Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, July 26, 1857.

If the brethren and sisters would like to hear me talk a little in my rough way, I will try.

My feelings are like this, that I may have no will but that which is extract from the will of God, that my will may be the will of God, just as much as there are three drops of water, the first, the second, and the third drop, and the second and the third drops run into the first, and they are combined in one. Now, inasmuch as they are combined and have become one with the Father and the Son, it is a pretty hard thing for any person on earth to extract those three drops; they cannot be extracted or divided, for they are one, and they are one with the Father and the Son.

We receive the Spirit of Jesus as he receives it from the Father, and we receive it from the Son, or down through the channel of the Holy Priesthood from the Father; then we are like one vine or one tree, the Father being the root, and the Son of God the tree or vine that sprung from the Father, and we are the branches, or this Church is the main branch sprung out of that vine. Then, inasmuch as we abide in Joseph or in Brigham, and then Brigham abides in Joseph, and Joseph in Peter, and Peter in Jesus, and then Jesus in the Father, don’t you see we are one? And then we will extend it to the Twelve in these last days; they are one with the First Presidency, and then the Seventies with the Twelve, and then the High Priests and other officers. Ain’t we one?

That is the way we have got to be one; we have got to come to that; and when we do, the Spirit of God will rest upon us, and the Spirit of Jesus, and of all the Prophets, and Apostles, and holy men of God that ever did live or ever will. Then the same Spirit and power will rest upon our sisters as it did upon Mary, and Elizabeth, and Anna, and thousands of others.

I wonder if the brethren understand me? If you do not, I shall have to get some more simple figure; for a tree in its nature is like a grape vine, or a cucumber vine, or a watermelon vine. You plant a cucumber seed, and it brings forth a cucumber vine. You may take this vine, and there is a main vine, and then there are other vines that break out of that main vine; you take away one of these vines from the main true vine, and it would cease to exist, because it is disconnected from the vine to which it was connected; therefore it cannot bring forth fruit. Don’t you understand this, you men and women that are farmers?

Brother Brigham was speaking this forenoon, showing what an influence he has over this people. I want to know if he has any over a man or woman that is not in this vine, he being the head now? When Joseph was here, he was the head of the vine in the flesh; but since he stepped away, brother Brigham is head of the vine, and we are connected to it; all you men and women, and then all the Saints throughout the world are connected to that vine to which he is connected; and he has power and influence over them, because they partake of his nature and his element, and he partakes of the element that came through Joseph, and Joseph from Peter, and Peter from Jesus, and Jesus from the Father, and then it extends through all the Quorums that pertain to the house of Israel.

I was speaking the other day how you should make your connections very strong; and, instead of breaking these fibers pertaining to that cable, you should keep adding strength to strength. If you do that, there never will be a separation between us and those that hold the Priesthood before us—no, never.

What an almighty influence our Father and our God will have when He has gathered all His children! Will they control the remaining portion of the human family? They will. As I said that day, and as brother Joseph has said today, we hold the keys—that is, brother Brigham and his brethren—they hold the keys of the living and the dead.

What! Of those that do not belong to this Church? Yes, just as much as those that do; and they cannot get salvation upon any other principle. Well, now, you need not think that is a tight jacket; for I will tell you it is a jacket you have all to wear. You may grunt, and you may take a course to kill this people and destroy the Prophet. Good God! There will a hundred come up where you kill one. Bless your souls, if a man is a Prophet, and that Prophet has a posterity, his whole posterity are prophets. Tell about raising up kings, and priests, and prophets unto the Most High God! You may kill brother Brigham: kill him, if you can; but I tell you, you will never do it, nor his brother Heber, until the time comes.

I never killed anybody, and I have a pretty good assurance to live a good while. You may kill brother Brigham, if you can, and what will be the effect of it? There will be a thousand Brighams that will rise through him, just as much as it would if you went into your field and you found an almighty big mustard stalk, and it was ripe, and you had no more sense but hit it a crack and break it down; there will be a thousand, and perhaps a million of mustards come from the old stalk. It will be just so if you kill brother Brigham or Heber, and it was so when they killed brother Joseph; there is a thousand now living where there was but one when he was killed.

Prophets! There is not a man or woman in this congregation, if they live their religion and have the Holy Ghost upon them, but what are prophets, everyone of them. I feel as Moses said to a certain class that had the sweeny; they were superstitious, and could not bear to hear any men and women prophesy but themselves: they complained to Moses of a certain person prophesying; and said he, “I wish to God they were all prophets.” I wish to God you, brethren and sisters, were all prophets and prophetesses; you may be, if you live your religion; you cannot help yourselves. We shall be like so many drops of water all run into the first drop; then the first drop and all the drops become amalgamated together, and they are like one drop. Bless your souls, our little children will prophesy, that come out of us, because we are one.

It is living in the vine of the last dispensation that makes us one, and we should be one, for Jesus says, “Except ye are one, ye are not mine.” As brother Brigham, brother Smoot and others have said, can the world do anything against this work? No. Jesus says that they can do nothing against the truth, but for it; and it will increase it, just the same as it would to destroy the old mustard stalk that has got ten thousand little seeds; you only increase it ten thousand times.

Can the world obliterate “Mormonism”—this Church and kingdom of God? Gentlemen, you might just as well go into the heavens and undertake to obliterate the worlds and the stars that you see on some of these beautiful nights when it is so clear. You can see the stars; they are as thick as the hairs on my head. What are they? They are worlds like this, and redeemed worlds, as this will be sometime; and we are the boys that will help to redeem it. We look a good deal like other folks.

I speak of these things, brethren, by way of encouragement. They may just as well try to obliterate those worlds that are redeemed, and perhaps ten times larger than this world, as to undertake to obliterate “Mormonism.”

You call us fools; but the day will be, gentlemen and ladies, whether you belong to this Church or not, when you will prize brother Joseph Smith as the Prophet of the Living God, and look upon him as a God, and also upon Brigham Young, our Governor in the Territory of Deseret.

Well, I will say there is no other man, except it is his successor in the Priesthood, that will ever rule over me as a Governor. [Voices, all over the congregation: “Amen.“] A man not holding the Priesthood may come here in the capacity of a Governor, if he pleases, and will act properly in the line of his office; but if he does not magnify wholesome laws, we will teach him his duty.

Sending a man here with 2,500 troops! They have no design in God Almighty’s world only to raise a rookery with this people and bring us into collision with the United States; and when they come here, the first dab will be to take brother Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball, and others, and they will slay us. That is their design; and if we will not yield to their meanness, they will say we have mutinied against the President of the United States, and then they will put us under martial law and massacre this people. That has been the design of the men that have been here. [Voice in the stand: “They can’t come it.“] “No, they c-a-n’t come it.”

Drummond, and those miserable scoundrels, and some that are now in our midst—how do I feel towards them? Pray for them? Yes, I pray that God Almighty would send them to hell. Some say across lots; but I would like to have them take a round about road, and be as long as they can be in going there. How do you suppose I feel?

I have been driven five times—been broken up and my goods robbed from me, and I have been afflicted almost to death. I am here with wives and children, and as good women as can be found in the United States. You may search the States through, and you cannot find as good ones. Have others here got as good? I do not know that I will talk about others; but I will say what I have a mind to about my own. I have got women that were brought up decently and respectably; and they are virtuous women; and you may send all the men from hell, and they cannot come around my women and brother Brigham’s, notwithstanding some have told in Carson Valley that our women are all prostitutes, and that they could use any one of them they pleased, as I have been informed.

That is the story they have told about you, sisters, as I have heard. How do you like that statement? Still there are some here who sustain such characters in their wickedness, as they did Drummond and others. I think just as much of the persons who sustain those miserable characters as I do of them, and no more. And I think just as much of those who sympathize with them. Whether they are men or women, I do not care one whit. I know the virtue of my women, and the virtue of brother Brigham’s women, and of those of our brethren who are connected with us.

The world say that we have things in common stock. There is no such thing. We throw our interest together, but my wives are wives that are given to me by the Almighty God through the proper source; and it is so with every other man. There is no man in this Valley that is a Saint that meddles with my wives, nor I with his. Those things are not carried on here. Every man has his house by himself and his concerns; but, if we have a mind to throw in our property into the general reservoir and hold it in common, then every man has a stewardship; I want to know what business it is to anybody? I have a right to throw in my property in connection with brother Brigham’s, and he with me, and then occupy it forever, and let the avails thereof increase our riches; and if every other man would take the same course, it would be far better for us. If we cannot be one in temporal things, how can we be one in spiritual things?

We do not believe in whoredoms here; we do not admit of any such thing as women to whore it, or of men to come here to do any such thing. We have none of this. [Voice: “That is civilization.“]

Yes, such as they have in New York at the Five Points there. Some of you have, perhaps, been there, and in Philadelphia, and in every other city in the United States. There is the city of Rochester, about as small a city as there is in the United States. I have been there when there was but two little log cabins, when there was not such a thing known as a prostitute; and now, at this day, there are thousands of persons of ill fame, and the authorities license such things.

Christians—those poor, miserable priests brother Brigham was speaking about—some of them are the biggest whoremasters there are on the earth, and at the same time preaching righteousness to the children of men. The poor devils, they could not get up here and preach an oral discourse, to save themselves from hell; they are preaching their fathers’ sermons—preaching sermons that were written a hundred years before they were born.

We are very tenacious, as brother George A. said, pertaining to the law of God and the institutions of heaven. We know there is no other way for men to be saved—there is no person on the earth can be saved upon any other principle than the one that saves me. Says one, “What is that?” The first step is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God; and when you have, and laid your sins aside, and think you will quit sinning, then be baptized in water, that your sins may be washed away, or blotted out, that you may receive the remission of them; and have a man that has got authority to do it lay hands upon you, that you may receive the Holy Ghost.

Can you change these ordinances? No. They are eternal; they always were and always will be; and no man or woman upon earth can be saved without them. You may get a Methodist priest to pour water on you, or sprinkle it on you, and baptize you face foremost, or lay you down the other way, and whatever mode you please, and you will be damned with your priest. There is but one way, and that is to be buried in water, buried with Christ by baptizing in water, that your sins may be blotted out by one having authority, or else it will do you no good.

Every man that is alive can act for himself under the hands of a man having authority. How will you manage for the dead? You will have to do it by proxy. For instance, I have got a father who died before “Mormonism” came; I go to brother Brigham when we have a place for it: says I, “brother Brigham, I want to be baptized for my father;” he takes me and baptizes me for my father, I acting as proxy, or for and in behalf of my father, and it is done upon the same principle that we do it for ourselves; and that is recorded.

Can I go and be baptized for my mother? Yes, I can be, though that is not the strict order of the law of the kingdom; but let a man act for a man, and a woman for a woman, that each may bear their share. I will let my wife go and attend to that, she acting as proxy for my mother, and I for my father. Well now, I have got to attend to all the ordinances faithfully that I attend to for myself, and then, when the time comes, I can take my father and mother, and act for my father, and my wife act for my mother; and then they can be connected in marriage, and then their father and their mother, and so keep going on until we get back where we came from, and connect the Priesthood together, and have the chain perfect from these days to the days of Jesus, and then back to Adam.

Perhaps my father may not receive the Gospel. If he don’t, my baptism will not do him any good. He is in the spirit world; he has to believe and embrace the Gospel in his heart and affections, and then I receive knowledge from him through a proper authority, and I am administered to for him. You might as well go and be baptized for a devil as for a man who will not receive the Gospel in the spirit world.

I expect I shall have to go and preach to the spirits in prison where they live, in London, in Germany, and other places. What! After I am dead? Yes. You may call us wild for believing such things. Go and read the Bible—the book your mother taught to you when you were sitting on her knees and nursing at her breast. This good old Bible, you think we do not believe it: we believe every word of it, and practice it. If we do not, we are determined we will, by the help of God, that portion of it that alludes to us.

Plurality of wives! I have a good many wives. How much would you give to know how many? If I were to tell you, you would not believe it. I suppose many of you have not believed a word we have said today. We do not care whether you do or not. I am speaking to the unbelievers, and not to the Saints. If I spoke lies, you would believe quicker. Suffice it to say I have a good many wives and lots of young mustards that are growing, and they are a kind of fruitful seed.

You know my comparison was, when Dr. Bernhisel was at Washington, we did not know what the Dr. would think when we let the old cat out of the bag. I told him that the old cat would have kittens, and the kittens would have cats. It is so with “Mormonism;” it will flourish and increase, and it will multiply in young “Mormons.” “To be plain about it, Mr. Kimball, what did you get these wives for?” The Lord told me to get them. “What for?” To raise up young “Mormons”—not to have women to commit whoredoms with, to gratify the lusts of the flesh, but to raise up children.

The priests of the day in the whole world keep women, just the same as the gentlemen of the Legislatures do. The great men of the earth keep from two to three, and perhaps half-a-dozen private women. They are not acknowledged openly, but are kept merely to gratify their lusts; and if they get in the family way, they call for the doctors, and also upon females who practice under the garb of midwives, to kill the children, and thus they are depopulating their own species. [Voice: “And their names shall come to an end.“] Yes, because they shed innocent blood.

I knew that before I received “Mormonism.” I have known of lots of women calling for a doctor to destroy their children; and there are many of the women in this enlightened age and in the most popular towns and cities in the Union that take a course to get rid of their children. The whole nation is guilty of it. I am telling the truth. I won’t call it infanticide. You know I am famous for calling things by their names.

I have been taught it, and my wife was taught it in our young days, when she got into the family way, to send for a doctor and get rid of the child, so as to live with me to gratify lust. It is God’s truth, and I know the person that did it. This is depopulating the human species; and the curse of God will come upon that man, and upon that woman, and upon those cursed doctors. There is scarcely one of them that is free from the sin. It is just as common as it is for wheat to grow.

Do we take that course here? No. I have buried several children; I have buried them in New York State, too, in Monroe County, where I lived all my young days, and where I became acquainted with brother Brigham, which is rising of thirty years that we have been together, about twelve miles from where Joseph Smith lived and found the Book of Mormon. I buried two children there, lawful children, born to me by my first wife; and then I have buried some ten children here, born to me by my lawful wives; and I have had altogether about fifty children; and one hundred years won’t pass away before my posterity will outnumber the present inhabitants of the State of New York, because I do not destroy my offspring, I am doing the works of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and if I live and be a good man, and my wives are as good as they should be, I will raise up men yet, that will come through my loins, that will be as great men as ever came to this earth; and so will you.

I will tell you that some of the most noble spirits are waiting with the Father to this day to come forth through the right channel and the right kind of men and women. That is what has to be yet; for there are thousands and millions of spirits waiting to obtain bodies upon this earth.

I thought a good deal about one verse of brother Poulter’s song that he sang here today—one verse in particular, speaking of the ladies. A man is a man, if he is connected with the Priesthood and is a good man of God—a holy man. That man can produce wonders, although he may be inferior in stature.

A great many women are more nice than wise. If they can get a man with a pretty face, they think it is all there is about it. Some men think if they can get a woman that has a handsome face, that is all there is of it. But it is that woman that has a head and sensibility—I do not care if her head is three feet long—it has nothing to do with the character that lives in the body. It is the character that is in the man’s house, the spirit that is in the man; it is the spirit that is in the woman and in the house that makes the woman and that makes the man.

Talk about going into the spirit world. The whole nation will go there. Are they going to know Jesus Christ? Are they going to know Joseph, and Brigham, and Heber? No, they won’t know us there, because other men will go and preach to them; and then they have got to believe on those men, or else they cannot pass them and go by those authorities.

Then let us live to be men and women of God, and cultivate that Spirit that dwells in us; for I have told you many a time that if you receive a bad spirit in you here today in this Bowery, you may get up and go out of door; but will you not have the same spirit as you had received when you started to go out? If you retain that wicked spirit, going out of door will not make you better.

When a man becomes a devil, and has killed the Prophets and Apostles, while he is in this house, or tabernacle of his spirit, will it change his feelings to go out of door, or to lay down that tabernacle? There will then be the same spirit and disposition that is in the spirit while it is in the body. When it leaves the body, does that change the spirit?

It is the spirit in man which affects the conduct; it ain’t the body. I can stand here and let you go to work and defile this house. I have to answer for that sin. If my spirit is guilty in letting my body do a thing that is contrary to the will of God, it is my spirit that has got to pay the debt. It is my spirit that is to be judged in the day of eternity and is answerable for the sins that I suffer my body to do.

I want you to think of these things, live your religion, keep the commandments of God, do as you are told, lay up your grain.

Brother Joseph made me think of one thing this morning when he was talking, that we are the very characters that will have to save the poor curses that are trying to kill us. They are trying to destroy that Priesthood that pertains to them as much as it does to me. We have got to save them and they have got to come to us. It is degrading to their feelings; but, as degrading as it is, they will come bending to us. What! To brother H. C. Kimball? Yes, as true as the sun shines, if I live my religion; and you will have to bow to me, brother Brigham, and Joseph Smith, and the Twelve Apostles, and thousands and millions of others; for I will tell you, if you make war while you are in the flesh with the servants of God, you never can be redeemed until you make an atonement to satisfy us, and then Joseph, and Peter, and Jesus, and to satisfy the Father: you have offended the whole of them.

The day will be, and it will not be many years either: it will be about the time the United States want to send a sufficient force here. About the time they will get unto the hottest times will be about that time. They will persecute us all the time the same as Joseph’s brethren did Joseph in Egypt. They whipped him and threw him into a pit, and then they thought of killing him; but Judah prevailed and saved him, and then they took him and sold him as a slave, and he obtained favor in the eyes of the King, and finally held dominion over that whole kingdom, and reared the kingdom, and raised grain previous to the famine, and saved and redeemed his whole father’s house and millions of others; and everything had to bow down to the power of Joseph.

As true as that thing is true, so true it will be that our enemies will have to bow down to us; and we may do the best we can to store up stores; and it is all we can do before they will come bending unto us. And the President of the United States will bow to us and come to consult the authorities of this Church to know what he had best to do for his people.

You don’t believe this. Wait and see; and just about the time they think they have got us, the Lord has got them fast. Now mark it, George; you may write every word of it.

I will tell you that brother Brigham and his brethren can tell the difference between the wheat and the chaff. [Voice: “The Lord gives wheat and the Devil gives chaff.”] Retain all the wheat; and if there is any chaff there, give it to the Devil; and the wheat, and the oats, and the barley you shall have; and the day is at hand for you to go to work to raise sheep and raise flax, and there shall be a coat on it four times thicker than any flax you ever saw, and everything else shall increase.

Why do you ask God to give you these things until you go to work and raise them? I sowed wheat three years before I got a bit. The Devil or somebody tried to prove me; but I would have stuck to it until this day. I would not give a dime for a man or woman that is not of that character.

Am I going to be a Joseph? I will be a Heber, and Brigham will be a Brigham, and he will lay up stores for the inhabitants of the earth, and we will redeem the earth and the inhabitants thereof—I care not whether they are dead or alive; and I would rather have a lot of dead creatures than many that profess to be Saints here. If they were dead and out of the way, their absence would be a help to us; for they try to hinder the progress of the work of God; but we will be the saviors of the children of men in the last days.

Mark my words, and see if these things do not come to pass quicker than you can prepare yourselves for them.

Will this land be a land of milk and honey? Yes. Missouri is cracked up to be the greatest honey country that there is on the earth; but it will not be many years before they cannot raise a spoonful in that land, nor in Illinois, nor in any other land where they fight against God. Mildew shall come upon their honey, their bees, and their crops; and famine and desolation shall come upon the nation like a whirlwind.

Go and read the Prophets: they all say so. You never saw a Prophet in your life but what would say so. Don’t be frightened: I tell you it will come. I am willing that my friends that have come through here from California should tell them of it; and it would be better for you to believe it yourselves, and go and make calculations accordingly.

Shall we ever be brought to want? I tell you, if we live our religion, we never shall. Cannot God Almighty send manna here, honey, and everything else, just as well as he could in the days of Moses? This is the last dispensation, and it has got all the power, the interest, the miracles that were in all of them, and tenfold more.

Last year or the year before they made some thousands of pounds of sugar at Provo and other places from the honeydew. Where did they find it? On the leaves of the cottonwood, the quaking asp, and the milkweed. They are now making honey from milkweed.

What does all this mean? And then don’t you believe God can rain sweetening as well as running water? This I can prove by thousands of witnesses—good sugar, as handsome as I ever made in the United States; and I have made hundreds of tons of it. The maple trees in the States will be blasted; yes, and they might as well try to make sugar from an oak tree: and everything else will be mildewed and go to destruction, when we shall have thousands.

Have not we felt the rod? Yes; and God says judgment shall come, and it shall commence at the house of God first, and then it will come upon those that have rebelled in the house of God; and of all the suffering that ever fell upon men and women will fall upon the apostates. They have got to pay all the debt of the trouble that they have brought upon the innocent from the days of Joseph to this day, and they cannot get rid of it.

Will we have manna? Yes. The United States have 700 wagons loaded with about 2 tons to each wagon with all kinds of things, and then 7,000 head of cattle; and there are said to be 2,500 troops, with this, and that, and the other. That is all right. Suppose the troops don’t get here, but all these goods and cattle come. Well, that would be a mighty help to us; that would clothe up the boys and the girls, and make them comfortable; and then, remember, there are 15 months’ provisions besides. I am only talking about this. Suppose it extends on for four or five years, and they send 100,000 troops, and provisions, and goods in proportion, and everything else got here, and they did not.

I am talking by comparison to the Saints, and you that are without do not understand it. I am a kind of funny fellow; I always was. I will tell you what kind of a chap I am, and brother Brigham, and brother Joseph, and Hyrum, and David, and Charles, and all those boys. I will tell you now, as true as you live, I am one of the sons of the old veterans that won the liberties of this land, and so is brother Brigham, because he knew his father, and I knew my own father; and it is not every man that does.

You may write that—there is one man on the earth that knows his daddy. We are the boys, with thousands of others that their fathers, their grandfathers, and great grandfathers redeemed this land; and God Almighty inspired those men. They were naturally heirs to the Holy Priesthood, every one of them, pretty much; and we are their sons, and we will redeem this land, and we will save the children of this land, and the Constitution of the United States; and we will bring about the restitution of the house of Israel.

I do not care if we die in twenty minutes—as true as there is a resurrection, or ever was, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Joseph, and thousands of others will be redeemed and get their resurrection; and I will see you as I see you today, and we will save all that we can, and the rest will have to go to hell.

I believe in annihilation in one degree. Men will sin so that they will be damned spiritually and temporally. There will be a dissolution of the natural body and of the spirit, and they will go back into their native element, the same as the chemist can go to work and dissolve a five-dollar gold piece, and throw it into a liquid. Does not that show there can be a dissolution of the natural body and of the spirit? This is what is called the second death.

May the Almighty bless you! May the peace of God be with you, and upon your children, and your children’s children, forever and ever! And may God Almighty curse our enemies. [Voices: “Amen.”] I feel to curse my enemies: and when God won’t bless them, I do not think he will ask me to bless them. If I did, it would be to put the poor curses to death who have brought death and destruction on me and my brethren—upon my wives and my children that I buried on the road between the States and this place.

Did I ever wrong them, a man or woman of them, out of a dime? No; but I have fed thousands where I never received a dime. Poor rotten curses! And the President of the United States, inasmuch as he has turned against us and will take a course to persist in pleasing the ungodly curses that are howling around him for the destruction of this people, he shall be cursed, in the name of Israel’s God, and he shall not rule over this nation, because they are my brethren; but they have cast me out and cast you out; and I curse him and all his coadjutors in his cursed deeds, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority of the Holy Priesthood; and all Israel shall say amen.

Send 2,500 troops here, our brethren, to make a desolation of this people! God Almighty helping me, I will fight until there is not a drop of blood in my veins. Good God! I have wives enough to whip out the United States; for they will whip themselves. Amen.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered at the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, July 12, 1857.

I feel very much to appreciate the remarks of brothers Thomas S. Smith and Edmund Ellsworth. Brother Edmund’s remarks were very good, and will be salvation to every man and woman that will receive and treasure them up in their hearts.

Here in Great Salt Lake City is the seat of government for the Church and Kingdom of God, pertaining to every person that has ever come into a probation on this earth, whether they are now in tabernacles upon this earth, or whether they are in the spirit world, or in hell. This is the place of deposit of all those keys pertaining to the salvation of the human family; and there never will one soul of those spirits now in prison come out of that place, except the keys of the kingdom of God that are now held in Great Salt Lake City open the door and let them out. They may peep and mutter, and may have revelations until doomsday, and may declare to all eternity that Joseph Smith is a false prophet, and that brother Brigham is a false prophet, and that this Church is false, and they will still remain in hell until we let them out.

Brother Brigham Young holds those keys; and brother Heber C. Kimball, and Daniel H. Wells, and others, hold those keys in connection with brother Brigham; and not one soul of you has any keys or power of salvation only what is in us; and that is one thing for you to learn. Those keys and powers were on Joseph Smith when he was in the flesh; and before he departed, he laid his hands on brother Brigham, and brother Heber, and others, and conferred the keys of salvation upon them; and we are here, in the last dispensation of the kingdom of God that pertains to every man and woman on earth, in hell, and in the spirit world; and the redemption of not one individual soul will be obtained upon any other principle.

You may call that pretty snug doctrine and pretty rough; but I would not give a dime for anything that is not rough. What do you think of the stone to be cut out of the mountain without hands? If there are to be no hands, how do you suppose it will ever be polished? Can you polish a stone without hands and chisel? It is to be taken out of the mountain without hands, and it will smash every nation and kingdom except God’s. It will never be polished until it has done that rough work. It will knock the bark from the trees, and will break everything before it.

Let the spirit world peep, and rap, and rap, and rap again. We know you not. Depart, ye workers of iniquity, and get out of the way, and stop your peeping and rapping.

This is the kingdom of God. You talk about building up the kingdom of God; but how can you build up the kingdom of God, except you build up the king and his officers? We are to become kings and priests unto our God, in accordance with the revelations given to the Apostle John. Our lives are a preparatory work to fit us to receive that authority and power; and when we have got that, we will raise up a kingdom. You cannot raise up a kingdom any greater than yourselves. And if you have not attended to these things, you cannot raise up a kingdom that will bring about the purposes of the Almighty.

How can I take a course to save the children of men any further than I am saved myself? If I have saved myself today, I can save you today; and if I continue on and save myself tomorrow, I can save you tomorrow, and so on from day to day, until finally we are saved in the celestial kingdom of God.

Are the keys here? Yes, the very keys that our Father placed upon His Son Jesus; and He placed that authority upon Peter and his associates; and they have been restored again to this earth through the ministration of the Prophet Joseph.

It is written that the first shall be last, and the last first. This is the last kingdom, and the Lord will make it first; for it has got to raise up, and establish, and confer power upon every one of those kingdoms that have been. That is what we have got to do. Why do you not realize this? You could, if you lived your religion and called upon God by day and by night.

What good do your prayers do, when your works do not correspond? Men may talk about praying, and exhort the people to pray; and if you do not live in a manner to fulfil your prayers, what do they avail you? Faith is dead without works, just as much as my body is dead without my spirit. When my spirit leaves my body, my body is dead; but put them together, and they make a soul—a spirit in a tabernacle. What is the use of our professing to be Saints, unless we live our religion? By our faithfulness and by our good works we shall obtain knowledge.

How can you find out whether brother Brigham is called of God, except you have a revelation from God? And then some are not fully satisfied, but will doubt the revelation that God has given them.

You think you would not. I have known many who have. Oliver Cowdery received revelations and wrote them; so did David Whitmer, and so did Thomas B. Marsh. About the time he was preparing to leave this Church, he received a revelation in the Printing Office. He retired to himself, and prayed, and was humble, and God gave him a revelation, and he wrote it. There were from three to five pages of it; and when he came out, he read it to brother Brigham and me. In it God told him what to do, and that was to sustain brother Joseph and to believe that what brother Joseph had said was true. But no; he took a course to sustain his wife and oppose the Prophet of God, and she led him away.

What!—sustain a woman, a wife, in preference to sustaining the Prophet Joseph, brother Brigham, and his brethren! Your religion is vain when you take that course. Well, my wife may say, “If you will sustain Brigham in preference to me, I will leave you.” I should reply, “Leave, and be damned!” and that very quickly. That is a part of my religion—“Leave quickly, you poor snoop.”

That was the trouble with Emma Smith. Joseph stood for the truth and maintained it; she struck against it: and where is she? She is where she is, and she will not escape until Joseph Smith opens the door and lets her out. She declared that she would leave him, if he would not sustain her instead of sustaining brother Brigham, and Heber, and the rest of the Twelve Apostles of God. That is as true as that the sun shines. She had her choice, but Joseph would not follow her.

Thomas B. Marsh was once the President over the Quorum of the Twelve—over brother Brigham, me, and others; and God saw fit to give him a revelation to forewarn him of the course he would take; and still he took that course. We told him that if he would listen to that revelation he had received, he would be saved; but he listened to his wife, and away he went. His wife is now dead and damned. She led him some eighteen years; and as soon as she died he came to Winter Quarters—now Florence, and has written to us, pleading for mercy. We have extended it to him, and he will probably be here this season or the next. He says that he has sinned before God and his brethren, and is pleading for mercy; for he feels as though our Father and God would have a little bread for him after all the rest have eaten all they need.

I speak of these things to show men their standing. Women were never placed to lead. Did you ever see a ship rigged for sailing to England, or to any other port in the world, without a helm, and rudder, and a man who knew the points of the compass and how to receive instructions for guiding that ship. And then you will sometimes see a number of boats lashed with cables to a large ship, and they are all led by that ship, and that is guided by the power and intelligence on board of it. Women are made to be led, and counseled, and directed. If they are not led, and do not make their cables fast to the power and authority they are connected with, they will be damned. Instead of cutting those little fibers that pertain to those cables which connect them with the ship, they ought to be adding other strands to the cables, that they may stand when the sea becomes boisterous.

And it is for the Twelve to be connected, and make the cable which binds them to the First Presidency stronger and stronger; and for the First Presidency to make theirs stronger in relation to God and those who are connected with Him. All the time keep adding to that big cable. And it is for the Seventies to fasten their cable to the Twelve, and to keep increasing its strength; and so on down to Priests, Teachers, and Deacons. Then let every man’s wife strengthen the cable that connects her with her husband; for, if she does not do so, she will go to hell, and you cannot help it.

Women are to be led. If I should undertake to drive a woman, I should have to drive her before me; and then she becomes my leader the moment I do that. I should lead her; and she should be led by me, if I am a good man; and if I am not a good man, I have no just right in this Church to a wife or wives, or to the power to propagate my species. What, then, should be done with me? Make a eunuch of me, and stop my propagation.

I am telling you solemn truths; and I do not know of anything that bears on my mind more to this people than for us to live our religion and be subject to those to whom we should be subject. As brother Brigham said, last Sunday, it is for every man to make peace with his neighbor and with the man who leads him, and for a man’s wives to take a course to please their husband, and for us all to make peace at home and abroad, when we go out and when we come in. That is the course for you to take—that is your duty; and when you take a contrary course you are wrong.

Some of the sisters say that their husbands are contrary and stubborn, and that they will do this and that, and they cannot control them. Ladies, there is not one of you that has common good sense but what would leave the man that would suffer you to lead him: you would rightly consider that he was not following his calling, if he would bow to your mandates. No man in this Church has a right to a wife, except he is a good man—a man of truth. And when a man violates his calling and priesthood, he forfeits his wife and everything that pertains to that calling and priesthood, or to that limb, when the limb is severed from the tree. Many have been severed from this Church and left their wives and children; for they clung to Gospel faith and priesthood. Now, except those men make restitution, can they hold one of the wives they have taken? No, not one of them. Can they retain, and keep, and preserve their children—their posterity? No, they cannot. Why? Because those limbs have been cut off and have never been restored, and the fruit was taken by the Husbandman of the vineyard and laid up in store. Then they cannot get it, can they? No, they never can, unless they prove themselves worthy and make restitution to satisfy the demands of justice, and that fourfold. They may then receive it back, but not without that restitution. That is justice and righteousness, and I am telling you of it in the name of the Lord; and I know it to be true.

There are thousands of men and women among the nations of the earth that it will be more tolerable for, in the day of judgment, than it will for you, if you violate your calling and do not honor your priesthood. You know that it was declared that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for the children of God who had received the priesthood, and heard the voice of a prophet, and disobeyed it. Sodom was so wicked that they could not hear the word, because they would not admit a man of God to come into their midst. And they would have killed Lot, if the angels had not got him out with the few that believed on his words.

If you cannot believe brother Brigham, and brother Heber, and brother Daniel, and the Twelve, whom have you to go to hearken to? Who is there to lead you? Lay aside the men who lead you, and where is your salvation? Have you not great reason to love these men? They are your servants, and they serve you faithfully. They watch over you by night and by day, and over the Saints throughout the whole world.

If you cannot love the leading members pertaining to this Church, how under the heavens can you love a man you never saw? You cannot, and never did. Tell about loving God! You do not love Him a particle when you do not love your benefactors and the man that feeds you and clothes you. You do not have a drawing of tea, a pound of coffee, or anything else, but what he serves you with it. You say you love him; but some of you lie like hell, and you deceive yourselves. Now, do not tell me that you love my God, and at the same time not love brother Brigham and me, whom you have seen.

Uncle John (referring to Patriarch John Young), did you ever see anything bad in me? I never got drunk but a few times in my life, and then I was right straightforward. I never got so drunk but once, but what I could whip any man I ever saw, except brother Brigham. I know that I am a poor, weak, frail man, and dependent upon my God as much as you are. Do I expect salvation upon any other principle than that upon which you expect to obtain it? No, not in the least. I cannot get salvation and disobey the man that leads me. But whether he feeds me or not, or gets me a hat or a pair of boots or not, what has that to do with my integrity? I am to be true to him—as true as the sun is to this earth, even though I should be barefooted and bareheaded, as I used to be when I was a boy; for I never thought of having anything to wear in the summer seasons but a tow frock and a pair of tow breeches, and go bareheaded; though my hair was not burnt off by the sun; it came out by the roots, through studying and laboring in the great Latter-day Work. That is the course for me, and brother Daniel, and the Twelve, and all the faithful to take.

Tell about loving God and His people! If you do not love the man that leads you, you do not love that Being who confers all the blessings and privileges we enjoy. Tell about loving God, and not love the men that lead you! Get out with your nonsense. Will that apply to the Elders? Yes, and to the Seventies, the High Priests, Bishops, Teachers, and all men. Any further? Yes, it applies to you ladies, in your family capacity. You have not any priesthood, only in connection with your husbands. You suppose that you receive the priesthood when you receive your endowments; but the priesthood is on your husbands. Can you honor God and the Priesthood, and abuse your husbands like the Devil? How can you honor the Priesthood, except you honor the man you are connected with? I am talking about good men: I will not in this connection say any– thing about bad men. How can you honor the Priesthood, except you honor the one you are connected with?

The Father is the root, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. The First Presidency is a quorum pertaining to this branch of the house of Israel, and the Twelve are connected with us; they make part of a branch. And then the Seventies, another large branch on the same vine, and the High Priests, and Bishops, and so on, all belong to the vine. Now, from whence did you come, sisters? From whence spring you and your children? You spring from these main limbs and from that Priesthood. If you did not spring out of the Priesthood, where did you come from? Not many of you have legally sprung out of the Priesthood anywhere in the world in the latter days; but if you have a legal man, who has a legal Priesthood, you can raise heirs to the kingdom of God, and they become connected with it, without any of your washings, anointings, and sealings. Go and read the Scriptures, and they will teach you a great many things, and it will strengthen your faith in what you hear from brother Brigham, brother Heber, and many others.

Do not tell me that you love God and Jesus Christ, and that angels are around your habitation, conversing with you by night and day, and treat the Priesthood as though it was a thing of naught. Angels who would thus visit you are swamp angels—they are filthy. Would God honor one of them? No; nor would one of His servants—no quicker than they would honor the Devil in hell.

I am talking of things pertaining to your salvation—not to that of my family alone, but to that of all the families of the house of Israel. You have got to take a course to strengthen the cable. Many cables are chains composed of links; and is there not room to put on more links, to extend the chain, so as to reach to the bottom of the deepest waters? Yes. You must become a link on that chain and strengthen it, or you will be lost.

If you prefer the figure of a cable made of flax, seagrass, or hemp, go to work and increase the strength of it, and tie yourselves to the Priesthood and to the man that you are connected with, or let there be a final conclusion to dissolve the partnership, and go somewhere else. I do not want halfhearted characters to labor with me. Poor miserable creatures, they are not fit for anything. Some of them have been in the house of Israel from fifteen to twenty years, and are following the Devil. Are there any such characters in this congregation? Yes, several, both men and women. There are men and women ready to oppose brother Brigham in what he said last Sunday. He told the truth of God in every word he spoke. Do you suppose that he is so unwise to say a thing which he does not know to be true? He understands what he speaks, and he looks before he jumps, and God Almighty will lead him straight, and he will never stumble—no, never, from this time forth; nor will you, brother Hyde, if you will follow him; neither will any other man.

There are poor, miserable curses in our midst; and there is not a thing spoken of but what there are men and women who will go and tell them everything that is said (thank God for that!), and tell more than what is true. There are men and women in this congregation of that stamp. I wish I had some stones; I want to pelt your cursed heads, for you lie like hell. Are you valiant to stand by the work of God, and by your brethren? If you are not, you had better put out, you poor curses.

There is a poor curse who has written the bigger part of those lies which have been printed in the States; and I curse him, in the name of Israel’s God, and by the Priesthood and authority of Jesus Christ; and the disease that is in him shall sap and dry up the fountain of life and eat him up. Some of you may think that he has not the disease I allude to; but he is full of pox from the crown of his head to the point of its beginning. That is the curse of that man; it shall be so, and all Israel shall say, Amen. [The vast congregation of Saints said, “Amen.”] He is laying plans to destroy us, and is striving with his might to stir up the Government of the United States and the President to send troops here to bring us into collision and destroy this pure people—man, woman, and child. May God Almighty curse such men [Voices all through the congregation: “Amen!”], and women, and every damned thing there is upon the earth that opposes this people. I tell you I feel to curse them today [Voice: “And they shall be cursed.”]. Yes, they will be; and the Devil shall have full possession of every man and woman that raised the tongue to sympathize with those poor curses. I ask no odds of them, no more than I do of the dirt I walk on; for if it was not there I could not walk upon it. Now, go home and sympathize, all of you who wish to.

I tell you that the most of this people are a God-blessed people, as Amasa says; and you shall ever be blessed, with your wives and children after you, forever. And I bless you in the name of Israel’s God, and you shall be blessed.

Are there any poor, miserable devils in our midst? I cannot step into the street but what some poor, miserable curse is ready to pounce on me, if he dare. Tell about your religion! Shame on you! Go home and put on sackcloth and ashes, and repent of your meannesses. Are such kind of characters here? Yes, in this congregation. Could I pelt them with stones ? Yes, if I had the stones here, I could throw them straighter than any rifle that ever was fired.

Let us live our religion by day and by night, when we are at home and when we are abroad, and let us go to and gather up our grain and save it. Save your grain, brethren; save everything that can be saved; for we shall have need of it. The day is now on hand for this people to lay up in store, and to leave off a few ribbons, and jewelry, and fine satins. And where you have from seven to fifteen dresses too good to wear every day, dispose of some of them, and do not trouble your husbands so much. Are you serving God and keeping His commandments, and at the same time seeking to destroy your husbands?

In the house of Israel there is now clothing enough to last us ten years and make us comfortable, if it could be put into the storehouse of God and properly distributed, to clothe men, and their wives, and children, who may be worthy and needy. That is the Apostle’s doctrine, you know. Am I in earnest, brethren? I am telling you the truth; I am telling you God’s truth, and what the Spirit says to me. Stop, stop this extravagance, and in the name of Israel’s God go to work, accumulate, and build up the kingdom.

Tell about building up the kingdom of God, while you take a course to make slaves of your husbands through your love of finery!! Your husbands must be observed and listened to. If you want to offend your God, offend His servants. And how can you love God whom you have not seen, and hate your brethren whom you have seen? Do not talk to me such nonsense any more.

I am in earnest; I am anxious for your salvation—for you to put the best foot forward and lay out your present means for the best purpose, and in a way that they will temporally save this people universally. Save your wheat, corn, barley, buckwheat, oats, and everything that can be saved. You can dry potatoes for keeping as well as you can pumpkins. What is there that you cannot dry? I could even take a great many men and hang them up on a pole, and they will dry in a week, because there is little or no juice in them; and the less juice there is in them the less time it takes them to dry up, upon natural principles. If a cow gives only a gill of milk, do you not know that you can dry her quicker than when she gives a pailfull?

Sisters, how can you fulfil your callings and appointments, according to the blessings of the Patriarch and Prophet, except you lay up stores and become saviors, like unto Joseph? Have not some of you received the blessings and promise that you should be instrumental in teaching the Lamanites habits of cleanliness, and how to cook, make clothing, &c.? You have those blessings upon you; and most of you have not taken the first step to fulfil them.

God Almighty bless the righteous [Voices, “Amen,”], the meek, and humble of the earth, and those who will do right. Your strength shall increase, if you will step forward and do as you are told. It shall increase twentyfold, while that of those who do not do so shall decrease twentyfold, because that branch or limb that does not bring forth fruit will lose its strength, and it will go into those who do. It will be so.

Is brother Brigham a Prophet? Yes, he is a Prophet and an Apostle, and then he is more than that. He is a man foreordained from before the world was to come along and follow Joseph; and so are you, every man. Do you know brother Joseph? You could think that the Spirit of Jesus could come in the meridian of time, —that is, when the time was half out—the first child that was born to his Father on this earth, and take a body. That all seems rational, through your traditions. But, perhaps, many of you have never thought that Joseph was with Jesus in the spirit world ere the organization of this earth, and came forth in this last dispensation.

If you all live your religion and are faithful to the end of your days, that proves that you were chosen as were Jesus and John, who were prophesied of many hundred years before they came, as were many others. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was raised up to bear the Savior. Elizabeth was ordained and set apart to come along near the meridian of time, and so we were ordained to come along near the end of time.

You will find out that I am telling you the truth, and that is why I want you to live your religion and serve your God, keep His commandments, and listen to your brethren.

I bless you, and I wish I could make the blessings of God cleave to you like a plaster, that they would never leave you until you become righteous men and women. I bless the earth that we occupy, and the hills and mountains; and I bless every good thing there is; and I curse the ungodly and everything that is attached to them and that will stick to them. Amen.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Afternoon, July 5, 1857.

I can say one thing in regard to preaching before this congregation. It is a great deal harder to speak to the people in the afternoon than it is in the forenoon, because they generally come together after partaking of a hearty dinner; and that, in connection with the word they receive in the forenoon, fills them up, and they are somewhat like a barn that is nearly full of hay; for you know it is a great deal harder to put in the last load of hay than it is the first. I speak of these things because the circumstances that surround us call them forth.

In relation to the things we have heard today from brother Brigham, and brother Feramorz, and others, I will say that I appreciate them, and I not only believe them, but I know them to be true. This is the work of God, and all the world cannot stay its progress. They have given me the character in the world of calling things by their right names. It is a good deal with them as it was with the old Dutchman, who said, “It is not the thing itself, but it is the name of the damned thing!” That is it exactly. They can talk and hint about everything, but never call them by their names. I call that hypocrisy; and there never was a nation that lived upon the earth that was fuller of it than this nation.

As to what they call “Mormonism”—properly speaking, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I say it is true; and Joseph Smith the Prophet, who was killed in Illinois, in Carthage Jail, is the author of it; or, in other words, he was the instrument in the hands of God of bringing it forth. Peter, James, and John, three of the ancient Apostles, came and ordained him and set him apart for the work of the ministry of this last dispensation.

I am bearing testimony of those things that are true—things that I know and understand. And I also testify that Hyrum Smith was a Patriarch of God, and just as much so as Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob ever were. Joseph Smith the Prophet ordained his father a Patriarch, and he ordained Hyrum. The same Gospel which was preached by Jesus and by His Apostles has been delivered unto us through Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the living God; and the keys and powers pertaining to that Gospel and priesthood are now resting upon brother Brigham Young; for he is Joseph’s legal successor. All the prophets from the days of Adam and from the creation of the world have conferred their priesthood and keys of this dispensation, and brother Brigham holds them in connection with the old Prophets and Apostles, and in connection with our Father and God pertaining to this earth.

I am telling you the truth, and testifying to that which God has made manifest unto me. Well, the world want that we should lay aside that which God has revealed, and not speak of Joseph Smith, or of the revelations which he gave.

When I was abroad preaching, some said to me, we would be popular if we would say nothing about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, baptism for the remission of sins, or the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost; they said if we would let these things alone we would be popular. Good heavens! We are now more popular than any other religious community upon the earth. We extend, as some would call it, from Dan to Beersheba; we extend to every nation, continent, and country, and almost to every island of the sea. The Gospel has been carried to almost every people. We have offered them the principles of life and salvation, and we shall continue to do so while there is any hope for them.

I expect, like us, the inhabitants of the earth will have their ups and downs, their troubles and afflictions. There has been a great chill among them: they had one when we had one; and now the fever has begun to increase with us it has begun to increase upon them; and by-and-by there will be another chill; and it will keep doubling and redoubling till the whole world is in motion. Will it overthrow this work? No, never.

I want the gentlemen that are here today, and who are going East, to tell the people of the United States that they need not trouble themselves; for “Mormonism” will increase and triumph until every king will be cast down from his throne, and the President of the United States, unless he and the people repent; and what they call “Mormonism” will continue to increase henceforth and forever.

When they killed Joseph Smith, and Hyrum, David Patten, and many others, they supposed that that was the end of “Mormonism”—that it was annihilated. Bless your souls, instead of its being annihilated, it has increased a hundredfold; and we have now more Elders preaching the Gospel—yes, about ten times more than there are people in this vast congregation this afternoon; and I presume there are some seven or eight thousand here today.

You may think this rather extravagant, but there are more Elders in England than there are people here today; and England is not as big as the State of New York, where I lived. They will spread and increase from this time on, and this work is bound to increase and spread abroad, and all hell cannot pull it down.

Suppose the Gentiles were to try to put it down, and to kill brother Brigham, and me, and brother Daniel, and the Twelve Apostles, still there are some fifty or sixty Quorums of Seventies that are capable of spreading abroad this kingdom. Why, bless you, it is like the mustard seed: you know it is most troublesome to get out of the garden. You get vexed with it and go and kick it about, and by that means you make ten thousand more little mustard trees.

Well, you know they drove us far away into these mountains; and now see the multitude of little mustard trees that are growing up! (Laughter.)

We want you to tell this, gentlemen, when you get down to the States; for we don’t have a mail very often, and therefore we drop a word here and there, and we want everybody to carry the tidings. It is not only me, but the Prophet Brigham talks just so. I suppose you will think, “What a monstrous fellow he is!”

I have been afflicted with colds ever since I came from the north; but I, all the time, grow fat. I do not drink ale, whiskey, rum, or any kind of spirituous liquor, but I seek to drink largely of the peaceable Spirit of God, that I may be strengthening to my brethren and sisters. For the world and the United States, and their opposition, which they call outside pressure, we care very, very little. We have some big mountains between us and them, and they cannot remove them because they have not faith.

Such a row as there is in the States at the present time I never before heard of. It is “Mormonism!” Down with “Mormonism!!” Mr. President, send up the troops and set those “Mormons” in order.

Gentlemen [to the strangers], did you ever see anybody out of order here? Have you seen anybody drunk? You have not, unless it was yourselves. I have not seen anybody drunk—no, not on the fourth of July. I have not seen a drunken man in the streets, much less a woman. One reason is, perhaps, that we have not got any liquor; and God grant that we may not have much.

You do not see many people about our streets idling away their time. Tomorrow morning you may see a few persons who have come from the country to get a little counsel; but after that you won’t see a man in the street, excepting those who are going to or coming from their work; for they are all hard at work, hoeing their corn, watering their wheat, and getting their wood from the canyons.

God Almighty bless this people, I say, and increase their faith and their strength, that they may increase and multiply. And may God increase the “mustard seed,” and cause it soon to fill the earth. May the Lord our God bless the bees in the hive of Deseret, and root out the drones; for they only eat out the honey, while the bees go out and gather it in.

Well, gentlemen, we are calculating that we have got the best crops that we have ever had, and the best that are in the world; and the Lord our God has blest the land for our sake. We had a famine last year, but we lived through it; and we are now going to work to lay up our grain, and we are building storehouses to store it away in; and we shall not only store away grain but other things that will keep; and the day will come that you (strangers) will have to come to us for bread to eat; and we will be your saviors here upon Mount Zion. You don’t believe it now; but wait a little while, and you will see that it will come to pass.

Many of the people of the United States exulted over us when we were brought to a morsel of bread, and had to deal out one to another in order to subsist. I put my family on short rations, in order to have some to deal out to others, and so did brother Brigham and many others; and at the same time our enemies and the priests in their pulpits were praising God that we had hard times, with trouble and perplexity. We never were more happy in our lives than we were at that time, and we did not have the bellyache through eating too much; but we were lively and diligent in serving God; and that is the reason we are becoming so corpulent this year. Last year we had not enough, but this year we have plenty, and we are going to lay it up in store—wheat and everything that will keep. I am telling these gentlemen what we are going to do, so that they can carry the news to the States.

Ladies, we do not want you to tease your husbands for silks, and satins, and fine bonnets, but go to work and manufacture your own clothing; and if you will do that, you will do the best thing that you ever did in your lives. This is as true as that the Lord ever spoke by His prophets. The time has come for us to lay up our stores.

Will the world follow our example? No, they will not; and if we do our duty, who cares whether they do or not. They will come with their bonnets, their fine clothing, and their jewelry, and be glad to work for us to get their bread. You tell that in the States, gentlemen, won’t you? Whether you do or not, they will learn of it. They publish nearly everything that we say, and this will be published.

We are a people, here in the valleys of the mountains, who are hated and have been broken up and driven for our religion till we have got used to it. Brother Brigham told you he had been driven five times, and so have I; and I have had everything taken from me that I had; but yet I have got enough to eat and drink, and enough of everything, and so have you; and my prayer is, all the while, God bless you.

Lay up your stores, and take your silks and fine things, and exchange them for grain and such things as you need, and the time will come when we will be obliged to depend upon our own resources; for the time is not far distant when the curtain will be dropped between us and the United States. When that time comes, brethren and sisters, you will wish you had commenced sooner to make your own clothing. I tell you, God requires us to go into home manufacture; and, prolong it as much as you like, you have got to do it.

You will also see the day that you will wish you had laid up your grain, if you do not do it now; for you will see the day, if you do not take care of the blessings God has given to you, that you will become servants, the same as the world will.

We have told you this before. You have been exhorted, year after year, to prepare for hard times: you have been told of this often enough. We have told you that when hard times come again you won’t have the privilege that you had last time of having food dealt out to you gratuitously, but you will have to pay for all you get. This will come to pass. I suppose there are many who don’t believe it. To such it is like a tune that strikes upon the drum of the ear, passes off, and is forgotten.

I will prove to you that I will put my faith with my works and lay up stores for my family and for my friends that are in the United States, and I will be to them as Joseph was to the people in the land of Egypt. Every man and woman will be a savior if they will do as I say. You may write this down and send it to the States; for it will be published.

Let repentance take place amongst you where it is necessary, and let confidence, diligence in the performance of duty, and humility be manifest in your lives; keep the commandments of God; be subject to God’s authority, and save yourselves all the time; and the Lord our God will have pleasure in making you like Joseph of old. Now, if persons were coming from the old country, from far distant lands, would you not feel comfortable if you had plenty to feed them with when they come?

These things bear heavily upon my mind, and they have done so for some time. There are very few who have got any surplus grain on hand. There is considerable in the Tithing Store, and there are a few individuals who have some on hand; but there is not a great deal in the country, excepting our present crop. It behooves us to be saving and to prepare for the time to come. The day will come when the people of the United States will come lugging their bundles under their arms, coming to us for bread to eat. Every Prophet has spoken of this from the early ages of the world. Already we begin to see sickness, trouble, death, famine, and pestilence; and more yet awaits the nations of the wicked. Jesus said, When you hear of these things in foreign nations—destruction and desolation, you may then look forth for my coming, and know that it is nigh at hand. In relation to the world, our enemies, their soldiery, and their governors, I do not fear them, and I never did.

If you will do right—keep the commandments of God, I can say with all the propriety that any man, prophet, or apostle ever did, you shall never want for food, or raiment, or houses, or lands; and no power on the earth can injure you. There is no power that shall prevent our prosperity; for we shall increase, while every other power upon the earth that is opposed to this work and our God will go down. I just know it. Amen.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, June 21, 1857.

My health is not very good, though I am in most excellent spirits. I have a good spirit on me, and my spirit is to do good; I have no other desire in my heart. And when I do good to my brethren and my sisters, it is the greatest happiness I have in this life to see them appreciate it; and the next thing is for me to appreciate everything I receive from God through my brethren.

Is there anything in this life that I hold more dear to me than I do this Gospel and this kingdom? If there is, I know it not. If there ever should an object get between me and that, I should most humbly desire that object might be taken from me.

I am a weak man, and I am in a fallen world—in a world of devils and evil and corrupt spirits. Will they seek to afflict me in my body? They seek to afflict brother Brigham in his body; and it is just about as much as he can do to live and dwell here. And if it was not for the Spirit of God that inspires him, he would not want to live here; he would want to leave, and so would I.

I just know that there are more devils in this valley and in the world who are opposed to him and his two counselors, than there are opposed to all the Elders of Israel; but they do not know it. And then their opposition is made manifest against those who stand next to us in authority, and so on down. But we shall live and prosper. And this people—every man, woman, and child that will follow brother Brigham and his brethren, will go into the celestial world also, as you have heard me say—every one of brother Brigham’s posterity and mine. And every man, woman, and accountable child that will live their religion, obey counsel, honor the Priesthood and our God, shall live.

A great many ask, “Why do you put those ifs into this promise? Because all promises and blessings are conditional: they are conjunctions; and where there is a conjunction there is a condition, if I understand the English language; and I believe that I understand it about as well as anybody. I can make grammar faster than you can swallow it; and my grammar is just as good as anybody’s, if theirs is not better than mine.

I feel to say, God bless you.

I have been pleased to hear brother Lamb today. He began his discourse at a period long before the possession of the garden of Eden by Adam, and came down to this time; and when he got down to where he himself was acting, he began to bear testimony of this work and of the servants of God living in his day, and the Holy Ghost fell upon him; and it did not until then. God bless him, that he may be blessed, and live long, and increase, that there may many lambs spring from him; and may the same blessing rest upon all of you who wish to increase. And those that do not wish to increase, may God help them to dry up quickly, that they may pucker up and come to an end. And let them that will increase, increase, and increase, and multiply, and fill the earth with the knowledge, and power of God. Why? Because this work is true.

Joseph was a true prophet of God, and Brigham is his successor, and I am his brother, and Daniel is my brother; and we will live and prosper until the devils are all shut up in hell, where they belong. They will cease troubling this earth: for they will all dry up like an old herring, as will every one that sympathizes for them or with them. Now, sympathize with the Devil, if you want to crimp up. Just as quick as you begin that, the juice will run out of your eyes; and when the juice is drawn out of a tree it will dry up and die.

God bless you. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, June 7, 1857.

I feel as though I would like to express a few of the sentiments and feelings that are passing in my mind. We have had much preaching, exhortation, correction, and reproof, and some might say a great deal of chastisement; though I call chastisement neither more nor less than reproof or correction. When we are corrected by our leaders, it is to set us right, to show us the wrong course, and induce us to pursue the right one. If I do wrong, if I get astray, it is perfectly right that someone should correct me; and when I am corrected, it is not right for me to justify myself; for, if I do, I sustain the course of an incorrect purpose. When I am corrected, it is my duty to listen, to reform, and walk in the straight and narrow way. If we will not learn by precept nor by example, we have to learn by the things we suffer. Is it not better for people to learn by correction than by bitter experience? The old saying is, that “Experience is a hard master.”

There are some who are not so much benefited by preaching as they might be, because they do not remember and apply what they hear. It has a pleasing effect upon the ear, like a tune well played upon a musical instrument, but makes so little of an impression, that it cannot be repeated by the hearer. The word does not enter the ear and proceed to the heart, which is the place of deposit. There the word of God should be deposited, which would be at the seat of government in the human form. We each have a seat of government within us, because we are incorporated bodies. Every man that comes into this world is an independent being, upon the same principle that our Father and our God is independent, only He is independent to a greater degree, being further advanced in perfection. He came here, and helped to organize this earth; and having had an experience in organizing earths before He came here, He was capable, and had every principle necessary to create this earth and fill it with inhabitants. If there had not been a seat of government in Him, and all those powers and faculties necessary to propagate the human species, He never could have done that work. We are His sons and daughters.

Now, what course is it for us to take as a people? It is for us to unitedly go to work and live our religion, practice it in our lives; and the more you live it and practice it the better you will be, and it will beget a love of truth and righteousness in you that you never can get rid of in time nor in eternity. Then our posterity will also partake of that holy principle which is in us, wherefore they will naturally love the truth from their infancy. A great many people do not think that our characters and course of life are going to affect our posterity, but they will. The seed from a good ripe cucumber will produce good fruit, like that which produced the seed. Has the woman an interest in this, as well as the man? She has. The tree that bears the fruit affects that fruit for better or worse. The Savior says that a good tree will produce good fruit, and a corrupt tree cannot produce good fruit, but it will produce corrupt fruit. Upon the same principle, how can a woman produce a good posterity when she is corrupt? She cannot.

If we will do right, will do just as we have been told in all things, we will dwell in peace and quietness from this time henceforth and forever, and I know it.

For sometime past, the weather has been warm, and the ground parched by heat, and now the Lord has again given us rain. What a beautiful shower we had last night! Do I not feel thankful? Yes, as much so as for anything of this nature I ever received. Did it bless me? Yes. It also blessed everyone of you, whether you have any grain, fruit, and vegetables growing, or not. Why? Because if you have not, you have to live upon the products of the fields and gardens of some of your neighbors. It affects everyone of you as much as it does me; you are blessed as much as I am; I can only eat what one man can eat. I cannot partake of these benefits to any greater amount than you can, and all that I expect while I dwell in the flesh is what I want to eat, clothes that are comfortable to wear, houses to live in, and what I want to drink; I cannot drink all City Creek myself; I can only just partake of enough of those blessings to sustain myself.

My feelings are that we are blessed above all the people that ever did live, that we read of. We are blessed above the people of Enoch; and far beyond the people in the days of Jesus, for they were driven, scattered, and peeled throughout the world, and they have never yet been able to gather again. But we are gathered, and we never will be scattered again—no never, while the earth stands, if you will do as you are told. Will we go to Jackson County? Yes, we will go there, just as we will to the city of Fillmore, independently. We will go and come at our pleasure, and no one to molest us; and we will build up that city, and that, too, upon natural principles, just as we go and build up Farmington, in Davis County, or this city, or any place we occupy.

How will it be with our enemies? The Lord deals with them and leads them, just as much as He does you and me. Can He hold them as with a bit, the same as you can a horse? Yes, and He can put it into the hearts of that people to send up a petition here for the Mormons to buy that whole land, and we will be under no necessity of shedding blood. God does not want to shed blood without it is necessary, any more than He wants us to go and slaughter a beast when we have no need of it. But when we have need of meat, and are driven to it by necessity, then it is all right. If it is necessary that we should shed blood, then it is right. All things are right that are done according to the will and pleasure of God.

My feelings are to exhort you, to pray you, be ye reconciled to God and to His servants; and if you will be reconciled to His servants you will be to God, and you cannot without. How can you be reconciled to a Being you never saw, and not to a being you do see? If you cannot love those you see and associate with everyday, how can you love a Being you never did see? It is impossible. And one of the greatest sins you commit is to sin against those you do know—those whom God has sent and authorized—for it is His authority which you rebel against; and, in sinning against it, you sin against God the Father who sent them. Upon the same principle, when we send brother Bernhisel to Washington, should they take him and misuse him, they show despite to the authority that sent him. You send a minister to Europe, and should they cast him out and whip him they show despite to the authority that sent him—to the whole United States, in case they had sent him.

Our Father and our God has sent Brigham and his brethren. If you rebel against them, you rebel against the authority that sent them. You sin not only against the authority or servants he has sent, but you sin against God who authorized them. If brother Brigham sends brother Wells to me as a delegate, to authorize me to do a thing, and I refuse, I sin against brother Brigham and against the one that sent him. Now, brethren, what are we told to do? Read a revelation that Joseph received of the Lord to Thomas B. Marsh concerning the Twelve; He told them to go forth and preach the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, or cause it to be done; and after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes, of famine, of fire, and of desolation; it shall come upon the world, and it shall begin at my house, saith the Lord, that is, with that portion who rebel against Him in the midst of His house.

You can also read other revelations wherein the Lord says that, after you have done so and so, He will send famine, and earthquakes, and desolating sickness, &c., &c.; and that he who rejecteth you rejecteth me, and he that rejecteth me rejecteth my Father and my God. When you do this, you do it at your own risk, and to your own sorrow and distress, and the Spirit of God will so teach you all the time.

These calamities are coming; go and read for yourselves. If you do not believe me, and brother Brigham, and the Twelve, believe the revelation that God gave to Joseph. And then, if you do not believe Joseph, believe Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Prophets; and if you cannot believe them, believe Jesus Christ; and if you cannot believe him, believe the Father. [Voice: “And if they believe the Father, they will believe all the rest.”] Yes; brother Brigham says that if you believe the Father, you will believe all the rest. You can believe Jesus; and if you can believe Jesus, you can believe his Apostles, and then you can believe Joseph and his Apostles, and brother Brigham and his Apostles. Has brother Brigham got Apostles? Yes, he has ordained Twelve. Brother Joseph ordained Twelve, and so did Peter.

Brother Brigham is an apostle of Jesus, and I know it, just as much as ever Joseph was. I do not ask you to believe that for me; I know it is true. Brother Brigham, myself, and some others walked with brother Joseph in his regeneration, but we do not know whether we shall sit at his right hand or his left, or not; that is for the Father or others to dictate. It mattereth not, however; for if we keep the commandments of God we shall triumph over the world, the flesh, and the devil, and over every person living upon God’s footstool that does not surrender themselves and all they have to him.

Brethren and sisters, this is the time in which to prepare. If you are not saved temporally in these Valleys, I shall not be. If you will take a course to bring distress on this people, we shall have to be distressed. I have learned enough to know that, when we were in Kirtland, and distress and desolation came upon this people, I had to suffer with them. I fled for England; brother Joseph and brother Brigham fled to Missouri; and every man that would honor “Mormonism” and sustain it had to flee. Why? Because some would not honor it. The righteous had to suffer with the wicked; and it is the ungodly who bring trouble upon the righteous, and they have to pay that debt. If it is not in ten thousand times ten thousand years, they will have to pay the debt for unlawfully bringing distress upon the righteous.

What shall we do? The Lord is blessing us; and such a time of blessing I never saw. We never have been blessed so much as we are this year. Go to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west, and you will see the earth matted over with vegetation to such an extent as I have never before seen. Go into our gardens and orchards, and you will find our trees even now actually breaking down with fruit. We shall have to thin out the peaches on the boughs, or they will break before they can ripen the load that is upon them. The limbs are breaking down with apples, plums, currants, and every kind of fruit that we are raising; and the strawberry vines would break down, if they were not already on the ground. I never saw the like in the States, nor in England, nor anywhere else.

The people are doing right; they are waking up; and the Lord looks upon us as a good father looks upon his boys who are in the field at work, digging and watering the ground, in the hot sun, up to the knees in mud, with their wives and their children. Says he, “My boys, you are good boys; I will give you some rain, I will wet your crops, and rest you a little while; but I will not let you have but a little water, for if I send the rains here the devil will come upon you with his gang. I will not let you have much rain, only enough to ease your labors a little while.” That is the way my Father feels, and I feel so, when I have His Spirit; and that is the reason I can comprehend Him when I have His Spirit. You have heard me say that I felt joyful, funny, and jocular, according to the portion of the Spirit of the Lord I enjoyed. Do I feel like dancing and jumping? Yes, and like doing everything else that is good and comfortable. When I have the Spirit of the Lord, I feel so; and that makes me think that my Father in heaven felt so before me.

Brethren, go and build your storehouses before your grain is harvested, and lay it up, and let us never cease until we have got a seven years’ supply. You may think that we shall not see times in which we shall need it. Do you not comprehend how comfortable it will be for us to know that we have grain enough to last us seven years? But it would make me feel bad for brother Brigham, myself, and a few others, and the Tithing Office, to have our granaries full, and the rest of the people have none. Why? Because we should have to hand out of our granaries as long as there was a kernel left. [Voice: “We should have to buy the whole of them.”] Yes, we should have to buy your fine dresses, your jewelry, and everything you have got; which we shall do, if you do not lay up in store.

I ask, would things have been with us as they are now, if we had not repented and commenced anew? Now, 7 tons, or 14,000 lbs. of flour are dealt out of the Tithing Office every week to the hands upon the Public Works; and can they reduce the supplies that are in that office? They have not been able to yet, for some of the cellars are being dug out to put in grain. We have not storeroom enough to hold it, and we are obliged to go to the flouring mills to get storage for it. And the men who deal out the flour say that they have not reduced the supplies on hand, that they continually keep about so, and a little more so. If you can account for that, go at it.

Does the Lord cause our grain to increase? He does, and that, too, upon natural principles. Sow one bushel of wheat, for instance; and when you harvest the product of that, you get, say, from 25 to 50 bushels. Where do those 25 or 50 bushels come from? Say that I go and put 100 pounds of flour into my bin, and that I afterwards take out forty times more flour than I put in, how did it come there? Upon the same principle that one bushel of wheat increased to forty. I will take one peach stone and plant it, and in about four years that peach stone will produce a tree that will bear from 500 to 1,000 peaches. Where did they come from? There was only one planted. They all come from the elements. Then cannot God increase our grain in the bin, as well as He can increase it in the field?

Brother Brigham and I once started with $13.50 and traveled 500 miles, paying $16 for every hundred miles travel, and paying for from two to three meals of victuals a day, and once in a while paying 50 cents apiece for a night’s lodging; and when we got through, we had not quite as much money as when we started. But if we had not any, it was quite a miracle, though we had some money left. We performed that journey with the means I have mentioned. That money we spent was in the elements, or else an angel of God went where it was, and got it, and put it into our pockets. Brother Brigham kept the purse; I put my money with his, and he kept paying out; and if it had been in the line of our duty to have kept traveling to this day, we should had money unto this day. And once in a while we would take a weak sling, for we were so weakened by disease that both of us could not take a common trunk two feet long and ten inches square and put it in a wagon. We were feeble, and we continued so until we landed on Europe’s shores, and then disease left us. The Devil meant to afflict us, to see whether he could not back us out; but he had two hard fellows to deal with.

The Lord was with us, and His angels went before us; and when we went to Kirtland, the people would not let us preach there only once apiece. I preached once, and compared them to a mess of old cracked pots, and everything else I could think of, and declared that I would not preach there again. I never wanted to. They said that we were under the censure of the Almighty, because we were sick and afflicted. The Lord suffered it to be so, that He might try their righteousness and virtue.

Let us go to work, every man and woman of us, and lay up our stores, and build good storehouses, and increase. If we will do this, brethren, we will have some of the finest seasons you ever saw. Our grain will increase, and we will lay a foundation for the world and the ungodly, and we will buy them for our servants. They will be glad to come and work for us for bread, and each one of us will be like Joseph in Egypt was to his father’s house. They will come to us and buy grain and the good things of this world; for I know that we are the people who have got to do that thing.

Will you be slack, brethren, and let the evil come upon us, when we forewarn you of the future events that are coming? Now, supposing that I had not the spirit of prophecy upon me, then I had better sit down. If a man gets up here and lets the Spirit of God dictate him, he cannot help prophesying, for the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of prophecy, and he will foretell future events, and you cannot help it. We are telling of what the prophets have said—of what the Lord has said to Joseph. Wake up, now, wake up, O Israel, and lay up your grain and your stores. I tell you that there is trouble coming upon the world. They have a pretty good drouth in some places this year. I do not know whether brother Amasa has told you, but almost everything is burnt up in Southern California. They have got to live there and get bread, and probably will be glad to take a handcart.

Is it so in the United States? It is. They have got to eat that dish; and when famine, pestilence, and starvation come upon us in a small degree, it will increase upon them fourfold, packed down and running over, and they cannot help it. Let them exult. There never was such a prejudice existing against this people as there is at this day. The Devil is stirring them up because we have commenced that Temple; and we will build it, and they cannot help themselves; and we will lay up the grain for seven years, and thousands of them will worship us for a little johnny cake, and I will live to see it: so will you. And when you see it, you will then have knowledge, won’t you?

We do not so much care whether you have any confidence in our being Prophets, or not; but if you will go to and do as you are told, you shall see these things, and have a knowledge of all we tell you. That is practical religion, if all men go to work and till the earth, raise grain, and live our religion, and not come up here as a few of you dandies do, and suck our vitals out of us by getting into fancy shops, and this, and that, and the other. You are no better than we are, and not half as good. We are the saviors of men, and we have got to work for it—to dig and scrape; and the harder we scrape the quicker it will come about. This people work, and they are the best people that ever did live; but there is a great chance for improvement.

I improved yesterday: I worked and made all the improvements I could, and did the best I could; but it came night, and I laid down to take a nap, which is typical of death. This morning I have risen up and again commenced my labors; and I am going to improve today, and do better than I did yesterday. But in comes another night of sleep; I lay down, which is typical of death; and I rise in the morning, which is typical of the resurrection, and I renew my labors. I have to begin where I left off; but you cannot realize but that you have to take one jump away ahead, when you come to leave your bodies and go into the spirit world. That is not so, for you will have to commence to hoe your row where you left off.

People talk about running races for a wager. No person can gain the wager, only those that run lawfully through to the place appointed. These half runs will not gain the prize. There are a great many that turn back and run the other way, but their road will be a thousand times longer than ours; and the straighter we run the nearer we get to the point we have to gain.

As for our storehouse ever being empty again—if we will take the course laid down to us, it will never be. And we have to increase our storehouses more than a hundredfold; and if this people take that course, the granaries will be fuller than they are now; and they must be built in a more substantial manner. And when we have built this Temple, it is hardly a comparison to what we will build the next time; and the Devil will still rage worse and worse, and he will rage, and rage, and foam; but if we will do right he never can come over these mountains; or, in other words, he may get here, but the tabernacles he wants to come here never can—no never, for they will fall without our touching them. [Voice: “And it will be laid on the ‘Mormons.’”] Yes, they lay the killing of Babbitt and Gunnison to the “Mormons,” and they say that Dr. Bernhisel will kill Brigham in one year [laughter in the stand and in the congregation], because he has got jealous of him. I must confess that would be the biggest miracle that I ever saw. Almost every evil that has been committed during the past twenty years has been laid upon the “Mormons;” and they are trying to make themselves believe that the “Mormons” have Danites, or destroying angels, in every nook and corner.

Now, you may call that extravagant, but the world believe it. I never saw people so foolish as are the world at this time, and they never can affect us. I want you to keep that in view. That is my text; they never can trouble us, if we do as we are told. And when brother Brigham crooks his little finger, let our hands move. I am preaching what they say.

We shall prosper, and the soil and the mountains will grow rich, and we will never lack for anything. We may draw wood out of the mountains continually, as we need it, and there will still be as much as there is now. We will eat bread to all eternity, and our bins will still be full. You may wear dresses to all eternity, if you will make them, and there will always be plenty.

I am in my element when I am among this people and speaking to them; and my prayer is, by night and day, that I may be as simple as a child in my communications, and speak the truth. As for my praying that God will make me eloquent, as the world call it, I never want it, but that He may make me eloquent in the truth, to speak it in its plainness and simplicity.

Brethren and sisters, here in these mountains is the center of government; here is headquarters for the whole earth; and this will be headquarters until this headquarters make another. And when headquarters are made at Jerusalem, we shall make them. Why? Because this is the dispensation of dispensations; and where Israel has dropped down, we have got to build them up and establish them, just as much as men and women have to be raised in the resurrection where they lie down, by the authority of God.

The earth is the Lord’s, and we are His servants; and let every man, according to the authority he possesses, dedicate his houses, the material of which they are built, the earth they stand upon, and his orchards and fields; and they will be blessed, and I know it. We are in the best place on the earth in which to sanctify and bless the earth and the inhabitants upon it, and the mountains, and the little hills, and the fountains of water. That is our business, and to bless each other, and build each other up, and raise up a pure and a holy people. That is what we are here for; and if you do not honor the calling you are called to, you will be good for nothing.

God bless you, brethren; God bless you, sisters; and God bless your children, and the earth, and all there is in it, for your sake. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, May 31, 1857.

Brother Brigham has expressed my feelings in regard to our journey to Salmon River, so far as he has spoken upon that subject. The trip was considerably fatiguing, for our travel averaged nearly two hundred miles a week, which left but little time to rest, only when our animals were eating. Yesterday and the day before I felt sick, and I told brother Brigham that I felt as though I was sore and afflicted from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. That expression conveys an idea of my physical feelings, and still I have recruited, for I am now eight pounds heavier than I was when I went away.

As for the country north, I am satisfied with it; for, were we to go a great way beyond where we were, it would not be an easy job to touch us, for we got pretty nearly to the end, and there was no way to get further with wagons, but by crossing the Rocky Mountains, to some of the headwaters of the Missouri. But with all the poor country I have seen during our journey, much of it is far beyond that part of Vermont in which I was raised until I was eleven years of age; and had I always remained there, I never should have personally known but what it was a beautiful country; for people are prone to think that the regions they are brought up in are the most beautiful in the world. I have been back there twice, and have never found, in all my travels through these mountains, so rough a country as where I was born; and I presume it was so where brother Brigham, and Joseph Smith, and many more of the Elders of the House of Israel were born: they came from a rough, hard country.

After receiving the Gospel, the Lord has so ordered it, that we have come to where he has led us, because at present there was no other place. We have come into the mountains, to become inured to hardship, privation, and want, and to raise up a posterity that will become hard, substantial men, to bear off this kingdom to every nation and kingdom upon the face of the earth. That is why it is so, and I am thankful. I would not change these mountains for any portion of the earth I ever beheld, until God has accomplished His designs with us here. When He has done this, and when we have overcome and kept His commandments, these mountains and these valleys are ours, and all the earth in the four quarters thereof, and we can go and come at our pleasure; and that day is not a great way off, for many generations will not pass away before that time will come.

I do not fear the world. We are here in the mountains and in the valleys, and are as secure here as though we were in heaven; because, if we were there, and did not keep the commandments, we would have to suffer the consequences. When Lucifer sinned against God and His commandments, he was cast out, with all those that sustained and upheld him in his rebellious course. Many suppose that when they get to heaven they can sit down upon flowery beds of ease and have nothing to do. I never expect that day. It is just so with a great many, when they come here, they suppose that everything is going to be prepared for them; they suppose that they will sit down in ease, and eat, and drink, and wear, and that there will be no person to trouble them. We have come here to become inured to work—to build temples, and improve upon the elements that God has placed around us, that we may become more skillful tomorrow, through the experience of today. What I do not today, when the sun goes down, I lay down to sleep, which is typical of death; and in the morning I rise and commence my work where I left it yesterday. That course is typical of the probations we take. But suppose that I do not improve my time today, I wake up tomorrow and find myself in the rear; and then, if I do not improve upon that day, and again lay down to sleep, on awaking, I find myself still in the rear. This day’s work is typical of this probation, and the sleep of every night is typical of death, and rising in the morning is typical of the resurrection. They are days’ labors, and it is for us to be faithful today, tomorrow, and everyday.

Brethren, this is the course we have to take; it is a progressive work from one day to another, and from one week to another; and if we advance this year, we are so far advanced in preparation to better go through the next year. If I have one thousand bushels of wheat laid up this year, can you not understand that I am better qualified to lay up two thousand bushels during the next year? And then in the succeeding year I am better prepared to add four thousand bushels to my amount on hand, and then eight thousand, and so on.

My feelings are for us to wake up as a people, everyone of us; and, instead of taking a course to throw away our substance, let us gather together; for, so sure as this people will do this, they will be blessed, and God will hold the nations by the bit, as you hold a horse. If we are faithful, He will do it—mark my words. God will hold the world by the bit, and they cannot help themselves. If we will do right from this time henceforth they never can move or take a step against us, but what they will fail in it; and I know it. It is for us to do right, to walk humbly, and keep the commandments of God, repent where we have done wrong, and do wrong no more.

There never was a time when the devil worked harder with this people than now. He will work with men and women, and try to stir up contention in this Church; and you have got to guard against it with all your hearts. As brother Brigham has mentioned, there never was a time when the devil worked harder to destroy this people than now; and it is for every man and woman and child to wake up, and live their religion, and serve their God. Now is the time. Is it a good time? I never saw a better time since I was on the earth than I see today. I never saw this people so prosperous, and I never saw the earth with such a carpet upon it as it has this year. In all the lands I ever traveled, I never saw such wheat, and oats, and barley, as are now growing from here to Bear River; and they say it is so in the south, in the east, and in the west. And at Limhi the crops look promising. They have sowed 125 bushels of wheat and other grain at Salmon River.

Everything is flourishing; but how easy God can clip it, even now. He can send the grasshoppers, and make a perfect desolation of this year’s crop, as easily as I can throw this book lid over. Why? Because He rules in the armies of heaven, and controls the affairs of this earth, according to His own pleasure, and the world know it not. He sends angels and ministering spirits to transact His business, upon the same principle that brother Brigham sends his brethren to England, Denmark, the States, and this way, and that. He sits upon His throne and says, Joseph, go and do that; Peter, attend to that; and they do it. This is a natural principle there just as much as here, though the people cannot realize it so sensibly. He sends his Elders and delegates, as we sent brother George A. Smith, and brother Bernhisel, and brother John Taylor. Brother Brigham did not go; but his authority accompanied those brethren; also the power of God who controls him. If I should tell one of my wives to go to Box Elder and transact business for me, she has more authority in that matter than any king upon his throne, or the President of the United States. Why? Because she goes in my authority.

I go in brother Brigham’s authority, which is the authority of God. That power you have all got, so far as you are faithful. I have heard brother Brigham say that a Bishop now has more influence over his ward than Joseph had over the Church in his day. Joseph could not so thoroughly control the people, for they were wild like bulls; but when he could not make them do what he wanted them to, he suffered them to do what they pleased.

I speak of these things by way of encouragement to you, brethren and sisters. You are a good people: I respect you; I have pride in you, when you live your religion; but let us wake up. We have done first-rate; but we can wake up more, and keep waking up, and attend to the things you have been told to attend to; and one of them is, to lay up stores of corn, wheat, oats, peas, beans, buckwheat, and everything else that can be preserved; for you will see a day when you will want it; and it will be when we shall feel the effects of famine, and when the United States have not any food. And inasmuch as we are wise and prudent in this matter, we shall have power over them, and they cannot help themselves. And the day will come when the wicked shall not come here to impose upon our good feelings, and for us to nourish them, while they are infusing the poison of their corruption in our midst. I have borne and borne that wickedness until I will not bear it any longer. How long have I borne their abuse? For twenty-five years; and the law of the land is, that a man is of age when he is 21; and we have served four years beyond that time, free gratis. We are now pretty free, and we will be more free when we are thirty. It will be so, if we will do right.

It takes us all to do right, like the limbs and branches of one tree partaking of the nourishment of the stock to which they belong, and the stock draws its nourishment from the root. Let us find out the nature of the roots, that we may better understand the trunk and the branches. I have to take the alphabet of salvation with which to learn the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, and then, as I progress, I can read all the celestial law by the same letters. We learn the alphabet of the English language, then we learn the spelling book, the reader the geography, history, and everything by means of the same alphabet.

The first principles of the doctrine of Christ are the alphabet of the celestial law; therefore, not leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. Let us be diligent in keeping the commandments of our God, that we may be saved in His celestial kingdom. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 19, 1857.

We have heard, I will say, most excellent doctrine from brother Lorenzo Young. What can be better? It is truth, and truth is light, and light is life.

Inasmuch as we receive the truth, we receive light; and if we receive light, we receive life. If that principle is in us, and it abounds—that is, in the practice of good works, it will be in us as a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Why? Because that little light—that little life that dwells in us, has got to run back into the fountain of life, just the same as a stream of water runs into its fountain, the sea. If these principles dwell in us and abound, they go back into the fountain of everlasting lives, and lead us into the reservoir of all truth. Why is it the reservoir of all truth? Because all truth emanates from that fountain, and everything that emanates from it has to be restored back thereto. There must be a restoration of all things which have been spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets since the world began.

Is there also a fountain of lies? Yes; inasmuch as we receive a lie, we are impregnated with the influence of it. Although we have received it from another person, inasmuch as we received it for a truth and cultivate it, we nourish the principles of lies within us; and all lies, all dishonesty, everything that is unwholesome, and that has not emanated from God, the fountain of all good, have emanated from the fountain of lies or error.

Then, upon the same principle, all lies have got to be restored to their fountain from whence they came; and those who become amalgamated must be restored to the same fountain where all liars go. So everything has got to be restored to the fountain from whence it came. If this is not so, I am grandly mistaken.

Will God restore and bring back his children? Yes. If every son and daughter of Adam are not brought back into His presence, or into the fountain from whence they sprang, it will be because they have perverted themselves and have become inoculated with the principles of evil until they are depraved. God will restore the righteous to His presence by righteousness, and the unrighteous to the fountain of unrighteousness with the principle of evil they have imbibed.

I am a full-blooded Restorationist you will perceive. I know, as well as I know anything, that everything must be restored to its own place, and this upon natural principles.

I did not think of these ideas before I rose to speak; but, as quick as I got up here, they came to me the same as though I had always been acquainted with them.

When we want the Spirit of Christ, what course shall we take to get it? There is but one way. Brother Brigham is our leader, our Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, to organize and set in order this Church and kingdom; and my calling is to be one with him, to assist him and act with him, and have the same spirit in me that is in him. That is my calling, whether I live up to it or not to the fullest extent. I should be one with him in all things, and should partake of the same power—the same spirit of revelation; and if I partake of these elements with him, then I am one with him; and if I do not come up to these privileges and duties, I am so far a hindrance to him, and draw him back instead of helping him forward.

Talk about blocking wheels, I tell you, gentlemen, you have no power or business to do that in the last days. The car is started, and will never stop to need blocking: you cannot block it.

[Voice: “They cannot run fast enough to block it.”]

No; those who are not in that car are unable to keep up with it or to block it behind or before.

I have got on the car; I am in the kingdom of God in the last days, which will continue and bring in the winding up scene of all things. Do you suppose it goes bumping along like an old, worn out, overloaded conveyance, and every three or four feet somebody come along and put a block behind the wheel to keep it from rolling back? Get out with your nonsense. Brother Brigham, our leader, and myself, with every true Saint of God, have got on a car that moves swiftly along, and will never stop to need a block behind or before; and those that have not the spirit and power of this kingdom can never trammel it in its course—not one hair’s breadth.

I have heard the Elders talk about blocking the wheel, as though they were giving great assistance; but, let me tell you, such a man would be in a poor business: it will be with him a good deal, as it was with those anciently who undertook to steady the ark of the Lord: they were broken to pieces.

Now, there are a great many people going from here. Are they going to hinder this work? No; they have gone as missionaries to advance it tenfold faster, I will say, than if they had not gone. They cannot do anything against the truth, but for it. What they may do will make it more permanent, if their doings and sayings affect it at all.

Now, I pray; and you pray, many of you, and are humble: you pray for brother Brigham; you pray that the Holy Ghost may rest upon him; and then you pray that brothers Heber and Daniel may be one with him as he is one with Joseph, and as Joseph is one with Peter, Peter with Jesus, and Jesus with his Father.

Now, what course should I pursue? I should evade everything that would prevent me from stepping forward and being one with brother Brigham. Now, which would be the most profitable, and advance the cause of God the most, if a person should step in and undertake to break asunder that union that exists in the First Presidency of this Church, for me to allow it, or to step forward and slay him or her? It would be better for me to slay them and let the union continue; for it is better for one person to suffer than a whole nation to perish.

I pray that I may have the Spirit of my Father and my God, and the Spirit of Jesus, my elder brother, who is like unto his Father; and I pray that I may partake of the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, which is in the same family and lineage. Well, then, Father, let that Spirit and that power that was in Peter, and in James, and John, rest upon Brigham, and Heber, and Daniel; and then, Father, let the same power rest upon the Twelve Apostles that rested on the Twelve anciently; and let the same power and blessings rest upon the Seventies that were on the Seventies anciently; and let the same power rest upon the Patriarchs and Prophets that rested upon those orders anciently; and let the Bishopric and lesser Priesthood be blessed with the power of the calling and priesthood which rested upon those officers in former days.

Let this people pray for the same Spirit of the Father that rested upon the Patriarchs and Prophets, Jesus and his Apostles, upon Joseph and Brigham, and his brethren; for you never can become one unless you obtain that Spirit of oneness.

You have heard brother Brigham preach it here time and time again, and other men, that a scattering spirit was not the Spirit of God; and I know it is not. A spirit in a man’s family that don’t gather with him and act with him—is that the same kind of a spirit he possesses? No; it is the spirit of evil, and one that will lead a man or woman to death and destruction; and they cannot prosper who encourage it.

What course shall we take? The course we are taught and directed from time to time, by the revelations we have received that pertain to us, and by the teachings of the servants of God; and that will make us one.

Perhaps there may be some here who believe in Joseph Smith as a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, and not in Brigham; but if you believe Joseph, it is all I ask of you. Don’t that book say there shall be a famine and sickness, death and destruction among the nations? And don’t it say it shall begin here, or at the house of God, first? Say you, “That was in Kirtland.” Well, Kirtland is here. Another says, “That was in Nauvoo.” I want to know if the Nauvoo Legion is not here, with all its officers? The kingdom is here, the empire of God is here, and everything pertaining to this kingdom.

The Lord may say to brother Brigham, I want you to go to San Bernardino and take this people. I want to know if Kirtland, Nauvoo, Great Salt Lake City, &c., are not there? If our Governor sits at one corner, or on one side, or under the table, that is the head.

It is so; Kirtland is here, Nauvoo and Winter Quarters are here, and the Nauvoo Legion is here: it certainly is, and they are going to train tomorrow, with all our officers. Brother Daniel is our Lieutenants-General, and brother Brigham is Governor still, and I am Lieutenant-Governor, and I am Daniel’s Lieutenant-General. We have all got generalship about us, don’t you see? And if we live faithfully, we shall have worlds without end; and we never shall cease our operations in this earth, nor in heaven; and if we do not whip out hell before we get through, it is because there is none. Find me a place where hell is, and we will root it out. Is hell always going to be on this earth? No; we’ll tumble it overboard, or else it shall go on another earth, or we will throw it out of the back window.

In a pottery establishment, their broken jugs, churns, teapots, all the ware that has been glazed, and burnished, and made fit for burning, but have cracked in the burning, and broke to pieces, they throw through the back windows: they do not go into the mill again, but are thrown upon a heap to return again to their native element, or to be used for such purposes as they may serve, and they do not decompose very quick. The potter takes such broken ware and crushes it under a large stone wheel, mixes the coarse powder with a little clay, and makes it into what they call sagers, which are in the shape of a half-a-bushel with a bottom. These serve for a protection to the finer articles of ware in the operation of burning; these sagers are filled with fine ware, and piled one on the top of another in the furnace. Why do they make the sagers of that material? Because, if they should make them of close, raw clay, they would crack; the fire would get through them and defile the ware inside. They take these broken dishonored vessels for this purpose, because they are porous and good for nothing else; they are made as vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.

God makes use of them as sagers to defend the better material in the time of burning and trial by fire. God used Pharaoh upon the same principle: he was a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction. Did God fit him for destruction? No; no more than I would make a vessel to be destroyed. I never made one on that principle; but when I made vessels, it was to honor.

Did I go to England and preach the Gospel, win souls, and bring them here, to deny the faith, and go to hell? No. We go to win souls that we may save them and have joy with them in the day of eternity. I did not go to England for your money, or your goods, or fine things: if I went there for that purpose, I was disappointed. [Voice, “I guess you were.”] I guess I was, and brother Brigham was, when I had to borrow money to pay our passage across the sea. I never went there for that, but some have. But what of that?

There are a great many people in the world that God ordained to give them their endowment, and they become vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction. Have we not labored years here, and toiled to give you our blessings, and endowments, and anointings, and then sealed you up, and this, and that, and the other? Do you see them turn away? Did we make them so? We gave them all their blessings as much as we have given you yours; and they have be– come vessels of wrath, they are fitting for destruction, and they will go and do the work of God, and He will bring about His purposes by them, and they will be destroyed, they will be used for sagers for a while, and answer as a shield—a protector to the house of Israel.

Now you say I believe in the principle of election. I do; I believe everything that is right. Everybody is elected that will be elected, and then honor their calling and priesthood, and obtain the blessings and promises; and if they be faithful to the end of their days, they will be saved—everyone of them. That is as far as I believe in election; and there are some elected to be damned. Why? Because they have taken a course to be damned, and they go to that fountain where they belong, and from whence they have drawn the evil principles that have changed them into vessels of wrath. That restores everything to its place.

Why must they go to that place—to the fountain of destruction? Because they have received those elements; and they have to go to that fountain to carry them back, or they carry you back with them because they predominate in you. That is my way of restoration.

If I gather good, virtuous, holy, pure, and undefiled principles, and have always been true and faithful to my brethren and to my God, these principles predominate in me and bring me to the fountain from whence they emanated.

Now, how can you help yourselves? You cannot. If I keep the commandments of God, I cannot be turned away from the true path, and so continue to the day of my death. I shall go into the celestial kingdom of our God, while those who take the opposite course will be damned and go to hell, where they belong.

If you want the spirit of the Pro– phets—the spirit that brother Brigham has got, which is the spirit of Joseph (and Joseph had the spirit of Peter, from whence he received the Priesthood), you must live your religion. Do you not see it is a line running, drawn from the Father to the Son, and from the Son to the Apostles, then to Joseph, then to brother Brigham, and then to those that are connected with him in their callings?

As I told brother Franklin the other day, I hit him a crack on the stand. Some have an idea that I have no business to speak. If I have not, I will tell you I have a right to give you a crack over the head, and then the head will talk to you. Since I hit brother Franklin over the head, then the head began to talk with him; and, says he, I will never hit you a crack with my right arm if you do right. I have a right to correct you, because I have the spirit of brother Brigham, or else I should never have done it.

You will admit I am his right arm. Is it the head that strikes? No; says he, You fellow, you give him a crack, and perhaps that will bring him to his senses; then I will talk to him. And what hurt did it do? It did hundreds of men good that were as faulty in some things as he was in that: it waked them up.

I will profit by the lash you got on your back, brother Franklin; and I will be cautious to do right. I did not get it on mine. Do I think any less of him? Not one particle. I love him better, because he received it and bowed under it as humble as a little child. Whom do I think less of? Those persons who will not receive a chastisement when they are guilty, but will justify themselves in their sins. I do not receive the spirit that is in them, because it is a spirit of evil. Did I ever? No.

I can remember an instance or two where I did wrong; but did I humble myself? Yes, like a little child; and it seemed as though I never could get over it. Said I, “I am sorry brother Brigham; won’t you forget it and let it pass?” I could have wept my eyes out, and melted into tears my whole body. Did brother Brigham despise me for it? No, he loved me better. I do not want to give him occasion to chastise me; but if I do, what course shall I take? Shall I get up here to justify myself? No; the Lord God Almighty help me from ever doing such a thing as that. When I am guilty, I am guilty. Supposing I don’t know it—if he says it, that is enough.

There is nothing that will lead to damnation and destruction quicker than self-justification when you are guilty of sin. As brother Orson said last Sunday, it is the first step to apostasy. Those men or women who will justify themselves in sin, and persist in that course, will deny this Gospel, and will go overboard. Were they one with Israel? No. Were they one with God’s anointed? No. Were they one with their husbands? No. Were they one with the principle to which they were connected in the Gospel? No.

These are my views; they are the views of my brethren, and the views of Jesus; for he says, except we are one, we are not his. We should be one, like a large tree.

Some say they have tasted of the fruit of the tree of life. I have been talking about it: that tree is light, and light is life; the fruit is the element of the tree of life; and, except every man and woman on the earth become grafted into it, and into Christ, they will be lost.

You read about the tree of life: it says there are twelve manner of fruit on it. Some will say it means the twelve tribes of Israel. Admit this; they are grafted in; and then we will admit that we are their children, and that we belong to one of those tribes. If we are not grafted into the limbs of this tree according to our place, we shall be lost.

I do not care which way you take it, it is just as long one way as the other. We belong to some of those families you must admit; and I suppose all belong to the house of Israel; some of the blood of Ephraim, and some of Joseph, some of one, and some of another. Because we belong to the house of Israel, is it going to save us? No. Because we have been cut off in our fathers; and we have got to be grafted in; for God said he did not acknowledge any covenants when this Church commenced; all old covenants were done away. Enter into the strait gate, therefore; and don’t you counsel me. Don’t counsel brother Brigham. You can come to him for counsel; so can I; but I do not undertake to chastise him, nor to justify myself; but, say I, “Brother Brigham, I pray of thee, I entreat of thee, I beseech of thee to do this or that.” Brother Daniel cannot chastise me without I am out of my place, any more than I can brother Brigham.

I entreat of my father to give me a piece of bread and butter, for I am hungry; that is the course for me to take; that is the course for the Twelve, the Seventies, High Priests, Bishops, Elders, &c., to take; and that is the course, ladies, for you to take with your husbands, and the course your children ought to take towards their parents,

Would not that make us one? There is no other principle that will make us one, only to be amenable to where we belong; and every person who refuses to be will go to destruction—I do not care whether they are men or women—and you cannot help yourselves. Amen.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1857.

I do not know that I can speak so that all of you can hear distinctly. You will have to be very still, or it will be impossible for me to speak to your edification. You have heard what brother Wells has said in reference to the Temple, the canal, &c. The Temple is designed for many purposes, and there are many things that God will reveal and many blessings that he will confer upon this people in that building, if they will use due diligence in forwarding its completion.

Some may think that the erection of the Temple more particularly devolves upon brother Brigham, brother Heber, brother Daniel, the Twelve, and a few of the Seventies, High Priests, and Bishops; and when it is finished they may imagine that they will receive their blessings therein; but that work is designed to be general. There must needs be a universal exertion, not only by the leading official members of this Church, but by every member, male and female; for the Temple is not for us alone; it is also for our sons, and daughters, and succeeding generations. They will receive blessings in it, and therefore it concerns them as well as us.

If I obtain all the blessings of the Priesthood, all the endowments, all the blessings that God has to confer upon us in this probation, and keep those things sacred while I live, I am then as pure and holy as it is possible for a man to be while in the flesh. Then, if my wives are one with me, my children and their posterity will partake of those blessings which have been placed upon me. Every blessing conferred upon me tends to benefit my posterity. Those blessings are for every righteous man; and the blessings that are conferred upon faithful men and women in their holy anointings and sealings will rest upon their posterity after them forever and forever, through their faithfulness; and there is no end to it.

It is a strong additional inducement for you to live your religion, in view of the benefits that will be continued to your posterity. If you can only bear this in mind, I think it will serve to keep you steadfast in the line of your duties. Will our posterity partake of the blessings we will receive in the Temple which we are building? They will, forever and forever. Our blessings are to continue always. If we live so as to attain to the principles and fulness of perfection and to secure the promises of eternal lives, then those blessings will rest upon us and our children.

How long will it take this people to build the Temple on this Block, supposing that every man and woman, and every child that has arrived at the years of accountability, will unitedly strive for its completion? Not very many years. Were I laboring on that Temple, I would constantly endeavor to work upon it with an eye single to pushing it forward, and to the blessings I expected to receive therein. But supposing that you do not all live, will you not be benefited by it? Yes, you will.

We are now attending to matters that will answer every purpose, until that Temple is completed. Those who go through their endowments now and are sealed up unto eternal lives, those blessings will stick to them, if they will stick to the blessings and promises that are made ever unto them, and step forward with one heart and one mind to do the will of God as made known to them from time to time from this stand.

Is it requisite that every member of my family should feel the same interest that I do in my welfare and posterity? Yes, every woman and child, from the oldest to the youngest. They should be just like a tree that has many branches to it. The extremity of the longest limb is dependent upon the tree from which it grows. We should become one tree, and be like the “tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits,” all connected with one stalk. I presume that those fruits came from grafts, else the tree probably would not have borne so many kinds.

We must be grafted into the true vine, and continue to partake of its fatness, and then we shall go back to our Father and God, who is connected with one who is still farther back; and this Father is connected with one still further back, and so on; and just so far as we respect our superiors and try to save our children, so shall we receive blessings from this time forth and forever, and shall become as numerous as the sands upon the seashore. What is there to hinder us from obtaining these blessings? Nothing, except it be our own want of faithfulness; for, by diligence, integrity, and perseverance, we can accomplish all we desire, and help to move forward the great work of God.

I have heard a whispering that some who work on the Temple at dressing rock, and in the machine and blacksmiths’ shops, have nothing but bread to eat. It seems as though this could not be so; for I have seen the public hands packing home carrots, parsnips, potatoes, &c.; and it is not so very bad while there is plenty of them; and every man gets a pound of flour a day; and I think there should not be any grunting. It will not be a month before we shall have lettuce, radishes, &c.; and there now is plenty of greens; and onions are plentiful in the Tithing Office; and we shall be very glad to have you come and get them at your leisure.

I have just touched upon these things in connection with brother Wells’ remarks concerning the Public Works; for I am one with him, and he is one with me, and we are one with brother Brigham. We have not set our feet to the race for any other purpose than to follow him and run through; for he is our leader and will be our leader, temporally and spiritually, from this time forth. When Joseph comes again, will brother Brigham be removed? No, never. Brother Joseph is ahead; brother Brigham is after him; I am after brother Brigham; and you are after me, are you not? And we will not flinch; and God will bless and prosper every man that will help himself; and He will bless, prosper, and sustain this people; and they will never fall, as a people, though we expect that many will apostatize, pitch over the dam, and go to wreck.

If we sin, and do not repent, God will chastise us until we do repent of and forsake all sin; but He never will scourge us so long as we do right. I have said a hundred times that we never shall want for bread, meat, and the comforts of life, worlds without end, if we will only do right. That is my prophecy, and always was; and it is true. I agree with Daniel, with Joseph, with Brigham, with Jesus, and the Apostles, and all the holy Prophets; and I have spoken as I have to arouse your feelings, to waken you up, and comfort your hearts, and cheer your minds; for I have no other feeling than to do you good.

When the Big Cottonwood Canal is finished, aside from its being of material benefit in our operations for building the Temple, it will be of great worth for irrigating lots in this city, especially in the east part of it; and you will soon be able to raise enough more than heretofore to pay you for your labor upon that work—yes, tenfold more. You may think that extravagant, but I say it is not. Reckon it up yourselves, and see how much more you could raise if you had plenty of water. You could raise as much corn fodder as would keep your cows through the winter, and I believe more than you have cows to eat it, besides the large extra amount of vegetables you could raise.

I will now make a few remarks in relation to building storehouses—not particularly in regard to building tithing storehouses here; for there are enough at present to hold all the grain we have; though I believe that by another year this people will fill our tithing houses until they overflow; for a great many of them are going to continue to do right and live their religion; and if they do that, you will see the wheat, the corn, the oats, the barley, and all our stock and possessions increase. If we increase, it will increase; our wealth will grow and increase with us, and there will be no end to it. But in order to lay up grain, you must prepare storehouses. Every man who has a farm needs a storehouse—one made of rock and lime, that will guard your grain against the mice, rats, and all other four-legged vermin; also against the two-legged ones. I have more fears of the two-legged ones than I have of the four-legged ones.

Plan to build a good storehouse, every man who has a farm, and never cease until you have accomplished it. And do not forget to pay your tithing before you put the grain into the storehouse. Lay up enough for seven years, at a calculation for from five to ten in each family; and then calculate that there will be in your families from five to ten persons to where you now have one, because you are on the increase.

It now takes about one thousand bushels of wheat to bread my family one year, and I want to lay up six thousand for each year of the seven for which I calculate to store it up. Reflect upon the probable increase of my family within seven years; they alone will be almost numerous enough to people a small city. Where a family now requires only a hundred bushels a year, let the head of that family lay up a hundred bushels the first year, two hundred the next, and increase the amount every year in proportion to their probable requirements.

When we have stored away our grain we are safe, independent of the world, in case of famine, are we not? Yes, we are; for, in that case, we will have the means for subsistence in our own hands. When the famines begin upon the earth, we shall be very apt to feel them first.

If judgments must need begin at the house of God, and if the righteous scarcely are saved, how will it be with the wicked? Am I looking for famines? Yes, the most terrible and severe that have ever come upon the nations of the earth. These things are right before us, and some of this people are not thinking anything about them; they do not enter their hearts. Still there is not an Elder here who has read the revelation which says, Go forth and warn the inhabitants of this land of the sickness, the death, and disasters that are coming upon this nation, but what must be satisfied of the truth of what I am saying. You have done according to the instruction given in that revelation; and now reflect upon the things that I am declaring in your hearing, and lift up your voices unitedly as a people to the God of Heaven that He will be merciful unto us and favor Zion.

Be wise, listen to counsel, and obey the voice of the head, and you will prosper and never want for bread; but, as the Lord liveth, you will feel it, if you do not continue in the line of duty. [President Brigham Young: That is true.] Yes, it is as true as it is that God ever spake to this generation. I consider that carefully storing our surplus grain against a time of need is of the greatest importance to this people, in connection with building the Temple. You may build that Temple, and at the same time neglect those things that I am speaking of, and you will perish temporally.

Now, go to, and raise grain; for I feel satisfied that the Lord will give us two, three, or four years of good times, and will hold the enemies of the upright by the bit, if we will do right. I will have that “if” in every time; for, in such case, I tell you that God will hold our enemies, and they cannot have any power until He has a mind to permit them; and then He will only permit them for a time, in order to manifest His Almighty power and to qualify and prepare them for a time to come. I mean just what I say.

I have talked here year after year, and told you that I was going to work to build a good storehouse; and I now have a good one, though it is not yet quite finished. I have five or six hundred bushels of wheat in it, and I am going to make a tight floor of rock by grouting it with lime and sand, and plaster the walls on both sides, so that it will be proof against mice and all other kinds of vermin.

As I have said, I know that we will see those things of which I have spoken—such famines as this world never beheld. Yes, we have got to see those scenes; but if we will keep our vows and covenants, the Lord will hold them off until we can prepare ourselves; and if you will wake up and do as you are told, you will escape.

I will advise every man in every settlement to build a storehouse; and if one cannot do so alone, let two or three build one between them. Store up and preserve your grain, and then you will be safe. But if the famine should come upon us in our present condition, what could we do? If we do not do as we are told in this thing, the displeasure of the Lord will be upon us, and He will not continue to bless us as He is now doing.

I know that He is able to suffer famines to come upon us, and then to rain manna down from heaven to sustain us. I also know that He could increase our grain in the granaries and our flour in the bins, and make one small loaf of bread suffice for many persons, by exerting His creative power. I do not know how He does that, but I know that He can do it just as easily as He could bring me into existence upon this earth.

There are a great many things that we can save and take care of, as well as we can wheat, barley, and oats. We can dry pumpkins, squashes, currants, apples, peaches, &c., and save them; we can also save beans, peas, and like articles, and keep them for seven years. And if you will take the right care of your wheat, you can save it just as long as you may wish to; but, in the usual mode of storing it, you have got to stir it, move it, remove it, and turn it over, or it will spoil. It is just so with this people; they have had to be moved and removed from place to place, to prevent them from getting into dotage.

I would not be afraid to promise a man who is sixty years of age, if he will take the counsel of brother Brigham and his brethren, that he will renew his age. I have noticed that a man who has but one wife, and is inclined to that doctrine, soon begins to wither and dry up, while a man who goes into plurality looks fresh, young, and sprightly. Why is this? Because God loves that man, and because he honors His work and word. Some of you may not believe this; but I not only believe it—I also know it. For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business; for it is as much as we can do now to keep up under the burdens we have to carry; and I do not know what we should do if we had only one wife apiece.

Let us go to work and cultivate the earth, and go into the fields, and bless the land, and dedicate and consecrate it to God; and then dedicate the seed, the implements, and the horses, and oxen. Do you suppose that that will have any effect? I know that it will. Nearly twenty years ago, I was in a place in England in which I felt very curious; but I did not know at the time what it meant. I went through a town called Chadburn, beyond Clithero. Before I went there, some persons told me that there was no use in my going, and asked me what I wanted to go to Chadburn for, saying it was the worst place in the country; for the sectarian priests had preached there faithfully thirty years without making any impression. Notwithstanding that, I went, and preached once, and baptized twenty-five persons, where the priests had not been able to do a thing.

I went through the streets of that town feeling as I never before felt in my life. My hair would rise on my head as I walked through the streets, and I did not then know what was the matter with me. I pulled off my hat, and felt that I wanted to pull off my shoes, and I did not know what to think of it.

When I returned, I mentioned the circumstance to brother Joseph, who said, “Did you not understand it? That is a place where some of the old Prophets traveled and dedicated that land, and their blessing fell upon you.” Then try it, and see if it will not leave a blessing for us to dedicate our lands. If you think that it will not, never bring another bottle of oil and ask us to dedicate and consecrate it for the benefit of the sick. I know that we can bless the land, and that through our blessing it will be filled with the Spirit and power of God; and that, too, in great profusion, especially if we are filled with that Spirit ourselves. Some may call me enthusiastic; but I am no more so than the old Prophets were when they had the Spirit of God upon them.

Let us bless the land we cultivate and the fountains of water, and they will be blessed, and then men may drink of those waters, and they will fill them with the Spirit and power of God. Let us bless and dedicate the fountains of life that are in us, in our wives and children, and in everything else around us. Can the Spirit of God enter a stone, or one of those posts? Yes; and it can fill every pore as well as it can every pore in my body. Can it enter into my pores? Yes, even into my hair; and it can also enter my bones and quicken every limb, joint, and fiber.

Let us not dispose of any grain, only what is actually necessary. When it is actually necessary to part with any grain, let us put it into the right hands. If I have any to part with, I will put it into the hands of those that will make good use of it. We have got to become one in our financial matters in the Church and Kingdom of God. How can you become one tree, with limbs and branches all pertaining to the selfsame tree, when there is disunion among you?

Then go to work and build up this kingdom, establish righteousness, and prepare yourselves for the famines that are coming upon the earth; for I tell you that they are coming.

Do you suppose that God would give revelations and tell us to warn the inhabitants of the earth of things which were coming speedily upon them, if He did not intend that those things should come? He said that they should feel them, and I know that they are bound to feel them; for they will not repent. Let us go to work and prepare for the thousands upon thousands who will come unto us.

Our Carrying Company is only in its infancy, but it will prepare the way; and the day will come when people will gather here by hundreds and by thousands—yea, fifty thousand in a year; and very many will come trudging along with their bundles under their arms. I have heard brother Joseph, brother Brigham, and several other men say that it will be so; and I know it will, because they have said it. Many of you will venture to say that you believe it; but I know that it is true, and it will surely come to pass.

Brethren and sisters, these are some of my feelings; and I hope and pray that those whom we have warned will go home and warn their neighbors, and tell them to be up and doing; and then we shall not have to tell you these things again. It is no time for grunting; it is no time for having the blues; it is no time for sugar-tits, for dancing, and amusing ourselves. Amusements are stopped for the present; but when brother Brigham says dance, then dance; but when he says stop, then stop; and when he says prophesy, then prophesy, but be sure to prophesy right.

I have said nothing but what the Spirit has dictated; and all the principles that I have touched upon are contained in the Bible. If you don’t believe it, take that book and look for yourselves; and then take the Book of Mormon, and see what the Lord said to the Nephites. He said, “The nation or people that will not serve me on this land I will cut off from the face of the earth;” and I know that He will do it. And brother Brigham, the Twelve Apostles, and Patriarchs John Young and Isaac Morley will all declare that it is true. May God bless you. Amen.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 15, 1857.

It is immaterial who the authorities invite to speak in this stand, that man should be so pliable that God can dictate him to speak to this people the very things that are necessary to correct our judgments and understandings, to inform our minds, and to set in order, organize and attach every quorum to the vine where it should be. Also to teach this people that there should be order and government in families; that they should be connected together by the same spirit with which a man is connected to the Priesthood. When this is done, then every man is connected to the Priesthood, and the wife to the man, and the children to their parents, from generation to generation. Were we all thus actually connected like the limbs and branches of one tree, and there was no disturbance or obstruction by any evil principle, would we not be in a far better condition than we now are for accomplishing the work we have to perform.

While brother McAllister was speaking, I could not avoid the reflection that there is time and opportunity for all to improve, if they will. When persons cease to make improvement, they either go back or have become stereotyped, that is, fixed, unchangeable in regard to true progression, and then of what use are they towards promoting the welfare of the cause in which we are engaged? While a tree is growing, while it is thrifty and limber, it is passive and submissive to the man that labors to give it form. But I will let that subject drop, and pass to another which is on my mind.

Some may very naturally suppose that there is a host of subscribers to The Deseret News, especially when the character of its matter is fairly considered, as also the fact that it is entirely owned by the Church, and controlled for the mutual benefit of all, who are interested in building up the kingdom of God on the earth. I had supposed that there were at least ten thousand subscribers, but I have learned that there are not so many, and not near as many as it seems to me there should be; and I was perfectly astonished that the circulation was not much greater than I found it to be. Some may be careless in this matter, under the supposition that brother Carrington is part owner or proprietor of the News, when such is in nowise the case, for, as I have already stated, the presses, type, and all that pertains to the Printing Office and Bookbindery, are the property of the Church.

I presume that there are from twelve to twenty thousand families in this Territory, and I really know of no reason why every family should not take, read, and pay for one copy of the News, for some large families now take from two to six copies. And I am all the more surprised at the slackness of the people in this matter, from the fact that the manner of payment is so easy, every kind of article of any real value being received, even to “hemlock slabs after harvest.”

Again, I am considerably astonished at the apparent indifference manifested by some of the Agents for the News, for they are allowed a very liberal percentage for a very small amount of time and attention; and instead of using a little skill and exertion to devise ways for the poor to pay for the paper in labor, some make little or no effort, either to increase the number of subscribers or to collect and remit payments. And what is still worse, some receive cash from the subscribers and retain it, paying the Office in something else, and that, too, at their leisure.

The Agents should become acquainted with each family within their agency, and wherever they find poor persons who would rejoice to take the paper, read it, and be profited thereby, it will be easy for them to lay plans for their being accommodated, especially since the modes of payment are so numerous, and thereby confer a benefit upon their neighbors and the great cause of truth, while at the same time extending their own sphere of influence for good, and earning the sum so liberally awarded to them. In this, so useful an operation, the Bishops, where they are not also Agents, can lend most essential aid, and soon the News will gladden and enlighten every family within our borders.

To the people in Utah it is almost invaluable, for in it first appear the History of Joseph Smith, the public counsels and teachings of the First Presidency, the Twelve and others at headquarters, and all home items and news of interest, besides such foreign news and matter as may be deemed interesting, amusing, or instructive. And it often happens that one sermon alone is of more real value than the subscription price of many copies of the paper, to any person who will read and properly appreciate it by the Spirit that should connect us to the vine. You should properly appreciate everything you hear from every man that speaks from this stand; but memories are often treacherous, and comparatively but few can assemble here to hear for themselves, but when those sayings are printed, you can read, ponder, and reflect upon them at your leisure, and again and again, as your memories may require; and your sons and your daughters will acquire a taste for reading and treasuring up useful knowledge.

It has always been the case that the few have had to bear the burden attendant upon opposing evil principles, but there is now quite a number who are earnestly striving to establish righteousness upon the earth, by listening to the dictates of the Spirit and the counsels of the Living Oracles, and by striving to be active in every laudable undertaking. For this reason our publications will be sustained, whether subscribers are many or few, but will anyone professing to be a Saint look idly on and see others reap the reward due to diligence?

What is the use in pursuing the indifferent course that some are doing here? I will call a vote, and I want every man in this congregation, who takes the News, to manifest it by raising his right hand, for I wish to show you what proportion take the paper. [The subscribers present raised their hands.] There is not more than one quarter of this congregation that take The Deseret News, and that, too, the only paper printed in the mountains, and one of the most useful and interesting papers that ever was published. And if you had a lively interest for the truth, and was living your religion, let me tell you that you never would rest or cease your operations of taking every course and every advantage to obtain every word that is uttered from this stand.

At the prices of stock, wheat, lumber, labor, &c., all of which command PRICES FULLY IN PROPORTION TO THE PRICE OF THE News, how easy a matter it is to pay for a most valuable kind and variety of reading matter admirably adapted to your wants, and furnished at weekly intervals which afford opportunity for reading it. And with a little care it can be preserved and handed down to your children, from generation to generation, and they will prize it a hundred degrees more than many of you now do.

How much would you give for even a cane that Father Abraham had used? Or a coat or ring that the Savior had worn? The rough oak boxes in which the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum were brought from Carthage, were made into canes and other articles. I have a cane made from the plank of one of those boxes, so has brother Brigham and a great many others, and we prize them highly, and esteem them a great blessing. I want to carefully preserve my cane, and when I am done with it here, I shall hand it down to my heir, with instructions to him to do the same. And the day will come when there will be multitudes who will be healed and blessed through the instrumentality of those canes, and the devil cannot overcome those who have them, in consequence of their faith and confidence in the virtues connected with them.

Some do not appreciate these things nor the counsels of their leaders. And then again many do appreciate brother Brigham; they love him and his counsels, and his words are jewels to them. When persons do not care anything about his words, what do they care about mine? And if they do not care for his words, they will not care for those of any righteous man.

If I had those relics of Abraham and the Savior which I have mentioned, I would give a great deal for them. In England, when not in a situation to go, I have blessed my handkerchief, and asked God to sanctify it and fill it with life and power, and sent it to the sick, and hundreds have been healed by it; in like manner I have sent my cane. Dr. Richards used to lay his old black cane on a person’s head, and that person has been healed through its instrumentality, by the power of God. I have known Joseph, hundreds of times, send his handkerchief to the sick, and they have been healed. There are persons in this congregation who have been healed by throwing my old cloak on their beds.

To return to The Deseret News; I have alluded to a few items to show you the advantages and blessings of that paper, aside from its great present benefit, if you will take care of it and hand it down to your children, and they to theirs, and so on, until you see it in the resurrection. Such publications are not going to be burned up, according to my faith they will go into the resurrection. And I trust that Bishops, Agents, and the Saints in Utah, generally, will take a lively interest in this matter, as in tithings, donations, consecrations, and other important duties, and thereby magnify their callings and professions, and gain honor to themselves by doing the good within their power.

Having used the word resurrection, I will make a few remarks touching it. After my body is laid in the grave, and after the Prophet Joseph has received his resurrected body, he probably will not suffer my body to remain long in the ground, but will be apt to say, “Come and let us go and help brother Heber to again take his body.” Do you suppose that if brother Brigham were to die tomorrow, and if Joseph is resurrected, which he will be so soon as his mission is filled in the spirit world, that Joseph will permit brother Brigham’s body to remain longer in the grave than may be requisite? No, for he then will have need of the assistance of his faithful resurrected brethren, as he now has of faithful spirits.

Why do you not all have confidence in God? I would not give a cent for your confidence in God, unless you have confidence in those men He has appointed to lead and counsel you. If you will have confidence in brother Brigham, I care not so much whether you have confidence in me and in brother Daniel or not, for if you have it in him, you are sure to have it in us, because we are actuated by the same Spirit.

We should be like the branches of one tree, and except we become one like unto that, we shall never be saved with that salvation which we are striving for. Nobody can be saved in a celestial kingdom, except those connected with the celestial tree. Then there is a terrestrial tree pertaining to the terrestrial kingdom, and you will never go there without being grafted in it. I make use of figures in order to make my ideas plain, and to rivet your attention and assist your memories.

Let us be active and diligent in the performance of all duties, that the Lord our God may sustain us in living our holy religion. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 1, 1857.

A more sensitive man than brother Joseph Smith never lived, and that sensitiveness was in proportion to the light he had. So it is with brother Brigham, and so it is with brother Heber, and so it is with brother Daniel, and it will increase upon him as he presses his way forward, and works in the harness, and becomes used to it; and he will be just as good a team-horse as the Lord ever used, and I know it.

I will speak of brother Joseph Young, I often speak of him; he is one of the most sensitive men that ever walked on the earth, and that is in proportion to the light he has, and if the Lord had not laid His hands on him and said, “My servant Joseph, be thou sick and go to thy bed and rest,” he would have been in his grave long ago. His late sickness saved his life. That may be a curiosity to you, but the best days I ever had with re– gard to the happiness of my spirit, have been when I was prostrate on my bed, and in reality could not help myself. People will say, “O how I pity such and such brethren and sisters, because they are unwell.” If persons would appreciate their blessings when they are on beds of sickness, and say, “Father, thy will be done, and not mine,” there would be no room for that pity. When necessary in God’s providences towards me, I would as soon lay on a bed of sickness as to do anything else, for we have got to learn that lesson. I have to struggle, and brother Brigham has to struggle to exist here on the earth.

I will say, not that I speak of these things to boast, that if this people, both men and women, would pray, and that devoutly before God in their secret places, one quarter as much as brother Brigham, and I, and brother Joseph Young do, you would see dif– ferent days from what you see today. When Jesus came to his people on this continent, and appeared in their midst, they could not at first realize and appreciate him. They saw him and felt the wounds in his side, in his hands, and in his feet, and he talked with them and instructed them, and chose and instructed twelve disciples. And after healing their sick and blessing their children, he administered bread and wine to the people, and taught them to “watch and pray always.” He could not heal their sick, until through prayer they had become humble, and got the power of God on them. And when he had done this he said, bring all your children, and he blessed them one by one, and the power of God rested on them, and angels descended from heaven and encircled them round about, and ministered to them before the eyes of the people.

What do you suppose we are going to do with you? Are you ever going to be prepared to see God, Jesus Christ, His angels, or comprehend His servants, unless you take a faithful and prayerful course? Did you actually know Joseph Smith? No. Do you know brother Brigham? No. Do you know brother Heber? No, you do not. Do you know the Twelve? You do not, if you did, you would begin to know God, and learn that those men who are chosen to direct and counsel you are near kindred to God and to Jesus Christ, for the keys, power, and authority of the kingdom of God are in that lineage. I speak of these things with a view to arouse your feelings and your faithfulness towards God the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, that you may pray and be humble, and penitent.

When Jesus Christ came to this earth, he came to fulfil the law, and he taught the people to seek to the Father with a broken heart and contrite spirit, and then whatever they asked He would give. If you so come unto Him, repenting and being sorry for your sins, then He will hear you and forgive you, and He will forgive this whole people. Why? Because brother Brigham never would have said to you that God would forgive you if you would repent, unless he had received some intimation of that kind from the Father and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But brother Brigham told you the truth, and the Lord will forgive you, if you stop sinning now, and begin anew today to work righteousness with full purpose of heart. Then through continued faithfulness that Spirit, light, and glory will rest upon you, that brother Joseph has been talking about this morning.

I am speaking of these things to comfort you, for they comfort me. I am talking to you of nothing more than what I know, feel, and have experienced. What brother Joseph Young has said, is good. I feel very well in my body and in my spirit, that is, I feel well in regard to the things of God. I feel well, because there are some trying to live their religion, and worship their God in spirit and in truth. When they hear the servants of God declare the truth here, they understand it, and the seed springs up, and brings forth fruit to the glory of God, and that fruit will remain. But there are others who hear the word and do not conceive; they sit and hear the voice of God speaking through His servants, and like the sound thereof, but the moment they leave this place they forget it.

Some say that they have not faith, that they cannot believe. What is faith? It is confidence. What is confidence? It is faith. Some people are striving and striving to get faith, when saving faith is simply confidence in God, flowing from walking in obedience to His commandments. When you have confidence in yourself, in any man, woman, or child, you have faith; and when you have not confidence, you have not faith. I believe they are co-partners, and the principle of faith and confidence is synonymous to me.

If you have not faith to deed your property over to the Trustee-in-Trust, it is because you have not confidence in the Trustee-in-Trust. If you had confidence in him, you would have faith in him. You may pay your tithing—you may tithe your sage, mint, and catnip, and this and that, and the other, and after all you may be leaving the more weighty matters undone. It is not best to become stereotyped in paying tithing and stop at that; but if you are going to become stereotyped, I wish you to stereotype the whole edition, and let it remain so, and then go on and make another. I do not object to your stereotyping one letter at a time, if you will go on through the whole edition.

In regard to deeding over your property, no one compels you to do it. I do not compel you to do it, the Trustee-in-Trust does not, God does not; but He says that if you will do this, that and the other thing which He has counseled for our good, do so, and prove Him. He goes to work and proves us, as we go to work and prove one another under various circumstances. The Lord says, cast in your tithes, and then your offerings. Tithing is one thing, and offerings are another. And when that is done, consecrate your property to the Church, and make strong the hands of our President, and he will handle and distribute it to the best advantage. We are to be tried in all things, like unto Abraham, and God even told Abraham to offer up his son Isaac. He went and built the altar, got the wood and the knife, and was ready to do the work; but instead of offering up his son, the Lord said to him, take this ram and offer him up, and put your son to usury, and be shall become a multitude of nations—his offspring shall be as numerous as the sands on the seashore, and as the stars in the firmament. It will be just so with the property deeded over to the Trustee-in-Trust; every man becomes a steward, and puts out his property to usury. The principle of the consecration is to hold property secure and in the channel of blessings and increase.

Our property should not be dearer to us than salvation, and should freely be put to the best use for building up the kingdom of God. To illustrate my ideas, I will use a comparison. Here is my little finger, does not the blood go into that finger as freely and as fully, in proportion as it goes into my leg, or into my arm? Does it always stay there? Does that little finger become selfish—superstitious with the principle of idolatry—and never restore that blood to the fountain? No, for if it did, the fountain would be weakened, and the finger would wither, because of an interrupted communication. How can this Church exist upon any other principle than that of free interchange according to the dictation of the head? My finger restores back the blood to the fountain, where it again becomes impregnated with the principles of life, and then when it goes back again is not that finger impregnated with the power of my vitality—of my attributes? If that is a fact, when we take the same course with the things of God and turn in our property, it will become empowered with the attributes of God and His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, and of all those who act with them in the eternal worlds, and from them to us, and from us back to the throne of God. And except we become impregnated with saving principles as they exist with God, with Jesus Christ, with angels, with Peter and with Joseph, you may bid farewell to salvation, every soul of you.

I wish that this whole people would so get religion that brother Brigham and myself, and other good men could always freely and fully teach you all things pertaining to salvation, and show you your condition, even as the Lord views it. Here is the kingdom of God, here are the Prophet and the Apostles, the Patriarch, and all the leading men of Israel, and where is there a man in Europe, or in any other country, who sprung from this Church, but what sprung from the authority, the life, vitals, and power of this Church and kingdom? If he has not got his power unto salvation in this Church, he has not any power towards an exaltation in the celestial kingdom of our God. And those who have power from the true source have not predominance over those who hold the keys in advance of them, for the kingdom of God is a kingdom of order. How can you become impregnated with the spirit and power of God, except you become impregnated through us? There is no true path, except to do as you are told by those whom the Lord has called and chosen, and placed to direct you.

I do not care so much whether you have faith or not, for if you have confidence in yourselves, I would risk the confidence you should have in us. And if you have lost confidence in yourselves, you will not have much confidence in your brethren; and in that case I want to know what confidence you can have in your God? The Lord often takes a course to try the confidence of His people, for He planted a branch of the olive tree in the poorest spot in all the land of His vineyard, and He caused it to yield much fruit that was good. That was considered a marvelous work, and one of His servants said, “How camest thou hither to plant this tree, or this branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of thy vineyard. And the Lord of the vineyard said unto him: Counsel me not; but go to and do all things as I command you.”

Now suppose I should say, here, John, William, and Richard, I want you to go up near the arsenal and dig a well, and when you have dug ten feet you will find water. They would be very apt to say, “We have not a particle of confidence in that operation.” I would reply, I do not care about that; it is the well I want, and that will afford water. They go to work without one particle of confidence in what I say, and dig to the depth of ten feet, and come to good water. By so doing, have they not obtained knowledge without confidence? Yes, by their works. And Jesus says, by your works shall you be judged, and by your works shall you be justified. John, Bill, and Dick, dig the well, and I have accomplished my design with them, though they had not a particle of confidence in me, nor in God. And when they have found water, they say, “That gives me confidence in you, brother Heber, and in your God.” The result of their works gives them confidence. It may stimulate some of you to go to work upon that principle, viz., to do as you are told, without knowing whether you will get water or not.

Well, go to work and dig the Big Cottonwood canal on the same principle. Begin tomorrow morning, and do not cease until that canal is done, and I will warrant the water to come, and when it comes, that will increase your confidence. Brethren, will you all with your Bishops lay aside everything that is not of greater importance, and go to work on that canal until it is finished? If you will work, instead of merely saying you will, and go to with all your hearts, it will be but a short time before you see the rock being boated on it for our Temple; and it need not be only a few years before the Temple is built, wherein you will receive your endowments and blessings. And God our Father will protect us and give us good peace, until we have accomplished that work and many other things. He will strengthen our feet and fill our granaries.

Will you go to work at once on the canal, letting your Bishops lead out and you follow? If you will, raise your right hands. [All hands were raised.] If you live up to the covenant now made, you will soon accomplish the work; and it will be but a few days before the ground will be in readiness for ploughing and seeding, and God will bless the earth and strengthen it to yield an abundance, through your going and doing that little work, and letting the water into that canal, so that we can boat rock from the quarry unto this place. Let us go to and do, instead of merely saying. That is drawing our feelings into the one reservoir.

Upon the same principle, let every man render over his property with an eternal deed that cannot be broken; throw it all into the big reservoir. Suppose that one puts in one drop, another two, another ten, and another a hundred, do you not see, when you throw in your property—your substance—into one reservoir, that it makes us all one, and that you cannot become one without this principle? You may work to all eternity, and never connect the branch with the vine, upon any other principle than that of putting your property and temporal blessings with your spiritual interests, whereby they will both become one. If you do not do that, I do not mean in one thing only, but in everything that God requires of you by His servants, if you do not bring your substance forward and lay it down at the Apostle’s feet, you will be stripped. Brother Brigham is the chief Apostle of Jesus, and he is our President, our Prophet, and our leader, and we the Twelve are his brethren, and you have got to lay down your substance at their feet, as the Saints did in the days of the ancient Apostles of Jesus.

Look at Ananias and Sapphira. I have heard you read their history a great many times, and talk about it. They came with a part of their substance, and lied about it. You may do as you have a mind to. In one sense, we do not care whether you lie, or tell the truth. If you tell the truth and do right, who is blessed? Is it anyone but yourselves? It is not brother Brigham, nor brother Heber, only in connection with you, inasmuch as you take a course to do right; for being members of the same body to which we are connected, it influences the whole body, and the whole body is blessed at the same time. It does not particularly make any difference with us, as individuals.

You have got to render an account of everything you have, for we are all stewards. You Bishops, Seventies, High Priests, Elders, Priests, Teachers, Deacons, and members, where did you get the Priesthood and authority you hold? It came from this very authority, the First Presidency that sits here in this stand. There was an authority before us, and we got our authority from that, and you got it from us, and this authority is with the First Presidency. Now do not go off and say that you are independent of that authority. Where did you get your wives? Who gave them to you? By what authority were they given to you? Where did you get anything?

If you do not take the course you have been told to take, and as I am trying to tell you, viz., to render all you have on this earth, every man in this Church and kingdom will be as bare when he leaves this earth as he will find himself when he gets out of it for he cannot even take his shroud with him nor a pair of stockings. I do not care if he has forty wives and a thousand children, every soul of them will be taken from him. Your wives are given to you as a stewardship to improve upon in building up and establishing the kingdom of God, and your children are given to you as a stewardship. Where did their spirits came from? Did they come from you? No; they came from God. Who is the Father of those spirits? God, and He will require them of you, and those spirits have also got to give an account to their Father from whom they came; they have got to render up an account. Thus you see, that you have to render an account of your wives and children, of your substance, and everything that pertains to this earth, and you cannot avoid it, without suffering a loss.

I want to get you to live your religion, and worship our God. I am not troubled about our not prospering; I trouble myself about living my religion and being faithful to the things of God, and that leads me to confidence, if not in myself, in my leader. It is not so much a matter about my trying to obtain confidence in myself, or in you. We are to be connected like a vine, and then when we receive any good thing we will become impregnated with God, with Jesus Christ, with the Holy Ghost, and with angels, and it is the only way in which we can become one.

I feel as brother Joseph Young feels. God bless him, and may he live a hundred years, if he wants to. I pray that God may renew him in body and blood, and bless him with every good thing that he desires; also brother Brigham, and brother Daniel, and brother Heber, and every other good man. That is my prayer and my feeling. And may the Lord bless every good woman with the same blessings.

Brethren, tumble in your interest into this great reservoir, and we will drink up the earth. And if you do not do it, as the Lord lives, the First Presidency of this Church and the Twelve will drink you up. If you trifle with me, when I tell you the truth, you will trifle with brother Brigham; and if you trifle with him, you will also trifle with angels and with God, and thus you will trifle yourselves down to hell. You cannot with impunity trifle with God, for the day is too far advanced for that. Do not trouble yourselves about your sins if you have repented of them; and if you have not, it is time you did.

I will say to the Bishops in general, take those who are humble, those who have repented and made restitution, and baptize them for the remission of their sins, and then lay hands upon them, that they may receive the Holy Ghost, and they will receive it, if you take counsel and do right. And you will feel as you never felt before since you were born, and the works of God will continue, if you will do right, for the time has come.

God bless you, peace be with you forever. Amen.