, not to elders alone, but to every humble soul who in sincerity, and with a broken heart and contrite spirit, bows himself or herself in secret before the throne of the great Eternal, and in humility asks, in the name of Jesus, for a knowledge to be imparted to him or to her whether it is the truth he or she has heard. This is the secret of the success of this work. This is the cause of its wonderful power and the attractiveness it has for the hearts of the children of men. This is the reason that illiterate men, going forth bearing testimony of these things, have been so successful throughout all the nations of the earth where they have been, and it is this that draws them, as we have been told this afternoon by Brother Staines, by thousands from foreign lands and causes them to come to this land and to assimilate with those already here; until we have in this Territory of ours, throughout these valleys running north and south, east and west, a people unexampled, and, in many respects, unlike every other people that we know anything about. Why, in this last company, which came in a few days ago, the members of it spoke some seven languages. I remember a company of Saints leaving Liverpool while I was there, the members of which spoke nine different languages. They were Latter-day Saints gathering up from various lands, some from Switzerland, from France, from Great Britain, and from the various nations of Europe, all coming together, singing the songs of Zion in their own languages, bearing testimony that God had revealed to them in their own language the truth of this, the everlasting Gospel. With such a spirit they come to these mountains, they scatter among the people already here, they become homogeneous. We have here a oneness of feeling and purpose, a oneness of spirit, and a oneness of sentiment and of heart, that you may look for in vain elsewhere throughout the whole earth. I sometimes think we overlook those great and glorious blessings that God has given to us. We overlook too frequently the spirit of oneness that has been poured out upon this people. Men ask for a sign; they say, “Where are the evidences of the divinity of the work you believe in? You say that you preach the Gospel of Jesus; you say that you are the people of God.” Why, could there be any greater evidence given of the divine character of this mission than is witnessed in the effects of this Gospel upon the people who embrace it? We are led to expect that heaven is a place of unity, a place of love; that there is no quarreling, no litigation, no strife in heaven; no man warring against his fellow men, no man exalting his creed and his ideas as superior to the creed and the ideas of his neighbor; all dwelling in peace and in love. That is the idea of heaven that has been taught to us in the Bible? Anything else would not be heaven; any other kind of place could not be heaven. Is it not reasonable to suppose, then, that if the spirit of heaven rests down upon a people, that they will be united, that they will love one another, will die for one another, if necessary? Why, certainly. If I were to start out today in search of the Church of Jesus Christ, if I did not know of its existence upon the earth, I would expect to find a people united together, a people who loved one another, and who brought forth the fruits of the Gospel of Jesus as he taught it. I would expect to find a people who gave an exhibition in their lives of those heavenly truths taught by Jesus when he was upon the earth. And until I found such a people I would despair of finding the Church of Christ. Men might perform miracles before me, and say a great many wonderful things unto me, but unless I could find a people with the love of Christ in their bosoms, united together as the heart of one man, a people who loved one another, I do not think I could, with the knowledge I have, recognize them as the people of Christ, or as the people of the Church of Christ. For the evidences that they were that Church it would not be in profession alone I would seek. It would not be in their Sunday service alone. It would not be in the sermons that were preached in their tabernacles, or meetinghouses, or churches alone. It would not be in any of these things alone that I would seek, but it would be in the fruits of the Gospel as I found them exhibited in their daily life, in their conversation, in their associations, one with another. If I found a quarrelsome people, if I found a people fighting one with another for their rights, if I found a people taking up weapons of war against each other, no matter by what name they were called, no matter how high-sounding their professions, I would say, these cannot be the people of Christ; these are not the fruits which the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ brings forth. But if I found a people who were humble, meek, lowly, willing to endure wrong rather than do wrong; if I found a people persecuted for righteousness sake; if I found a people of whom all men spoke evil, though their lives were not evil, though their conduct was humble and pure and they were disposed to love one another and dwell together in peace, I would begin to say, here are some of the signs, some of the fruits of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I must stop here. I must examine into this matter. I must look after these people, and see whether they are the people of whom I am in search. If I were to come into this valley of Salt Lake and find a people professing to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were I trusted to report I would be inclined to say they cannot be the people they profess to be. Why? Because all manner of evil is spoken against them. Is there any crime in the black catalogue of crime of which they have not been accused? Is there any evil which people can perpetrate with which they have not been charged and declared guilty? If I were to be disheartened by reports, I need only stop in Salt Lake City, or in Utah Territory, to have that feeling; but if I remembered that those in Christ Jesus are sure to suffer persecution, and that “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?”—I might, if I bore that fact in mind, stop and examine further. If I looked around me and inquired concerning the Latter-day Saints, I would probably find that they did not drink liquor, did not get drunk; I would probably find they did not take the name of the Lord in vain, did not go to law one with another, but were averse to it, and were in favor of promoting peace, and that because of this they offended lawyers, judges and others. If I were to look at the material aspects of the city, I would find a beautiful city, laid out and planned with wisdom, laid out by somebody who knew something of life and what was proper for society. If I made further inquiry I would learn that a few years ago, before the advent of so-called civilization in the midst of the Latter-day Saints, that from the Idaho line in the North to the Arizona line in the South, there were no liquor saloons, no drunkenness, and profanity was punished; but in every settlement and in every house, throughout the length and breadth of the land, prayers ascending morning and night to the God of heaven, on behalf of themselves and their children, and on behalf of the honest in heart throughout all the nations of the earth. If I happened to be there when a company came in, and in mingling with that company asked what brought them to this land, I would be told in Norwegian, in Swedish, in Danish, in German, in Italian, in Welsh, in English, in Polish, in Dutch, in French, that each of these men and women had obeyed the Gospel as it was taught to them by the Elders who had been sent to them, and that in answer to prayer they had received a testimony from the Almighty for themselves that they knew this was the Gospel of Christ, that they were commanded of God to gather out from the various nations, and that in response to that commandment they had come out and were here. These would be the things that would be told to me. If I were to inquire among them respecting other matters, I would find that they believed in this book (the Bible) in its entirety, not a part, not in isolated parts of this book, some parts of this book, some parts separated from the rest, but in its entirety, in its doctrinal parts. I would find that they believed that God was the same today as he was yesterday, that he is a God of revelation, a God of truth, a God who could hear and answer prayer. I would find that they believed in the organization of the Church as it was in ancient days, God having first set in the Church apostles, prophets, teachers, etc. I would find further that they were contending, as James commanded the Saints to do in his day, earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints, a faith by which the mighty works concerning which Paul speaks in the 11th chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews were accomplished. I would find that they were contending for this faith that they believed in the signs following them that believe; that they were contending for them, contending for that faith; and teaching their children to exercise it to the greatest possible extent. Now, where else upon the face of the earth could I find a community teaching and practicing these things! I have been, in my time, a somewhat extensive traveler. I have mingled with a great many people, in a good many lands, and I confess to you today, I have never seen a people who answered this description, except the Latter-day Saints. I do not say this out of vanity, or by way of boasting, because this Gospel is intended for every person, not only for those who are Latter-day Saints today, but for every honest man and woman throughout the face of the whole earth. This Gospel of the kingdom has to be preached to all nations, and then will the end come. It is not, therefore, with any feeling of pride because of these being the doctrines believed in and practiced by the Latter-day Saints that I allude to them in this manner, but because God, in his infinite mercy, has revealed the Gospel to the inhabitants of the earth, because it is taught again by divine authority. How could you account for it in any other way? Tell me, if there be philosophers or wise men here. Men say it is delusion, men say it is imposture, men say that the building up of this system is the result of fraud. Most extraordinary results of fraud, if this be fraud! Men going out without purse or scrip, as in ancient days, and preaching the everlasting Gospel, baptizing people, and the spirit of unity and love resting down upon them, accompanied by the Spirit of God, which testifies, as we have heard this afternoon from Brother Staines, as it had testified to him, that this is the Church of Christ, that this is the Gospel of Jesus which they have embraced. People may think, people may talk about the delusion of the Latter-day Saints. Why, to believe that these results which we see are the product of fraud, or imposture, would require far more credulity than faith to believe them to be from God. Where is there a peculiarity of the ancient Church that is not possessed today by the Latter-day Saints? Can one be mentioned? Can a doctrine or a principle be mentioned that was contended for in the ancient Church, that is not contended for and sought after today by the Latter-day Saints? Were they persecuted? Then it is quite certain we can claim a blessing, if it so be that persecution brings blessings. Were their names cast out as evil? Then we can claim with them the same results, if blessings attend any such thing. “Oh, but,” says one, “they were good people, the Apostles in ancient days were good people, but you Mormons are a very wicked people.” Why, do you imagine that if they had considered Jesus a very good man, a very holy being they would have crucified him between two thieves? No. The populace, when Pilate wanted to have him forgiven because of the feast of the passover, cried out: “No; release to us Barabbas, the murderer, the vile person. Let him be released, but crucify the Christ; let his blood be upon us and our children.” They were willing to risk the consequences, because they believed him to be a vile impostor. Do you think that Peter and Paul, one of whom was beheaded, and the other of whom was crucified with his head downward—do you imagine that in killing them the Romans thought they were killing good, innocent, pure men? Certainly not. They were hated just as much as we are hated. Of course they thought they were doing God service, as many think they are doing God service today in persecuting the Latter-day Saints. They thought they were doing the world some good by ridding the earth of such impostors as Peter and Paul. Their eyes were blinded to their goodness and to their virtues. Such things were hidden from their sight. They could only say they were deluders of the people, that they led people astray, and as impostors were worthy of death. And so it is throughout this Territory. The virtues of the Latter-day Saints are not perceived. Our temperance, our frugality, our perseverance, our industry, our union, and all the qualities that have made this wilderness blossom until it is the admiration of every visitor, the joy of every traveler—all these things are obscured, and with many people lost sight of, before the idea, imagined by very many, that Brother Brigham was a vile impostor, that all those who have been associated with him are no better, and that it would be doing God service to destroy them from the face of the earth that the people who are deluded by them might be free from the influence which they wield over them. Oh, generation of blind—I was going to say fools, but shall I use such a phrase? But is there not evidence sufficient before the eyes of this generation of what has been done in the past, in the persecution of righteous and holy men, in the killing of them, in the shedding of their blood, that men cannot learn that there is such a thing as a man being a good man, a virtuous man, a pure man, and yet be maligned by the enemies of purity and virtue, as in the days of Christ? This generation will have a great deal to answer for in consequence of this thing. As Latter-day Saints, we have been accused of every crime. It has been told of us that we were ready to commit murder at any time, in order to serve our own ends, that we were ready to shed the blood of the innocent, and that this feeling to destroy life existed among us, when at the same time, throughout these wild mountains and secluded valleys life has been more safe, property more secure, than in the streets of the best managed cities in the Union. There never has been a day since we came beyond these mountains that travelers could not pass from the North to the South, and from the East to the West, and through all parts with perfect security. There never was a day, when the Latter-day Saints lived alone in these valleys, that a woman would be insulted either by word or by gesture, night or day, whether an old lady or a young lady, in traveling from one end of our Territory to the other. Can this be said of us today? Certainly not; but it was the case a few years ago throughout these valleys, and let me say to you it will yet be the case.

I sometimes think that if we were one-twentieth part as bad as we are accused of being, it would be very unhealthy throughout this country for a good many who are now unmolested. I know this, that no other community would have born one-twentieth part the insult and injury that we have submitted to so quietly. What has caused us to do it? Is it because we are incapable of feeling, or that we do not understand our rights, or that we do not want them, that we suffer ourselves to be imposed upon? No, it has not been because of these things. Our bosoms have burned, probably, with the fire of indignation, as much as any people on the face of the earth could under such circumstances. What has retained us? Simply the knowledge that these men are ignorant, and I believe that the Latter-day Saints have partaken of that spirit which Jesus had when he hung upon the cross. It has been somewhat in that spirit that the Latter-day Saints have acted. It would have been easy for them to have acted otherwise had they chosen to do so. It may be said they were restrained by fear. It has not been through the fear of man, but the fear of God has restrained this people. It is far better for us to suffer wrong than to do wrong; it is better to endure evil, ignominy, shame and per– secution than to turn and practice any of these things ourselves.

I am looking for a great change to take place in our circumstances. The nation of which we form a part looks with more interest upon us as a people than upon any other part of the United States. There is no people, no community, within the confines of our Republic concerning which there is so much interest felt as the Latter-day Saints. Men’s eyes are directed towards us. I believe we are becoming better understood. The completion of this railroad, which was supposed to be the death knell to Mormonism, the discovery of these, mines, which we ourselves rather disliked, those things that many supposed would be the means of destroying this people, have now been in operation for years, and with what result? With this result, so far as my observation extends—a better knowledge concerning this people, and the circumstances which surround us; a more extended knowledge of our land, and all the difficulties we have had to contend with. I have remarked this in Congress myself, that whenever I want to accomplish anything in connection with our Territory, I always find men who have been here and who have seen for themselves and formed their opinions accordingly, ready to do anything in reason that I ask. Intercourse has had the effect to remove prejudice. There are people in this country who fear us. The very fact that they do fear us by their refusing us our rights, not only shows that they do not understand us, but it is a recognition on their part of our power; and as such we should accept the denial of these rights to which we are fully entitled. Governors, judges and other officers are sent here, in the selection of whom we have no voice whatever. Even if they were all honest, patriotic, fair and just men, their selection without our voice is an injustice, but which no people can bear better than we. We are, however, learning lessons which will be of immense importance to us in days to come; for as sure as the sun shines, as sure as God lives, so sure will this people called Latter-day Saints become a governing people. It is an inevitable consequence in the very nature of things. We possess all the elements to make a strong, mighty, governing people. There is therefore a great future in store for us, and to prepare us for that future it is necessary that we should pass through the furnace of affliction, that we should feel the hand of oppression, and that we should feel the effects of injustice, so that when it shall become our turn, as undoubtedly it will in the very nature of things, we shall know, by the treatment we have received, how to temper justice with mercy, to extend to others that which has been denied unto us, and the value of which we have well known. You cannot keep down a people like this. I do not say this to flatter you, because you have many faults. We know them, and I do not think we are afraid to tell you your faults, and to tell our own faults. But a people possessing the qualities of the Latter-day Saints must grow and become powerful. Union is strength. Love will prevail, it is a great power on the earth, and added to this there are integrity, frugality, temperance and virtue—for there is virtue in this land—there is chastity here. In these mountains, amongst this people called Latter-day Saints, if virtue is not cherished next to human life, it is because people are not living up to the teachings they have received. If man is not as virtuous as woman, then it is because man has not profited by what he has been taught. Do you think that a daughter should be expected to be more virtuous than a son? Do you think that the girls of a family should be more chaste than the boys? Certainly not. One of the greatest crimes, the greatest, with the exception of the shedding of innocent blood—and it is a doctrine that is taught by the Latter-day Saints, and should be taught by every man in his household—that can be committed, is the seduction or defilement of the weaker sex. There can be no greater crime committed, except the shedding of innocent blood, and people thus taught, what will they be? Why, if they observe such teachings, they will be strong, vigorous and mighty. Can you repress such a people? Will the sending of a few men to prison for breaking the law of 1862 destroy this work? Will the entering of a suit against the executors of the estate of the late President Young, or the Trustee-in-trust of this Church destroy this work? Why, the men who say so have failed to read history. They do not understand anything connected with human progress and with human powers, if they flatter themselves with such opinions as these. All these things intensify the people, they add to our strength.

As to plural marriage, in dealing with that great question, as it is called, if I had been anxious to extinguish or repress it, I would never have allowed it to have received the attention it has done. There has been a complete misconception as to the best method of dealing with this question. Why, this ancient practice, practiced by a few people in these mountains, has been lifted into national importance. Mormonism has become famous, because of the practicing, by a portion of the people, of this doctrine, until the whole earth resounds with the talk of “the Polygamy of the Mormons,” as though the Mormons were half the people of the United States. In fact, if they numbered twenty-five millions instead of two hundred thousand, they could not have received more attention. This is a grand mistake in statesmanship on the part of those who want to put down Mormon doctrines. If men understood statesmanship they would let the question pass, but instead of that they are determined to give us world wide notoriety, to uplift us before the world, and by their foolish acts make people suffer as martyrs for that principle. Most unwise. It reminds me of an incident mentioned in Macauley’s history of England. He drew a contrast between the policy of James the Second and his successor, William. You all know that James was looked upon as an old impostor, and that ultimately he was expelled from the throne. There was a Bishop in James’ day who seemed very anxious to attain some object, and he annoyed the king so much that the king got it into his head that the Bishop wanted to be a martyr, and, said James, “I am determined he shall be one.” Macauley contrasts this policy with that of William under similar circumstances. William was a wise ruler, and there was a man who did something similar to him in his day, and acted offensively, as the Bishop did to James, his father-in-law. He, too, seemed anxious to be a martyr, and, said William, “I am equally determined he shall not be gratified.” In this we see the difference between the statesmanship of the two kings; and a true statesman, dealing with the question of polygamy, would let it alone severely. If he wanted it exterminated he would not take George Reynolds and send him to prison and make him a hero, instead of a felon. Such a proceeding only had the tendency to make people cling to their faith and be willing to suffer for it. If plural marriage be divine, as the Latter-day Saints say it is, no power on earth can suppress it, unless you crush and destroy the entire people. But supposing it is not divine, as many people say it is not, supposing that it is not of God, do you not think the forty millions can afford to let it alone? If their position be true do you not think they are safe to do more among the 200,000 people who believe, and a portion of them practice it, by moral force than by persecution and violence? I think so. Now we will see which is the best policy. I do not believe in being defiant. Men that marry more wives than one should be able to bear the penalty of it if there be any attached thereto, or they should not take them. A man that enters this Church ought to be able to die for its principles if necessary, and certainly should be able to go to prison for them without crying about the matter. If you are sentenced to prison for marrying more wives than one, round up your shoulders and bear it like men and no murmuring about it; prepare yourselves to take the consequences. We know that for the Gospel in ancient days many laid down their lives with joy, that the great Captain of our salvation was crucified, and that nearly all the prophets perished by violence. If we expect, then, to be one with them, and inherit the same glory that they do we should be prepared to endure the consequence of adhesion to, and our advocacy of the truth; and so we should in regard to every doctrine we have embraced. We have embraced certain doctrines. They are unpopular. Still if we are men we will be prepared to endure all the consequences, whatever they may be, and make no fuss about them. But I am trespassing on your time. May the Lord bless you, fill you with the Holy Ghost, and keep you a holy people, and enable you to overcome all evil, is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered at the General Conference, on Sunday Afternoon, April 6, 1879.

In some respects I would prefer to sit and listen to my brethren speak, and to partake in quietude of the spirit of this Conference, than I would to speak myself. But there is a duty devolving upon me I presume, the same as upon my brethren and I desire to the best of my ability to discharge that duty. The sight of so many people, the singing, the speaking of our brethren this morning and the spirit that I felt when I entered this building today almost overpowered me. There is an influence, there is a power, there is a spirit connected with the assembling together of a large body of people, such as we witness today, that must affect those who are sensitive to impressions, and especially when one has been absent among strangers, to feel that he is home among his friends, among a people who are his brethren and sisters, whose faith is his faith, and who are laboring and struggling to accomplish the same objects that he himself has in his heart. I rejoice exceedingly, my brethren and sisters, this day in your midst, and I am thankful for the delightful circumstances by which you are surrounded. I am thankful that the prospects before you are so promising, so full of hope and so delightful to contemplate. It is true we have had sickness, we have had many deaths, this has been a cause of regret. But death is unavoidable, and with it all we are in much better circumstances and more favorably situated than the generality of the children of men. The Latter-day Saints are rapidly becoming a great and important people. The influence that attends us is being more widely felt; our power for good is increasing, our strength, our union and the other qualities that we possess, and which we have manifested through our career, are being more recognized every day. It has always been a favorite idea of mine, that no single human being who chooses to exert an influence for good among his fellow men, ever spoke or ever acted in vain—without making his influence, his example, his words, have an effect upon those with whom he has been brought in contact. If this be true concerning an individual, how much more truth is there in it when applied to an assemblage of individuals, and to a community, to hundreds of communities, to a great people stretching through these mountains and filling these valleys? We have not lived in vain. We have not sought to exhibit lives of temperance, of industry, of frugality, of self-denial, lives of righteousness with the fear of God before our eyes, nor have we lived these lives during the last 49 years, without the effect being felt, not only upon those by whom we are surrounded, but by the world at large. There is something connected with the example of such a people that elevates men and women from the slime, from the mire, and from the abject ruin into which, in too many instances, they are plunged, to contemplate humanity in its better aspects, humanity in its noble appearances, with its Godlike attributes, with its powers for good, its capability of accomplishing great results. There is something in the very fact of a people believing in God in these days of atheism and utter infidelity that brings men to serious contemplation. They say very frequently that it is fanaticism, but there is something about fanaticism that is healthy, refreshing, invigorating in its example, for no man ever accomplished anything on this earth, without exposing himself by his actions, his earnestness and enthusiasm and zeal, to the charge of fanaticism. I am willing we should be called fanatics. I have a right to be a fanatic if I wish to be, as long as my fanaticism does not interfere with the rights of my fellow man. That is a barrier beyond which my fanaticism should not be allowed to go.

It is refreshing to see a people who not only believe in God, but who are willing to show their belief by suffering for his cause—to leave their friends, to leave their homes, to suffer exile, persecution, privations, hardships, and even death for the sake of God, for the sake of religion, for the sake of principle. What would life be if it were not for such people and for such characters? Why, their peculiar lives illume the somber darkness of ages; they are bright spots in history. When we look back and recall the men who have suffered and died for principle, even if they died wrongfully, we find something about their heroic lives that is glorious to contemplate. And when a whole people can be found, such as are in these mountains, who are capable of making the sacrifices which they have made, there is something, as I have said, in their example and in their lives that influences men, that impresses them, and that causes them, whatever their feelings may be respecting the belief of these people, to feel a profound and heartfelt respect for them; for no man or woman properly constituted ever failed to respect devotion to principle, moral courage and the qualities that are exhibited in the lives of the Saints; I therefore say, we have not lived in vain; we have not preached in vain; we have not suffered in vain; we have not protested in vain. The fruits of these labors of ours which apparently have been so long in coming, will be reaped in the great harvest yet to be reaped upon the earth.

I feel to speak these words of encouragement to my brethren and sisters, many of whom feel probably that their obscure lives and struggles, their contest with poverty, their humble and eventful histories are sometimes of so little value that they are comparatively worthless in the earth. I say to the humble struggler, to the man or woman who may be content with poverty, whose life may be uneventful in his own estimation, who may be hidden from the popular sight and may not figure on the world’s stage, I say to every such person, as a Latter-day Saint, You have a great and important mission to perform, and if you perform the duties devolving upon you properly, your influence will be felt; and in the days to come, in that great day of God Almighty, your worth will be fully recognized, and you will shine as a jewel in the kingdom of our Redeemer.

There is one thing that every parent can do. He can endeavor to make his sons and daughters better qualified, better equipped for the great struggle of life and better able to perform their part in this glorious work that God has established than himself; that is one thing the parents of the rising generation of these mountains can do. I have never felt as I do today, and as I have recently, of the great importance of our training and educating our children to the greatest and best advantage, that nothing shall be left undone on our part to prepare them for the great work which they have to perform. This is a labor that we can accomplish. It does not depend so much upon the knowledge of books; a great many people imagine that only books are necessary for education; but the man is best educated, in my opinion, who has thought the most, and that correctly. So far as theology is concerned, we have been able, by the blessing of God, the light of the Holy Ghost, and the power of truth, to go forth unlearned, illiterate, and unprepared, so far as worldly education is concerned, and by virtue of the knowledge that comes down from above, the elders of this Church have gone forth and met the world of Christendom. I do not speak in vanity, nor in the spirit of boasting when I say they have never been vanquished. The learned, the educated, the professed theologians when they have met the elders of this Church with the Bible in their hands, have been compelled to retreat before the power of truth proclaimed by uneducated but inspired men. Is our mission accomplished by having done this? I feel that we as a people are only on the threshold of the great work that lies before us. We have an immense field of labor stretched out before us. When you look ahead and try to see its limits, the field of usefulness, which stretches out before this people called Latter-day Saints, is beyond the reach of human vision; it is illimitable, stretching out in the far distant future. Is there a wrong upon the earth to be righted? If so, it is our bounden duty to attempt its correction. Is there a false principle extant? It is our bounden duty to seek its eradication. Is there tyranny in the world, tyranny of the body, tyranny of the mind, physical or mental tyranny? It devolves upon us as Latter-day Saints to overthrow it. Are there social problems to be solved? Who shall solve them? Who can do so? Remove the Latter-day Saints from the field, and who can solve these problems which are pressing themselves upon the attention of all thinking people? The whole earth is full of violence, wrong, oppression, misgovernment, and a thousand other evils which I cannot now enumerate. It devolves upon us, as fast as we can reach these things, to correct them, to remove them. In the first place we have got to correct and remove them from our own midst. It is a slow labor to train a people, brought as we are from every nation, educated in every creed, speaking almost every language and heirs of every tradition. There is, false or true, wedded to us old customs and the evils of ages, which have been transmitted from generation to generation until they have formed a strong part of our very being. It is a slow work, I say, educating a people such as we are. We have been at it now 49 years, and we can scarcely perceive, that is, in comparison with that which lies before us, the growth and the development which have been made. But we have grown, our minds have been enlarged, we have become emancipated from many old follies, and freedom of thought has taken place in our midst; but the great labor that devolves upon us is to educate ourselves, and then we can soon educate the rest of mankind, for as I have said, our example is felt; the influence of it goes forth and bears its fruit among other people. But it is a most difficult thing to get these Latter-day Saints to understand the principles that are as plain as the noonday sun—that they should receive readily, and why? Because, as I have said, they are heirs of the traditions of centuries that have come down through the dark ages. It is a wonderful thing to do what we have done respecting woman. Look at what monogamy has done. Look at its effects; trace its influence from the death of the Apostles, or soon afterwards, down to this the nineteenth century, and what do we behold? Why, in every generation a large percentage of our sisters has been consigned either to that nameless condition of which it is a shame to speak, or have died without ever knowing the joys of maternity. When I think of it, when I read the history of the boasted civilization of the Greeks and the Romans, and think of the boasted civilization of our day, inherited from these nations, and witness its effects, I wonder how man, standing up in the face of heaven, dare look at woman and talk about being her protector. Read the history of the sex and of the frightful evils which have been brought upon our sisters through man’s accursed traditions and evils. If it were to be told to another people differently situated to us, with different traditions to us, they could not believe that intelligent man would entertain for one moment, or that women themselves, in view of what their sex has suffered, would cherish and cling to the wretched traditions that have prevailed in Christendom and to a certain extent yet prevail in our midst.

I know I am touching now upon what many people consider a tender spot. Say they, “The decision of the Supreme Court has arranged all this.” Yes, but it will not stay arranged. Let me tell you, that wrong may prevail and right may apparently be crushed; but right must at last prevail and claim its own in spite of laws, of decisions, of mandates, and everything that man can utter. I am talking now not respecting law; I am not talking respecting tradition; I am not talking about “Mormon” plural marriage or patriarchal marriage; I am talking about men and women, brethren and sisters as such. Come let us reason together; let us talk together, not as religionists, not as “Mormons,” not as monogamists, not as polygamists, not as citizens of Christendom, but as men and women, the children of God, as brethren and sisters of the one family. Let us talk together face to face, in plainness, in simplicity, without allowing tradition to have weight with us, to blind our understandings. It is in this spirit that I wish to talk upon this subject.

Here is a family, a family composed of men and women, and we will say this tabernacle contains this entire family of God upon the earth, for the sake of illustrating the point. Here are men and women in equal numbers and equal proportions, one sex not outnumbering the other—a man for a woman and a woman for a man, no surplus of women, no surplus of men. If they were to marry, each would have a partner, each man would have a wife and each woman would have a husband; each would be perfect, for the man is not perfect without the woman, nor the woman without the man. We turn in and make a law, such as prevailed at one time in Rome that every man shall marry a wife. Such a law was made at Rome at one time; it was aimed at celibacy. It was aimed at a certain class as the law of 1862 was aimed at us. One was enacted to prevent marriage, the other to compel marriage, that no class of men should grow up in the community without wives, and that no woman should be allowed to forsake man and become a nun. We have such a law, say in this tabernacle. That answers very well. Every woman is provided with a husband, and every man with a wife. But after a while somebody comes along and says, “I do not like this law, it is oppressive; I know, for instance, where it works very badly; I know men who do not want to have wives.” They prefer a single life, and they succeed after a while in repealing the law, as they did in Rome. The law is repealed and men are at liberty to marry or not as they please. On the top of this another law is enacted, in effect that every man shall have but one wife, and shall not be permitted to take two or more wives. The women, of course, have to do just as the men say, they cannot compel the men to marry them, but must wait until they are invited to marry. This law suits a great many individuals. Many men say, “I prefer not to have a wife and especially if you will only make a law confining the men to marry but one wife each. I like that very well, because I will not then be under the necessity of keeping a wife. If I want a partner, an associate, I can have one without being at the trouble or expense of keeping her as such. Because if you confine marriage to one man and one woman there will necessarily be a share of the women who cannot be married; that is, if the sexes are equal in numbers. Then I can do as I please. I know the confiding nature of woman; I know how she loves, how she clings to the object of her love. This will be my opportunity.” But what shall be said respecting the women. The men so far as they are concerned, have the right to marry or not as they please. But here is a large percentage of the women who by this law are to a certain extent deprived from marrying, even supposing the sexes to be equal. A civil commotion arises. Men go to war, they go to sea, they engage in commercial pursuits, they leave their homes, they engage in hazardous occupations. The result is that though in the beginning the men and women were equal in numbers, by the effects of war, and of engaging in hazardous pursuits which women do not follow, the men die and are killed, and the women survive and outnumber the males. The operation of a law then, such as I have described, increases the hardship, increases the percentage of those who are not married and who have no opportunity of marrying. Here comes along a man after witnessing the evils that have grown up among his brothers and sisters, and says, “I have a plan to suggest which I believe will cure the evils that exist among us. I see that a dreadful vice called prostitution has crept into our midst, and arising from it are dreadful diseases, diseases that I cannot describe, so appalling are they that the very thought of them makes the heart recoil with horror; they have appeared in our family circle and they are destroying our young men and women. And now then, the plan that I have to propose to our family is this, that every man shall marry until all the women are married, until every woman that wants a husband shall have one, so that the men who will not marry shall not have a class of unmarried women, to prey upon, to commit violence with, or to prostitute. “Now,” says he, “if you let all these men and women marry, there will be some women who will not want to marry, but that proportion will be very small; and by this means you will arrest this dreadful evil that is growing in our midst.”

Now let me put this to you; let us reason upon this, face to face, as I have said. Which will be the better plan? According to my judgment, speaking as one of this family, not as a member of Congress, not as a “Mormon” but as one of the family I have described. The latter law is far superior to the other. I would say, as a father, if I had a family of that kind, by all means let my daughters marry, let every woman have a husband that wants one. Then if every man marries a wife, they will only have a wife apiece; but if there should be any of the boys that do not want wives, the girls would not necessarily go without husbands.

I consider our false tradition upon this subject one of the greatest evils at the present time that exists upon the earth. It has come down to us from the Greeks and Romans, than whom a more abominable lot of people never lived upon the earth. To read their books is enough to make a man with the least feeling of modesty blush and be ashamed of his race. Yet they are introduced into our literature. Whoever reads Horace, Sallust, and numbers of those authors, well knows how full of corruption they are. Not only crimes, but crimes against nature were justified by some of the best and most noted of Greek philosophers, and were practiced by Sophocles, Socrates, and others; and yet this is the philosophy that has come down to us. They had a class of women in their midst who were regularly compensated and sustained as courtesans; they were maintained in order that the purity of the domestic circle might be unpolluted. And this has come down to us in Christendom, in Europe and America to the present time. The fairest of Earth’s daughters fall yearly sacrifices to the abominable lusts of men. How is the domestic circle preserved in monogamous countries today? It is only preserved at the expense of this class to which I have referred, by these priestesses of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people, living short lives and carrying with them the effects of man’s abominable lust.

Now I do not want to talk today about law; I do not want to talk today about its effects in relation to this subject—the subject of “Mormon” patriarchal marriage; I do not want to talk about the law of 1862, nor the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States affecting it; but I want to deal with the facts that stare us in the face. Shall we correct these evils? “O,” says one, “they always existed.” Out upon such doctrine; we do not believe it. I cannot believe that the Great Creator, he who formed the universe, who placed the sun in the center of our solar system and caused those planets to revolve around it; that that being who created these things, and produced order out of chaos who said, “Let there be light and there was light;” who called forth out of chaos the elements from which our earth is formed and created it as a glorious habitation for man; that He possessing, as we know he does, infinite wisdom, has placed men and women, his sons and daughters, upon the earth in the midst of evils such as I have briefly alluded to, and provided no remedy therefore. I could no more believe it than I could believe this light to be darkness. But I do believe that in the bosom of the Father there is wisdom to create all, to carry out all, and to make this earth a heaven, where peace, love, joy and happiness shall prevail, and where there shall be no sin, no sorrow, no heartrending or pain, where man and woman will dwell together in perfect peace, love and harmony, and children grow up in purity with every heavenly surrounding.

I have said, probably, enough on this subject. I merely wish to point out and to show that certain evils exist and that they need correction. How shall they be corrected? Who shall point out the remedy? I believe God has done it, and he will continue to do it; he will bring to pass in his own way and in his own due time all the corrections necessary to change all this. This subject of itself, affecting as it does the happiness, welfare and prosperity of the human family, is one of almost overshadowing importance. But there are other evils under which mankind groan. There are evils in regard to wealth and the management of property, the organization of capital and the organization of labor, the relations, that labor shall bear to capital, and capital to labor. There are questions of this kind that press themselves upon the attention of statesmen, and upon the attention of every man of thought and reflection, and he sees there is room for the exercise of the most profound wisdom, and the greatest talent in order that these things may be corrected. It devolves upon us, Latter-day Saints, to help to accomplish this work. It devolves upon us, and will devolve upon us more particularly in the near future, to maintain upon this continent and through this broad land pure republican institutions, constitutional liberty in its broadest sense. For the day is not far distant when the power such as is growing up in the mountains will be needed. Conflict of parties, an increase of party feeling, an increased disposition to take possession of power by any means, no matter what it might be, are becoming general in the United States. This is so self-evident that no man, unless completely wedded to the idea that this nation will exist in perpetuity, can fail to see for himself that there is a crisis approaching in the affairs of our nation. Already the feeling prevails that in order to accomplish certain things fraud is justifiable. Money is used to an extent in the accomplishing of certain results in government affairs, and in politics that you, as a people who live in these mountains, have scarcely any conception of. And this is increasing. What the end will be is not difficult to foretell. Republicanism ceases to be republicanism whenever fraud enters into the decision of questions and the will of the people cannot be properly ascertained.

So far as religious liberty is concerned we have fought that battle thus far with tolerable success; but we have yet to contend still more for greater liberty, not for ourselves alone, but for every human being that dwells upon this land, from the east to the west and from the north to the south. The principle must be maintained, the principle, that actuated the founders of our government, when they laid the foundation stone thereof, that in matters of religious concernment no man has a right to step between his fellow man and his God. I may worship idols; I may burn incense to idols; I may worship the sun and pay adoration to him, the great luminary of day; I may do other things which may seem equally improper, but have I not the right to do these things under our constitution? Was it not the intention of the framers of our form of government that every man should have this right? Certainly it was; and it can be clearly proved that this was their intention, that this was the spirit that actuated and prompted them.

In Salt Lake City, if the “Mormons” had supreme control—I say “Mormons,” I ought to say Latter-day Saints—if they had Supreme control from our northern boundary in Idaho, to the southern boundary, Arizona, and from our eastern boundary, Colorado, to our western boundary, Nevada; if we had supreme control and undisputed possession of this land, without the right of dominion over us being questioned, we would have no authority under the constitution under which we live to say to any human being within these confines how he should worship, what he should or should not do in order to please the Creator. If the Chinaman should come here and build a Joss house and burn incense to Joss, if he prostrate himself in adoration before the images that he thinks represents his deity, we have no right in the world to interfere with him. If an Ingersoll should come here and say that he did not believe in any God at all, and he could carry his feelings into practice, we would have no right to interfere with him. Under the circumstances I have described, he would have a perfect right to believe in God or not. We would have no right to interfere with a man who, believing his priest has power to remit his sins, would enter the confessional chamber for the purpose of having them forgiven; or with the Episcopalian who may choose to sprinkle his infant, or the Jew because he believed in circumcising his infant child, or with the Baptist because he believed in baptism by immersion. But supposing that a man should come along that believes it his right and in accordance with his religious convictions to marry more than one wife, and he takes care of his wives and provides for them properly according to his religion, believing that in the eternity to come he will dwell with them. Some of us may think that his ideas of heaven are very materialistic; we may think him a very foolish man for having such a belief, and especially for going to the expense of keeping three or four wives; these may be the popular ideas about him, but if he carries out his belief from a religious standpoint, he has a perfect right to do it in the face of God and even under the constitution of our land. The Parsee and fire-worshipper and men of kindred belief may yet come to this land of liberty; and I tell you if the spirit of the Constitution be maintained, as the Latter-day Saints will yet maintain it, they will have a perfect right to worship their God according to the dictates of their own consciences without any to molest or make afraid. The only time that these men can be interfered with will be when their religious acts interfere with the rights and liberties of their fellow men. Hear it, ye Latter-day Saints! When John Chinaman comes in your midst, teach your children to respect him. When any other man of any other creed, race or color takes his abode among you, teach your children to respect his form of worship. And if they go to the church of the Catholics or that of the Presbyterians or of any other sect, teach them to behave themselves and treat everybody with civility and kindness, and that it is none of their business how these sects worship, teach that they violate good order and good law when they in any way make light of religious exercises. I would whip a boy for it quicker than for anything else. That is the freedom I believe in; that is the freedom I mean to teach to my children and to all men so far as my voice and influence extend; that is the freedom I mean to contend for and, as I have said hundreds of times to leading men of this nation, I will, if necessary, take my sons and make them swear that they will stand by and maintain this liberty as long as they live and contend for it and teach their children after them to contend for it also. I believe in the fullest liberty upon these points. We have been accused of exclusiveness. Our hearts have many times warmed towards “Gentiles,” as they are called. We have extended the arms of kindness thousands and thousands of times to them, as our history has proved. We have been full of that disposition. But how have our advances been met? Let those in this tabernacle and those who are familiar with such matters read the newspapers. I have had people visit me at my house where every attention and courtesy would be shown them, and they would leave and perhaps through reading newspaper articles consisting of abominable lies, would go away and betray those who had received and treated them kindly and hospitably and so often has this been the case that I have almost sworn I will never do it again. It is not because we have unkind feelings. The time will come when we will have power; at present we are in the minority, and it pays for scribblers to write about us and hold us up to ridicule. But suppose the Latter-day Saints had control; suppose their ideas were fulfilled, that is, that we, as it is destined we shall be, were the people who uphold Constitutional government upon this continent, who restored the government to its primitive condition when all the political parties shall have fallen into chaos; would we feel at liberty to say that none but the Latter-day Saints should be elected to offices of trust and responsibility? No. Joseph Smith set the pattern; he taught the brethren who were with him better ideas; you well-informed Latter-day Saints know that there are two powers which God has restored in these the last days. One is the Church of God, the other the Kingdom of God. A man may belong to the Kingdom of God and yet not be a member of the Church of God. In the Kingdom of God, using it in a political sense, there may be heathens and Pagans and Mahommedans and Latter-day Saints and Presbyterians and Episcopalians and Catholics and men of every creed. Will they legislate for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints alone? Will the laws that they enact protect us alone and not protect others? No. Why? Because God is the Father of the Latter-day Saints as well as of every human being; God is the father of all, is the father of the Chinaman, the Hindoo, the African, the European, the American; is the Father of all the races of men and of every creed and nationality. When he establishes his kingdom it will protect all in their equal rights; I as a Latter-day Saint, will not have power to trample on my fellow man who may not be orthodox in my opinion, because I am a Latter-day Saint; nor will my fellow man to whom I am heterodox, have the power to trample upon me. Does not that look right? That is the kind of kingdom we have to contend for; that is the kind of kingdom we have to establish, and it is already provided for in the Constitution given unto us by God, and through the glorious labors of the fathers who laid the foundation of this government, who were inspired and raised by our Almighty Father for this express purpose. There is no liberty that a human being can desire, neither is there a right that can be exercised properly, that we do not have under the Constitution of our land. It needs no amendment about it; it is broad enough, if interpreted in its true spirit, to cover the individual, the continent, and the entire globe and furnish freedom for all.

Now, Latter-day Saints, if you have had narrow views I will tell you to put them aside. I do not mean by this you must take everybody into your houses. There is the difference. I have seen President Young scores of times acting upon the spirit to which I have alluded. He has invited strangers to our social parties and houses and extended courtesies to them because it was wisdom to do so. But a great many of the Latter-day Saints are so ignorant upon these points that they do not know when to stop. There are some so ignorant that they would in the spirit of kindness let a man come into their homes and become so familiar that he would try to lead astray some member of their family. Can you not see that these are acts of folly, that we are not required, because of the liberality we should cherish and cultivate, to throw down every barrier and allow vice to stalk through our cities and enter into our family circles to pollute the purity that should prevail there. Can you not see, Latter-day Saints, however young, however uninformed you may be, can you not see that to allow this liberty would be wrong? Therefore we ought to discriminate. Nowhere in good society has a man the entree without proper introduction. If a stranger were to come to me bearing lines of introduction from a friend of mine, I would, if necessary, go with him to the bank and endorse a note for him, because I would be perfectly secure in doing so. But supposing a stranger were to come to me for the same favor, without an introduction, I would not be under the slightest obligation to do as he wished, though I might do so as an act of charity, but of course under such circumstances I should not be expected to do more than this. And if I were to go among strangers I would not think of attempting to push myself among the people without proper introduction. I have gone in their midst many times, but have never been a sharer of their kindness and confidence only as such confidence was established by acquaintance. So in our midst; a man can come properly recommended, he is at home. He can have time enough to establish his name and to show to the people what kind of man he is. Then he will be received as he should be, having that respect shown to him that is due.

I have talked a great deal more than I intended. I hope what I have said may be blessed to your profit. If I have said any unwise thing, forget it. If I have said any improper thing, I hope it will pass from your minds, and that which is good, cling to you. Cleave to virtue, to purity, to everything that is good, that will elevate you and make you a better people. Above all let me say to you, let us get rid of old traditions as fast as we can, and learn from the Lord, and be taught by his holy spirit. That God may grant this is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.