Remarks by H. C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, October 5, 1856.

There is a little matter of business I wish to lay before this congregation this morning, and I do not know of anything that will test the people only to lay before them their duty, which gives them a chance to step forward and act therein.

We have not as yet any durable location; we are merely probationers in this present state, and we shall always be so, until we obtain a permanent exaltation, by following in the footsteps of our God. He is our Father and our God, and His Son Jesus Christ is our Savior, and the Holy Ghost is to be our comforter, and will comfort all those who will prepare their tabernacles as fit temples for him to dwell in.

When the Holy Ghost dwells in us it will enable us to discern between right and wrong, will show us things to come, and bring things to our remembrance, and will make every one of this people prophets and prophetesses of God.

We have acknowledged brother Brigham to be our leader, and he holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven here on the earth. Whether people believe it or not, he is God’s representative in the flesh, and is the mouthpiece of God unto us.

Brother Joseph Smith many a time said to brother Brigham and myself and to others, that he was a representative of God to us, to teach and direct us and reprove the wrongdoers. He has past behind the veil, but there never will a person in this dispensation enter into the celestial glory without his approbation.

Brother Brigham is brother Joseph’s rightful successor, and he has his Counselors, and together they are an earthly pattern of the divine order of government. Those men are God’s agents, His servants, and are witnesses of your covenants, which you will have to fulfil. And what you do not fulfil in this year you will have to do in the next; and what are not then fulfilled will have to be in some future time.

Some people think that, because they have passed through a great many troubles, have been to the nations to preach the Gospel, and have been robbed and plucked up several times, that will make an atonement for their sins. What you have passed through has nothing to do with atonement for sins. If you have sinned you have got to make an atonement for that sin, and the trials you have passed through in doing your duty are not the atonement. Trials are to test you, to prove whether you will do those things that are right. Some try to make out that their trials will answer as an atonement, but I tell you that they will not. If you commit sin there must be an atonement to satisfy the demands of justice, and then mercy claims you and saves you. But, as brother Grant has said, many of our old men think, because they were in the Church in the first beginning, that they can now lay upon their oars, that is, that they can sit down in the ship and not use the oars anymore. But God requires every man and woman to be faithful; and if they have sinned, they have got to make an atonement for that sin, and your trials do not make that atonement.

God says that we shall be tried in all things, even as was Abraham of old. He was called upon to offer up his son, and was found willing to offer him up, but, as the sin was not sufficient to require the shedding of his son’s blood, a lamb was provided, and its blood atoned for the sin that Abraham’s son was to be offered up for, and saved the son.

If you are ever saved, you have got to take a course to draw near to the throne of God; and how can you draw near to the throne of God, except you draw near to those men who are placed as His representatives in the flesh? The same principles, the same order, the same Priesthood, the same gifts, and the same powers are instituted, established and organized in our day as they were in the days of Jesus, and all the reason that people do not see it is because of their traditions; the veil of darkness is over their minds, and they cannot see it.

With all the instructions that are given to you by brother Brigham, brother Heber, and brother Jedediah, many of you will go home and find fault with them; and you will have your contentions and your animosities, when you should take a course to sustain their words, for you cannot sustain them without sustaining their words, nor can you serve God and slight their counsels. If you expect the favor of God, favor His servants and sustain them. This is plain doctrine, and you will find it so, and I am not ashamed to teach it to you.

When brother Brigham points out a course, it is for this people to rise up and go to and carry out His purposes with their might; and until that is done this kingdom never will prosper as it should, worlds without end.

Now I will come to the business, and tell you what is wanted. Our brethren and sisters are on the Plains with their handcarts, and there is snow on the ground, and many are barefooted, and destitute of comfortable clothing, and we want some men and teams to fix up this day, and be ready to start for them tomorrow. We want horse and mule teams, if they can be had; but if they cannot, we want ox teams.

We do not wish you to take out loads, though it will be well to put in a couple of hundred pounds or so of forage, grain, &c., to two span of mules or horses, or to two yoke of cattle, with a light wagon, and go speedily and take those people into your wagons and bring them here, doing as you would wish to be done by in the same circumstances.

Would not all of you, if you were out on the Plains, say that if you were the good people in the valleys you would go out and help them in? Would you not all feel so? But you are not there, and you do not fully realize their feelings.

Now manifest your faith by your works. You will not, probably, have to go any further than Fort Bridger before you meet some of them, and you can go and return in a week, or may be in two weeks, and may be in twenty days.

“O, dear,” says one, “I have not got up my winter’s wood.” Well, you will not get it up by staying here, but if you will help in those on the Plains and do all other things that you are required to do, God will give us a summer all winter; and if you do not do so, He will give us winter all summer.

Our God can change the seasons and drive away the storms, the tempest and the snows, to favor this people, if they will do right; and if you wish to be favored of God, favor us and this people; favor your brethren, and do as you are told.

Brother Dan Jones has been talking to you about the clay in the hands of the potter. If you get hold of a lump of clay that is snappish and willful, and not willing that you should twist it into any shape or form, what is the use of working it? You throw it back into the mill and let it be ground again, and then take it out and make of it a vessel unto honor.

Perhaps some do not really believe that when a man is thrown back into the mill, or goes into the spirit world, that he ever will be redeemed, but he will, if he has not sinned against the Holy Ghost. He will be ground and worked up until he becomes passive, and then God, through His servants, will redeem him, and make him a vessel unto honor.

A great many will go to hell, and the very men that are preaching to you now will visit you and offer you salvation, after you have laid there, perhaps, thousands of years, for you must stay in the mill until you are passive and obedient.

Jeremiah, at the command of God, went to the potter’s house where the potter was molding the clay, and when he went to turn it on the wheel it was refractory and rebellious; and he worked at it and sweat over it, but after all it was rebellious, and fell down on the wheel.

What did he do then? He cut it off from the wheel and threw it back into the mill, and after he had ground it awhile, he took it out and made of it a vessel unto honor; so of the same lump he made a vessel unto dishonor, and one unto honor.

Did the potter make it dishonorable? No, the vessel made itself unto dishonor; and the next time it was pliable and passive, and the potter made of it a vessel unto honor, because it was honorable and submissive.

I wished to make these few remarks, because they touch upon things that are on my mind all the time. And if you wish to be Saints, for God’s sake be Saints, and if you wish to be devils, be devils, and get out of this place; and let those that will be Saints, be Saints; and let them commune together and carry out the purpose of God.

I would rather have three hundred men and women that are perfectly amenable to the authorities of this Church, than a numerous people that are rebellious; and I could do more to bring about the purposes of God, and do it ten times quicker, with a few faithful persons, than with hosts of the wicked.

You know this, every one of you. I can accomplish more work with one man that is amenable to me, and will do as I tell him, than I can with twenty who are disobedient; so I can with one woman. I had rather have one woman that is humble, than twenty that are not; and she is more honor and glory, and happiness and heaven to a man, than twenty disobedient ones.

You that have but one wife know this pretty well but we who have scores, know it better; we are further advanced in the experience of this life.

Now, brethren, what do you say? This is the word of the Lord to us, that we rise up and gather up our teams and start forthwith, not with loads, except feed; take hay and deposit it in different places, so that you can have some when you come back, and bring in those brethren and sisters, and you will have a pleasant time, and God and His angels will go with you, and you will be prospered, upheld, and sustained.

That man that drops down his head under his wife’s arm, and says, “I guess they don’t see me;” and that wife that says, “O, my husband, I cannot spare you, I cannot sleep alone, for when night comes I shall get cold;” O, the poor little things.

I say that those who will take counsel and prepare themselves to go back on this mission shall be blest; and if a man has but one yoke of cattle, let him put that on with those of some other person.

I now want every man that will actually go and help, and not say he will go, and not go, to rise up.

[One hundred and fourteen teams were volunteered, and reported ready to start forthwith.]

A Discourse by President H. C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, September 28, 1856.

I feel very thankful to my Father and my God in regard to the two handcart companies that have just come in, led by brothers Ellsworth and McArthur.

I went out with brother Brigham to meet those companies, and when within a mile and a half of the foot of the Little Mountain we left the company that was with us, and drove on until we met Captain Ellsworth’s company. I did not shed any tears, though I could have done so, but they would have been tears of joy; my heart was so full that it was impossible for a tear to pass it; that is the way I felt. Why did I have those feelings? Was it because the company were on foot, dusty, and pulling handcarts? No, for I was aware that they had come into these valleys easier than most, if not all, other companies. Their task was light in comparison with that of the pioneers in 1847, for they had to build bridges, cross deep and wide rivers upon rafts, and make hundreds of miles of road, digging up and throwing out stones and cutting down trees and thick brush.

Brother Mills mentioned in his song, that crossing the Plains with handcarts was one of the greatest events that ever transpired in this Church. I will admit that it is an important event, successfully testing another method for gathering Israel, but its importance is small in comparison with the visitation of the angel of God to the Prophet Joseph, and with the reception of the sacred records from the hand of Moroni at the hill Cumorah.

How does it compare with the vision that Joseph and others had, when they went into a cave in the hill Cumorah, and saw more records than ten men could carry? There were books piled up on tables, book upon book. Those records this people will yet have, if they accept of the Book of Mormon and observe its precepts, and keep the commandments.

Again, how does it contrast with Joseph’s being sent forth with his brethren to search out a location in Jackson County, where the New Jerusalem will be built, where our Father and our God planted the first garden on this earth, and where the New Jerusalem will come to when it comes down from heaven?

I mention these few things by way of contrast with the handcart operation; they are events that I have heard Joseph speak of, time and time again.

There will not one soul of you go to build up that holy city in Jackson County until you learn to keep the commandments of God, and listen to the counsel of brother Brigham and his counselors, of the Twelve Apostles, of the Bishops, and of every officer in the Church of God; until you are willing to keep what we call the celestial law.

What is the celestial law? A great many of you think that you have not come to it, but the fundamental principles of “Mormonism,” faith in Jesus Christ, repentance for sins, and baptism for their remission, which is the door into the kingdom of God, are the first letters of the alphabet of the celestial law; and if you turn away from those principles, you turn away from everything that your salvation depends upon.

There is a reformation proposed; it has already commenced in the north, and the people there are repenting, that is, they say they repent; and many have gone forward and been baptized for the remission of their sins.

But, brethren and sisters, you may go forward and be baptized, and say you repent, and receive the laying on of hands, and if you do not repent and lay aside your wickedness, you will go to hell. I tell you that there is nothing that will turn away the wrath of God, and the chastenings that are to come on this people, if they do not repent indeed; now mark my words.

There has been too much said here, by brother Brigham and his brethren, to fall to the ground unnoticed, and you must observe every word of it.

I am very thankful that so many of the brethren have come in with handcarts; my soul rejoiced, my heart was filled and grew as big as a two-bushel basket. Two companies have come through safe and sound. Is this the end of it? No; there will be millions on millions that will come much in the same way, only they will not have handcarts, for they will take their bundles under their arms, and their children on their backs, and under their arms, and flee; and Zion’s people will have to send out relief to them, for they will come when the judgments come on the nations. And you will find that judgments will be more sore upon this people, if they do not repent and lay aside their pride and their animosities, their quarrelling and contentions, their disputations among themselves.

Those that have come in with the handcarts may wonder how this can be, for doubtless many of them thought that they were coming to where it was all peace and harmony, and so remain forever. So it would, were it not for the wicked ones that come here. You who come with the handcarts have brought nobody here but yourselves, and probably, as brother Ellsworth said, there are as good people among his company as ever were on the earth, according to their knowledge; and then he said there were some of the worst. I do not doubt it, for he never stopped to select them, but he brought all that happened to be in the net, and there were several kinds, I suppose.

Any man or woman that has got the Spirit of the Lord, may know that God is with those missionaries who have come in with these companies, and they have made a character for themselves that will live forever, and they will live forever; and God bless them forever, and they shall be blessed forever. And when brother Brigham, and Heber, and Jedediah, and the Twelve Apostles go through the straight gate into the kingdom, they shall go with us.

Your face looks good to me, brother McArthur; I sat beside you today, and it warmed my heart clear through. I have known him from his boyhood, and so I have the others. And Joseph A. Young, and William H. Kimball, they know nothing but “Mormonism;” they were born in it. They could not fully discern the difference until they went on a mission to the lower world, where they were under the necessity of depending upon their God, and now they know that God lives, that “Mormonism” is true, that Brigham Young is a Prophet of God, and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet.

No man or woman can have the spirit of Prophecy, and at the same time do evil and speak against their brethren; and you will find that man or that woman barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of God, and filled with disputations.

When you hear false statements from disaffected characters, do not circulate them; do not send them back to England, France, &c., to prevent those from coming here that otherwise would come. The Saints will gather, and handcart companies will become common; there will be more of them than there will be of ox or mule trains.

If brother Brigham should say to me, next spring, go back and bring up a handcart company, I am ready to do so. I can do it with less fatigue than the labor I perform every day of my life. Will twenty or twenty-five miles daily travel excuse me? No. I am never still, never idle, and I never expect to be, in heaven nor on earth.

I have often told you that all my lazy hairs were gone; and I have often told the young Elders, to encourage them, that the first mission I took, after I was ordained one of the Twelve, was through New England and into Nova Scotia, 1,500 miles travel on foot with my valise on my back. Soon after I started I found that I was rather unlearned, though I knew that before, but I knew it better after I started.

I began to study the Scriptures, as brother McArthur did, and I had so little knowledge that the exercise of study began to swell my head and open my pores insomuch that the hairs dropped out; and if you will let your minds expand as mine did you will have no hair on your heads. I expected to lose all my hair, and my head too; but I am alive and in the house of Israel; and I expect to live to see this people prosper, the house of Israel gathered, and scattered Israel connected with this people; and we will bring about the purposes of God. My body may fail, but my spirit will never die, nor will the spirit of any good “Mormon.” Let us “live our religion.”

I presume there were as many devils after those handcart companies as ever followed any company of Saints that ever left the States, and their object was to defeat them in this attempt, but they have not been permitted to do it.

The Elders that go forth and preach the Gospel will have to lead the handcart companies over the Plains, and learn to go on foot. Am I not glad? Yes, I rejoice exceedingly. I have prayed for those companies night and day, and I never was more pleased to see any persons than I was to see those brethren and sisters, and the Elders that have brought them here. I baptized several of them eighteen years ago in Chatburn and Downham, England, and I thank God that they have come here. It proves that they were good Saints, to stand so long in that wicked country, and sustain “Mormonism” eighteen or nineteen years.

In Tithebarn I stood upon a barrel and preached, and a woman came and took hold of my coat; I said, “What is wanted, lady?” “I want to be baptized.” I jumped from the barrel and baptized twenty-five persons, some of whom are here. That was nineteen years ago, when “Mormonism” was introduced into that nation; I went over about the time when the Church was broken up in Kirtland, and when there were not twenty persons on the earth that would declare that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God.

When we returned from England, we could report from two thousand to twenty-five hundred Saints added to the Church, after being away about eleven months. When we got back the Church was all driven from Ohio, and we went to Missouri. I arrived there in time to be sick three weeks; and then the mob prevailed and we were driven out.

And as fast as we could get well and get out of a place, I was taken sick and driven again. That is the way I have been kept going, and I expect to be kept going in that way, if this people do not do right and keep the commandments of God.

“Live your religion,” keep the commandments of God, listen to the servants of God, and you will stand forever, and the world cannot trouble you.

Last Sabbath I referred to the conduct of the ancient inhabitants of this continent, and the dealings of the Lord with them; and it is the only way in which those who profess to be the people of God are kept humble. When they prospered in riches they were lifted up, and God sent famine and pestilence among them, and sickness and death, until He pretty much destroyed the nation, until they humbled themselves; and I wish to apply that experience to this people, and they will feel it if they do not repent.

Your ears may hear my words, but do my words enter your hearts? Will you repent sincerely before God? If you will, we never will be afflicted, no, never. I do not know of any way for this people to appreciate their blessings, only by affliction and by being brought into sorrow. And if you do not repent, the little we saw night before last, when the handcart train came in, will be no comparison to the straitened circumstances you will be brought into; and people will look upon us and weep to see the suffering and affliction that we will be brought into.

Many of this people have broken their covenants by speaking evil of one another, by speaking against the servants of God, and by finding fault with the plurality of wives and trying to sink it out of existence. But you cannot do that, for God will cut you off and raise up another people that will carry out His purposes in righteousness, unless you walk up to the line of your duty. On the one hand there is glory and exaltation; and on the other no tongue can express the suffering and affliction this people will pass through, if they do not repent.

Brother Brigham is placed here, and he has chosen men to stand by him, holding the keys of life and salvation to this people; and we shall bear off the kingdom, even though there be but few that will stick to us. They cannot be shaken, for God says everything that can be shaken shall be shaken, and that which cannot be shaken shall remain.

Scores will shake, and the earth will be caused to shake, and the thunders will roll and the lightnings flash, and the desolation of famine and pestilence awaits the world and its inhabitants.

How many times I have told you to take care of your grain and not waste it, for before another harvest many of you will see such times as you did the past season. Some do not believe this, but a great many do, and they are laying up their grain. Much wheat has already been sold here, by those who were begging last year, for a dollar a bushel, and from that to a dollar and a quarter, and a dollar and a half. I had grain enough, last spring, to have sustained my family and lasted me another year, though it takes over a thousand bushels to feed my family one year; but I have fed it all out, and now I have not over two hundred bushels, and I shall have to buy eight hundred more to feed my family till another harvest.

I am going to live my religion; and if need be I will sell my furniture, my beds and bedding, and everything I have, for grain. I look for hard times, and this year is not going to end them.

There are from eight to ten thousand people coming here this year, and scarcely a man in all the valleys of the mountains has any old wheat; nearly all had to commence consuming the present crops; just look at it, and reflect.

I have not stopped rationing my family to half a pound a day, and do not mean to this year: though I would have added a little more to it if they had needed it, but they do not. Many are wasting their grain, and feeding it to their horses and cattle; and others are lavish with it. Do not lay out your means, your wheat, and your substance, for that which profiteth nothing, for ribbons, gewgaws, jewelry, artificials.

For God’s sake cease this course; for your own sake, for my sake, and for Christ’s sake, let us go to work and make our own shoes from our own leather, and make and produce all we need, and use it wisely.

If I would suffer it, I should have to lay out $500 yearly for morocco shoes and bootees at from three to five dollars a pair, for the women could not wash without putting on a pair of fine shoes. How many times have I told you these things? And brother Brigham has told you. They are on my mind all the time, and I cannot get them off, but I must keep telling you until my mission is complete; I cannot help it. I foresee the consequences of an unwise course, as plainly as I see your faces today.

Let the men who are on the Public Works, if they get a pound of breadstuff a day, lay up one-third of it; I tell the men who are laboring for me to lay up their flour for a rainy day. Why? Because when I get my grainery full, I do not want to deal it out to you; for harder times are coming by and by, and there is going to be an awful famine. And if we do right, we shall take a course to lay up our surplus grain, and labor to cultivate the earth six years, and let it rest during the seventh. Brother Brigham taught us that when we first came into these valleys, and brother Woodruff has his prediction written, and by and by it will come out in the History.

I want you to repent and lay up wheat, corn, and everything else you save. I have handed out bread to some of the most industrious and saving people, until I have handed out every ounce, and had to borrow for six weeks. Why did I do it? That I might answer a good conscience before God and man, and not come under condemnation. Will I do it another year? If I do, you shall pay for it. Why? Because it will not answer for us to be dilatory and neglect our duties, when the servants of God are teaching us from Sabbath to Sabbath, and from day to day.

I hope that the Bishops will step forth and get places for those who have just come in; and I hope that the people will employ them, and not let them lay in their tents, for if they stay there idle they will become sick; but if you set them to work they will not be sick.

I will not tell you to do a thing that I will not do myself. I have spoken to a man that brother Ellsworth gave me an introduction to, and to his wife and child, and to his wife’s mother, who is seventy-six years of age, and I am going to provide them a home and set them to work. I told the man that he need not make any calculation on receiving wages, for if I took care of them all, I thought I should have plenty to do to feed them and make them comfortable through the winter; for the winter is at hand, and it probably will be a hard one. I will use them as well as I was used when I was in England. I spent seven months in London, and established a Church there, brother Woodruff was with me, and did not do it with their purse and scrip. That is now a great Conference; it is the greatest Conference in the world, except this. Listen to what you hear, and tell your neighbors of it; and when it comes spring, do not have it to say that you are without bread. When you get your full rations, save one-third of them. I feel for this people; my heart is good towards them; I feel kind and generous, and I do all that I can to do them good. But I cannot do everything, and set everybody to work. Every one of you extend the hand of kindness and benevolence to those that have come with the handcarts. They have shown their faith by their works, and it made the tears come out of your eyes to see them, and God bless them forever and ever; and I pray that not one of them may ever deny the faith. And I bless every one of you, and everything that is within the pale of the kingdom of God; and I curse everything that seeks to pull this people down and destroy them; I say, may the curse of God descend upon them, that they may go down and become powerless; and those that speak well of, and administer to Zion, they shall be blessed forever, and no enemy shall prevail against them from this time, henceforth and forever, and all who are in favor of this say amen. [All the congregation said amen.]

Remarks by President H. C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, September 21, 1856.

I have a great many things on my mind constantly, by night and by day, in regard to this people, ourselves I mean, here in these valleys of the mountains.

I was lately looking in the Book of Mormon, and I thought that a portion of the Book of Helaman, from nearly the 420th page (second European edition) to the end of the 4th chapter, would apply very well to this people, and if they would appreciate it rightly, it would be what I should call a very great sermon. [It was read to the congregation in the afternoon, by brother Leo Hawkins.]

It treats upon the conduct of the people when they were blest. They were led into a land away from their enemies, and the Lord blest them exceedingly; yet the only way that He could keep them within due and proper bounds, so that they would live their religion, so that they would be humble before their Maker and their God, was to let afflictions come upon them.

The Lord, through the Prophet, relates that He had withheld their enemies from them by softening their hearts from day to day, so that they would not go up to war against the people of God; and that He had multiplied blessings upon them, insomuch that they became exceedingly rich in fine clothing, jewelry, raiment, and everything that heart could wish.

God poured out His blessings upon them, and as quick as they began to prosper, and to increase in property, they were raised up in the pride of their hearts, forgot their God, their prayers, and the covenants they had made with and before their God. And when we read the Bible and the Book of Mormon, we are led to contrast the proceedings of the former-day Saints on this continent with the travels and course of this people; and to reflect that many of us have been rooted up and driven some five or six times, and that last of all we are driven here into the Valleys of the Mountains, a thousand miles from everybody, where God has let us come to worship Him, to carry out His designs, to establish His ordinances, and to qualify a people that they may obtain a celestial glory.

Are not this people running into pride? Are they not filled with discord, contention, broils, and animosity? Have they not forgotten their God and their covenants? Do they hold their covenants sacred, those they made when they received their endowments, when they covenanted not to speak evil of one another, nor of the Lord’s anointed, nor of those that lead them? Did they not make all these covenants? Have they not broken them, or many of them?

Do you suppose that God would have spoken to you through brother Brigham as He did last Sunday, if all was right, if you were all living your religion? No, it would have been another tune that would have been sung or played, and it would have given you credit. But that sermon was good to me; and God knows that I never heard a better one since I was born, considering the occasion and the circumstances in which this people stand before their God.

This will not apply to all, but it will apply pretty generally, more or less. We have got to take a different course, and it must needs be that this people repent of their sins and do their first works over, or God will remove their candlestick out of its place.

When our President, our Leader, our Prophet, speaks unto us from week to week, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, do his teachings reach our hearts? Do the people hear? Do the people understand? If they do, they are not all careful to practice.

I have told you, a great many times, that the word of our Leader and Prophet is the word of God to this people, and you play with those words, and you neglect them. You neglect the voice and word of God, and it will fall upon you in a way that you never expected, and you do not expect it now. But there is yet a chance for us to redeem ourselves; and there is a great deal more necessity for us to redeem ourselves, than there is for us to redeem the dead, for the dead they are dead, and you cannot help it; but we are living and can help ourselves, and I suppose God helps those who help themselves.

Let us rise up as a people and turn unto the Lord our God with full purpose of heart, and, peradventure, our sins may be remitted and forgiven, and blotted out. This is what the Lord has placed men to lead you for. You cannot see God, you cannot behold Him and hold converse with Him, as one man does with another; but He has given us a man that we can talk to and thereby know His will, just as well as if God Himself were present.

Am I afraid to risk my salvation in the hands of the man that is appointed to lead me, and to lead this people? No, no more than I am to trust myself in the hands of the Almighty. He will lead me right, if I do as He says in every particular, in every circumstance, in poverty, in riches, in sickness, and in death. That is the course for me take; and if that is the course for me to take, it is the course for brother Grant to take, and for the Twelve Apostles, for the Seventies, for the High Priests, for the Elders, and for every person in the Church and Kingdom of God. We should be like the clay in the hands of the potter. Bless your souls, that is just as true a figure as can be presented before a people, if they ever saw a potter work; but if they never saw one work, they do not know what course he takes, any more than a person knows about a mill that never saw one.

Well, this is the course for us to take, to be like clay in the hands of the potter. Who is the potter? God our Father is the great potter, the head potter, and brother Brigham is one of His servants, to preside over this pottery here in the flesh; and his word is the word of God to this people, and to those that he has called to assist him in this great work.

These are my feelings, and a part of what I was meditating and reflecting upon, as also upon how much we are blest. I know that there are several going away, and that they say that this is a hard country. Let the people that have come from Denmark turn round and go back to where they came from, and then they will say that this land is a perfect Eden, and this place a perfect palace, when compared to the land they lived in before they came here. They come here as hearty and as robust as our mountain sheep, or elk, or the buffalo, and why is it so? Because they have always worked from the days of their youth; they are the chaps. We want those men that have been raised in the mountains, and that have learned to be obedient from the days of their youth. They are the Saints that the men of God want. I love to see them come here under their own flag, the Danish flag, for the standard is raised, and they may come with their own banners, and bow to king Immanuel.

What is required of us, now that we have run into a snare? We should be willing to come out of the forbidden path, and turn unto the Lord with full purpose of heart. Here are hundreds of people that desire their endowments, as soon as they can get them. I would not give them their endowments to almost the last we took through, until they repented and were baptized. We have taken hundreds through, when they ought to have previously done their first works over.

I offer these few remarks that you may reflect upon them, and know when you are guilty. When a man has done wrong he knows it; and when he is breaking his covenants he knows it, and those persons are under condemnation, and it need be that they repent. I am willing to repent of my sins. I repent every day of my life, and I humble myself before my God and acknowledge my sins, both in private and in public. And I take a course to be industrious and I do as I am told, and I do not care what that is, for I know it will be right. If I were told to build a house that would include this whole city, I would go at it. It might make me groan a little, but I would go at it, don’t you believe I would? I tell you I would, though it broke my neck, or cut my throat and chopped me into mince meat. I will stand by the kingdom, and by the Prophets and Apostles, and by all that stand up for the kingdom of our God. I am their friend, and hands off from those men, if you do not want to take Jesse. These are my feelings, and may God bless you, and may peace be multiplied unto you. Amen.

[The following is that part of the Book of Mormon alluded to by President Kimball.]

“And thus we can behold how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him. Yea, and we may see at the very time when He doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies: softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceeding great prosperity. And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him. O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world! Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom’s paths! Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide. O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth. For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and ever– lasting God. Yea, behold at his voice doth the hills and the mountains tremble and quake. And by the power of his voice they are broken up, and become smooth, yea, even like unto a valley. Yea, by the power of his voice doth the whole earth shake; Yea, by the power of his voice, do the foundations rock, even to the very center. Yea, and if he say unto the earth—Move—it is moved. Yea, if he say unto the earth—Thou shalt go back, that it lengthen out the day for many hours—it is done; And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun. And behold, also, if he say unto the waters of the great deep—Be thou dried up—it is done. Behold, if he say unto this mountain—Be thou raised up, and come over and fall upon that city, that it be buried up—behold it is done. And behold, if a man hide up a treasure in the earth, and the Lord shall say—Let it be accursed, because of the iniquity of him who hath hid it up—behold, it shall be accursed. And if the Lord shall say—Be thou accursed, that no man shall find thee from this time henceforth and forever—behold, no man getteth it henceforth and forever. And behold, if the Lord shall say unto a man—Because of thine iniquities, thou shalt be accursed forever—it shall be done. And if the Lord shall say—Because of thine iniquities thou shalt be cut off from my presence—he will cause that it shall be so. And wo unto him to whom he shall say this, for it shall be unto him that will do iniquity, and he cannot be saved; therefore, for this cause, that men might be saved, hath repentance been declared. Therefore, blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; for these are they that shall be saved. And may God grant, in his great fulness, that men might be brought unto repentance and good works, that they might be restored unto grace for grace, according to their works. And I would that all men might be saved. But we read that in that great and last day there are some who shall be cast out, yea, who shall be cast off from the presence of the Lord; Yea, who shall be consigned to a state of endless misery, fulfilling the words which say: They that have done good, shall have everlasting life; and they that have done evil, shall have everlasting damnation. And thus it is. Amen.”

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, June 29, 1856.

On account of the breeze that is playing beneath this shade, brother Brigham thought I had better put on my hat, but I never feel as though I wanted to wear my hat when he is present. I consider that the master should wear his hat, or hang it on the peg that God made for it, which is his head, of course.

I feel tolerably well as to health today, but I suffer much from bad colds, and have to be very careful, for I am often confined in my house with colds. I took a very violent cold here last Sabbath, by sitting in the draft, and I have not felt very well since, still I feel ambitious in the cause that I have espoused. The things concerning which brother Grant has this day been speaking are good, and I believe in his doctrines because they are true, especially in regard to our being one. I do know most definitively that unless we are one we are not Christ’s; and I also know that if we are not one with brother Brigham, our leader, we are not one with Christ. Yes, I know this, and my feelings are and have been with brother Brigham all the time.

I have learned by experience that there is but one God that pertains to this people, and He is the God that pertains to this earth—the first man. That first man sent his own Son to redeem the world, to redeem his brethren; his life was taken, his blood shed, that our sins might be remitted. That Son called twelve men and ordained them to be Apostles, and when he departed the keys of the kingdom were deposited with three of those twelve, viz.: Peter, James, and John. Peter held the keys pertaining to that Presidency, and he was the head.

How did these keys come to us? Did not Peter, James, and John, ordain Joseph Smith our Prophet? They did. And Joseph Smith called and ordained brother Brigham, brother Heber, brother Parley, and others, enough to make twelve Apostles. Thus you see that there is always a governing principle in the Church upon the earth; there is always a Presidency, three who represent the Deity here on the earth. Just think of your position; you have heard the teachings and instructions of President Young, and his instructions are the word of God to us, and I know that every man and woman in this Church who rejects his testimony, and the testimony of those that he sends, rejects the testimony of God his Father. I know that, just as well as I know that I see your faces today.

Where will those go to that reject this Gospel? Why, in reality they will not go anywhere. [A voice from the stand: They will not go anywhere else, for they have no other place to go to.] They will remain where they are, in hell, where my spirit was for a short time, when I was in England. Where was my body during that brief period? It was in Preston, on the corner of Wilford Street, but my spirit could see and observe those evil spirits as plainly as it ever will after I die. Legions of disembodied evil spirits came against me, organized in companies that they might have more power, but they had not power over me to any great extent, because of the power that was in and sustaining me. I had the Priesthood, and the power of it was upon me. I saw the invisible world of the condemned spirits, those who were opposed to me and to this work, and to the lifting up of the standard of Christ in that country. Did I at the same time see or have a vision of the angels of God—of His legions? No, I did not; though they were there and stood in defense of me and my brethren, and I knew it. And all this not that there was any very great virtue in me, but there was virtue in the Priesthood and Apostleship which I held, and God would and did defend; and the evil spirits were dispersed by the power of God.

Some people suppose that when they leave this state of existence they are going into the paradise of God, but if they do not overcome evil and subject themselves to the will of God and to him that is appointed to lead us here in the flesh, they will become subject to those wicked spirits. Angels will not come by legions to defend those whose faith fails them when the destroyer comes, but he will be permitted to waste the wicked. I never said that I ever saw an angel from God, though I have dreamed about them; neither did I see those evil spirits with my natural eyes, nor was I at the time asleep, but I saw them after I was laid prostrate upon the floor.

When I recovered I sat upon the bed thinking and reflecting upon what had past, and all at once my vision was opened, and the walls of the building were no obstruction to my seeing, for I saw nothing but the visions that presented themselves. Why did not the walls obstruct my view? Because my spirit could look through the walls of that house, for I looked with that spirit, element, and power, with which angels look; and as God sees all things, so were invisible things brought before me, as the Lord would bring things before Joseph in the Urim and Thummim. It was upon that principle that the Lord showed things to the Prophet Joseph.

I speak of these things because I do know that if you do not yield obedience to true principles, and bring your wills into subjection thereto, you will be overcome of evil. Jesus says, I have not come to do my will, but the will of my Father who sent me. Upon the same principle I say that I have not come to do my will, but to do the will of him that sent me, even that of brother Brigham.

This is my place and my calling, and this is my wish and the wish of brother Jedediah, of brother Amasa, of brother Parley, and of every other Apostle that God has appointed and called upon this earth, or ever will while we remain here. It is for brother Brigham to do the will of Joseph, and for Joseph to do the will of Peter, for Peter to do the will of Jesus, and for Jesus to do the will of his Father. That is the chain that reaches from heaven to earth, and do you not understand that it is so? If you will keep hold of that chain and keep your hands strongly fastened in the links, you can reach into the veil. But you must hold on firm and fast to the cable—why? Because there is an anchor at the end of the cable, and that cable is fastened to the ship so that it is made sure at both ends. That is the way it is in a ship, and it is so with the kingdom of God.

My feelings are for you to learn to follow our leader, our Prophet, our President. He will be our President in eternity, and Joseph is his President and will counsel him, and you need not trouble yourselves, but do as you are told and you will obtain salvation and go into the celestial glory. You will then dwell in the same glory with Joseph, with father Smith, with the Apostles and Saints; and by taking such a course not one of you will fall, and I know it.

You have got to be organized and disciplined by the Priesthood, and you have got to stick to that organization, for you cannot be saved with a celestial glory unless you are saved by this Priesthood. Brother Brigham says stick to it, and then we will all be saved in the kingdom of our God.

Thousands of this world, with large herds of cattle and much substance are fleeing to California or Oregon to escape the troubles, but they will be caught in the snare. [President B. Young: They will, and they will fall into the pit.] The road on the Plains is full of emigrants of that class, and there are several thousand Saints on the way here. The handcarts are rolling, and those with them can sleep at night and be up in the mornings, and the carts will jingle through the day; and as soon as we can get teams, after our wheat is harvested, we shall call on you to go back and meet them with flour and other comforts of life; what do you say? [Yes, from many voices in the congregation.] There are squally times in the east; they have got so that they cannot really stand it, without drubbing each other with canes. The world is in commotion; I have been talking about it here, and about the state of affairs in this Church, and what we have got to do, and I cannot get this subject out of my mind, no, not for one moment.

Brethren and sisters, take care of your grain; do not waste any of your grain, for you will need it all; and do not make an unwise or unsaintly disposition of it. I beg of you to attend to this counsel, for I have told it three or four times; not because I profess to be a Prophet, but because I naturally see the necessity for so doing. The people are out of grain and out of bread, and I have but little myself; and from what I see, I should think that very many had none, for if you were to go to my house and stay one day, you would see enough to craze you, for they come in crowds and are hungry, and I feel to pity them, but I cannot feed all creation.

Suppose all this people had been wise and taken counsel, would they have suffered the present destitution? No, they would not. Much of our grain has been consumed by our enemies, by those who care not for what they have to pay, for Uncle Sam pays their bills. Shall they have our grain this year? Doubtless many of this people will sell their grain to them at a low price, and thus they will be fed, while many worthy persons will see straitened circumstances through lack of food, and I see this naturally. This is a numerous people, and they have no surplus of bread, not a particle, and our crop is very light in many places; there are hundreds and thousands of men that have lost their crops entirely. I understand that brother Grant has lost a great portion of his crop, and thousands of acres have been parched up for the want of water, and there will be but little wheat, not near enough to supply the wants of this people, and bring them safely through to another harvest.

In addition to our present number, according to accounts that I see, there are five thousand Saints ready for the Plains at one place, and five thousand more at another, besides those that are casually falling into the ranks, and they have to eat as well as we, until another harvest.

I speak of these things to warn and forewarn you to take care of your grain and save it, and it will be better for you to do this, even though in so doing you have to go barefooted. And it will be better for the sisters to let fine shoes, fine dresses, fine bonnets, ribbons, veils, laces, and all other imported finery stay in the stores until they rot, than to let their grain go for such articles. Will you take the course that you have been exhorted to take? If you do not, a few men may not suffer, but the majority will. I do firmly believe that our bread has been blest and multiplied this season, for I know there was not enough in the Territory to sustain the people. However, the present scarcity is one of the best things that ever happened to this people, for it will teach them wisdom. This is one of the poorest countries for occupancy for Gentiles that I have ever seen, though for the same reasons it is at present the very best for the Saints, for we can get along in it better than any other people.

There are those here who will censure brother Brigham and me, notwithstanding all that we have done for them. [President B. Young: We do not care what they say about us, if they will not steal.] There is but little left in this Territory, so far as bread is concerned. Brother Brigham and I have had to put our families on half rations, in order that we might have wherewith to feed the destitute, and they now say that they feel better than they did before; and I judge, from the testimony that they have given, that it is best to keep them on short rations, for they are fat and fair, and enjoy a good portion of the Spirit of God.

Now, as anciently, the more some are blest, the more they complain; the more the Lord pours out His blessings upon some, the more covetous they are, and a great many of such characters will go to the devil. Brother Brigham and I would rather see our families beg for a living, go poor, penniless, and afflicted, and become sanctified, become celestial beings, and enter into glory, than to see them transgress the law of God. The bodies we do not care so much about, though we intend to support them in time and eternity.

I believe that Joseph has got the Church organized in the spirit world, and that he calls and sends the Elders to preach the Gospel to the spirits in prison.

Inasmuch as we do right, we shall have good times and prosper; and the majority of this people are honest and righteous, and they will be saved in the kingdom of God, for they will cleave to brother Brigham forever, and will be one family. And if I am not very much mistaken, I shall be along with brother Brigham; and if there is anything necessary for me to do, I will do it, though it takes my head off from my shoulders, for I am to be one and will be one with those who will be one with brother Brigham. I will go into the celestial kingdom with him and with Joseph, also with Peter, Paul, Adam, Noah, Job, Daniel, and all the ancient worthies, Prophets and Apostles, that ever lived in this world, and we will dwell there forever. I am on the right track; “Mormonism” is the pride of my heart, and I take no pride in anything else. If I was driven to break up my home tomorrow, I would not cry for anything which I have on this earth.

Do you suppose that I would cry at being compelled to leave my house? Do you wish to know what I would do with it? I would say, let the houses and everything else go. Just before I left Nauvoo, I had finished me a good house, and when compelled to start, I told the devil to take it and stick it in his hat, and I would go to the mountains and get rich.

Many think that they are going right into the celestial kingdom of God, in their present ignorance, to at once receive glories and powers; that they are going to be Gods, while many of them are so ignorant, that they can see or know scarcely anything. Such people talk of becoming Gods, when they do not know anything of God, or of His works; such persons have to learn repentance, and obedience to the law of God; they have got to learn to understand angels, and to comprehend and stick to the principles of this Church.

I feel to pray that the Lord may preserve you all from every evil. As for the departure from this state of existence, it is but for a little moment; and though I have not tasted death, yet I have seen in vision the invisible enemies of God, and they were organized and arranged in battle against one or two men, simply because those men were going to proclaim the Gospel to the nations, and the devil did not like it; and the devil will work against every man who goes into a new place to preach the Gospel. As to the length of that vision, after they took their departure, brother Willard Richards said that it was an hour and a half that we were in the vision, though it seemed to me not to have been a moment. One of the devils spoke, and said to brother Hyde, “I have said nothing against you.”

I did not contend with them, and I assure you it was enough for me to look upon them; though I expect, after passing through the valley of death, that I shall preach to companies and nations of those spirits that are in prison. Those that were disobedient in the days of Noah? No, but to those that have been disobedient in the days of Joseph and Brigham, and that have been condemned for their sins; and we shall have many of them to contend with.

They will come by and by in legions, but we shall have power to overcome by the power of God. They will have great power in the last days, and if you do not overcome them, you will fall into the same spirit; and you will be as liable to be deceived in that state of existence as you are in this, if you turn against God or this kingdom.

I bear testimony of this, and I wish you would listen to counsel and lay aside every sin that doth so easily beset you, and turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart.

Brother Brigham has fellow laborers here, and they are just as good men as any that ever lived upon this earth. Adam and Jesus, and all the Prophets, down to the present, have contemplated this work, and would have rejoiced to live in our day, that they might have participated while in the flesh, in the glories of the last days.

We cannot become perfect, without we are assisted by our heavenly Father. We must be faithful and of one heart, and one mind, and let every man and woman take a course to build up and not pull down. See that you save your grain, that you may save yourselves from the wicked of the world. Try to take care of everything that is good to eat, for this is the work of the Lord God Almighty, and we shall have times that will test the integrity of this people, that will test who is honest and who is not.

Omitting prayer is calculated to lead the mind away from those duties which are incumbent upon us; then let us attend to our prayers and all our duties, and you will know that brother Brigham and his brethren have told you of these things.

Rejoice in all things brought forth in these last days, for the time will come when you will say that we indeed live in the last dispensation.

The trials in the last days will be numerous, but to the faithful they will be of but small moment, for they will live above these things, they will increase in power. The work of God is bound to increase, and just in that proportion will the devil’s kingdom rise in power and strength, and walk up to battle against us. The adversary is bent on having a war with this people, we shall have him right by the side of us, and you will find that he will keep you very busy, if you strive to come off victorious.

We feel the responsibility that is resting upon us, and we wish to save this people, if they will listen to our counsel, both temporal and spiritual. I have to restrain myself, many times, from speaking of things which pass through my mind. I naturally delight in truth and plainness, this is my character, hence I make use of expressions and figures which are plain and easy to be understood.

I wish to have you receive the truth and obey counsel, and become thoroughly imbued with correct principles, that you may bring forth that which is good, raise up righteous sons and daughters, and bear off this kingdom, for it is beginning to work in you.

Take the boys here, the sons of our brethren and sisters, and you may cut them into inch pieces, and they will not forsake this cause, but they will defend it to the last. Some of them may be rough, and perhaps some of them do not pray much, but send them into the vineyard, and then you will see them shew forth the power that is in them.

At present the Prophet Joseph’s boys lay apparently in a state of slumber, everything seems to be perfectly calm with them, but by and by God will wake them up, and they will roar like the thunders of Mount Sinai.

There is much work to be done: God is not asleep, and He will wake up our children and they will bear off this kingdom to the nations of the earth, and will bear testimony to the truth of this work, and of the integrity and true character of Joseph, and Hyrum, and Brigham, of Heber, and Jedediah, and the Twelve, and of thousands of others.

There are trying times ahead of you, do you not begin to feel and see them? If you do not, I say you are asleep. I wish that the spirit which rests upon a few individuals could be upon you, everyone of you, it would be one of the most joyful times that brother Brigham and I ever saw with the Saints of God upon this earth.

Let us be one; brethren, let us be of one heart and one mind; sisters, listen to counsel, and then, as I have said a hundred times, you never will want for flour and the comforts of life, from this time henceforth and forever.

Do I believe that God can increase our substance, increase our flour and our wheat, as He did those loaves and fishes with which Jesus fed 5,000 people?

Supposing that there was a tub standing here and the people perishing for want of water, could not I, were I beyond the veil, come and pour in water? Yes, and you could not see me. Unless your eyes are touched by the power of God, you cannot see an angel; it is as much as you can do to see me.

Angels are ministering spirits, and do you suppose that they will see this people want? Do you suppose that my Father will sit upon His throne, and see us starve? No, no more than He suffered His servant Elijah—to starve, He then inspired a bird to carry meat to His servant Elijah, and He can do the same now.

Did He not cause manna to come from heaven? Yes, and there is plenty more on hand.

I am telling the truths of God, and I am one with brother Brigham, and I can bear testimony to him and of him, and our testimony is as good as that of Peter, or of John.

Brother Brigham and I once started to travel with sixteen dollars and fifty cents, and in five hundred miles we paid out eighty-two dollars, and had some money left when we got to the end of our journey. Do you not suppose that we believe in angels and holy beings, having visited us on those occasions? Cannot angels furnish Saints with money? Our wants were supplied, and we are witnesses of the fact, and we still live, and shall continue to live, and bear testimony to this generation.

Do you not think that angels can bring flour? Can they not go and take it from those who have plenty, and put it in the empty bins, sacks, and barrels belonging to good men, and that too without your knowing it? It is very common for one to increase, and for another to decrease.

Prepare yourselves for the future scenes through which you may be called to pass.

May the Lord God of Israel bless you all, is my prayer. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 23, 1856.

Through my labors in giving the brethren and sisters their endowments, and superintending the laborers from the different Wards, in addition to seeing to those affairs more directly personal, my body is considerably wearied, and that is the reason why I have requested the Bishops to come with the brethren of their respective Wards, and to bring the necessary tools and labor with the men, thus setting an example, and not place that burden upon my back. I bless those Bishops who came and labored with their brethren during the past week. I should be relieved from such duties, but I am often compelled to attend to them, or they would fall upon brother Brigham. I am always willing to do all in my power to relieve him, but such cares and labors do not all belong to him, nor to me nor to brother Grant, but they belong to Bishops, and to those who are appointed to take the immediate oversight of the labors, pertaining to public improvements, to look after such matters, under the directions of the First Presidency of this Church.

As brother Grant has just remarked, and as others have often taught, brother Brigham has understanding, through the power and influence of the Spirit, sufficient for teaching the Saints their duty, and if they do not perform it, if this people do not save themselves by obeying his counsels, they are bound to go to hell. I know this perfectly well, and so does everyone who has the Spirit of the Lord dwelling within him.

Compared with the hosts upon the earth, only now and then one will receive the Gospel, and after that, only now and then one of those who do receive the truth will be saved by it, and obtain celestial glory. If all the Saints would obey counsel, doing as they are directed, is there any difficulty in their being saved? No, no more than there is raising a crop of grain. We have only to take a wise, judicious course, listen to counsel, and obey those instructions which we receive from this stand, from day to day, from Sabbath to Sabbath, and from year to year. Can I save you? No, I can only advise a righteous course, and encourage and aid in walking therein, it then remains for them to take the course which I advise, and I always advise people to adopt that policy which Joseph taught and advocated, and which brother Brigham now lays before us, from day to day. This is what will save you, and you cannot be saved upon any other principle. I have power to save myself, and if I do not save myself, who will save me? All have that privilege, and naught can save us but obedience to the commandments of God. You say, that you have repented and been baptized for the remission of sins, that you have received the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, that you pray, pay your tithing, and day by day, fulfil all the duties required at your hands; such a course is saving in its nature. The most of those present have received their endowments, their washings, and anointings, and have made covenants to their God and their brethren, before witnesses, that they would be faithful, that they would be true, that they would listen to the counsels of the Lord’s servants, and cease to do evil. All who have done this have been pronounced clean, and will they then go and pollute themselves with the wicked? I am sorry to say that a few are unwise enough to do so.

Both men and women have also covenanted that they will have no unlawful intercourse with each other. After all this, do any of you make a practice of speaking evil one of another, of cheating one another, of lying and deceiving? Yes, some who are under the covenants just named, actually indulge in those evil practices, and I say to all such, that if they do not repent of their follies and sins, their washings and anointings will prove a curse instead of a blessing, and will expedite their condemnation.

If a man sins to that degree that he is cut off from the Church, he forfeits the blessings promised on condition of keeping his covenants. When a man loses his membership in this Church, he also loses his Priesthood, and of course the blessings of his endowments. Do not flatter yourselves that you can retain the blessings of the Gospel, and at the same time pursue a wicked course, for you cannot do it.

I feel the importance of these truths, and my mind is often exercised and profited by contemplating upon them. The other night, as I lay in my bed, so weary that I could not sleep, I reflected much upon the principle of obedience, and the government of God in this Church. I then, in my reflections, applied the principle to families in every way, shape, and manner which I could think of, and said, in my heart, I wish I had the skill of a ready writer and power to write what passes through my mind. In the morning I called upon brother Carrington and mentioned the circumstances to him, and I told him that I wished he would write upon the subject of obedience, which he promised to do at the earliest opportunity. I feel the importance of this, for I know that this people cannot continue to prosper as they have done, unless they do as they are counseled; all must be obedient to the powers that be ordained of God.

If it is necessary for me to be subject to my file leaders, I wish to know whether it is not equally for you, and for every High Priest, Elder, Seventy, Apostle, and all others, to be obedient to the Priesthood of those who are appointed to direct them? Is it not right for all men to be obedient to their superiors? And if so, is it not right for women and children to abide the same principle? My spirit, my body, my family, and all I possess in this world are devoted to this kingdom, and so I may say in regard to brother Brigham. These are my feelings upon this subject, and I have had no different feelings during the last twenty-five years.

Is there any difference in the wickedness of the world now and thirty or forty years ago? I think there is. I do not now recollect of having then heard of a divorce in all the region where I lived, and as for a whore or a whoremonger there were few, if any, known in that locality, and if such were found, they were considered unfit for civilized society. But now look down and see what the world is! I have traveled over some of it; I have traveled through most of the enlightened portions of the United States, and much in England, and I have generally found that those who are called the most enlightened are the most corrupt. Does the sad condition of the world hurt my feelings? Not particularly, for that is their own affair; but when the Saints transgress I feel sorrowful. When brother Brigham comes here, and chastises us through the spirit of revelation, or is moved upon to instruct the Saints to their profit, if any portion applies to me, I treasure it up, and humble myself before my God.

I will give you a key which brother Joseph Smith used to give in Nauvoo. He said, that the very step of apostasy commenced with losing confidence in the leaders of this Church and kingdom, and that whenever you discerned that spirit, you might know that it would lead the possessor of it on the road to apostasy. If then you have got this spirit in your hearts, or in your families, and if brethren and sisters, husbands and wives are contending and quarrelling one with another, I say, there is the spirit of apostasy, there is a place where the Spirit of God does not abide in its fulness. Do you suppose that God, His Son, the Holy Ghost, or angels will dwell in a house where there is quarrelling and loss of confidence in the leaders of His appointing? Would you stay in such a habitation? Then let us banish all strife and contention; let no children contend against their parents, nor wives against their husbands, nor anyone against the authorities which God has established. This should be the course in every family, and in every quorum, and let all be actuated and governed by the pure spirit and principles of eternal truth. Let my family take my counsel, as I take the counsel of my President, and they will go into celestial glory, where I am bound to go by walking in that path.

Say to all the legions of devils between this and hell, “Walk in your own course,” and they will not have much power over us, nor over our children. Why? Because we should live above their allurements, and they would be obliged to go about more congenial business, and God would defend us so long as we did not give way.

It is for us to learn to be obedient in our callings and to the Priesthood, in our several quorums and families, and in all circles where we associate together. This is a lesson which must be learned, and when you learn the doctrine of obedience, you will have power to control the weaknesses of your nature, to control yourselves in every respect. But you never will learn this lesson, and gain this knowledge, until you are willing to be controlled by those who lead you in this kingdom.

I desire to stand in my place, to be beneficial to the Saints, to go in and out before the house of Israel, pure and holy. This is my character, and these are my wishes, notwithstanding my weaknesses, which I admit; and this is the character of brother Brigham, and I know it. God bless his soul forever, and he shall live forever, and go into the courts of glory, and enjoy the society of the Father, of Jesus, and all the Apostles; and I will be along with him there, and so will my brethren who are faithful. We will stand so near each other that the devil cannot get between us, and let all our brethren do the same.

Every family should do so, and if they all did, what trouble would there be? What could the wicked do if all the Saints stood faithful in their own places? Do you suppose that they could commit whoredoms? If no woman would bow to wickedness, where would be the whoredoms? Would there be any? No, there could not be any.

After you have received your endowments, a wicked course will more seriously affect you, it will, therefore, be requisite for you to be much more careful how you trifle with holy principles, and transgress your covenants. For this reason I wish the Bishops to take heed who they recommend as worthy to receive endowments, for we shall require a strict account from them.

We have placed Bishops in the different Wards throughout this Territory, and they should be filled with the Holy Ghost, and know every man and woman in their Wards, that they may be able to discern who are worthy of receiving an endowment.

I have heard of some individuals saying, that if the Bishops come into their houses and opened their cupboards they would split their heads open.

That would not be a wise nor safe operation, for there are some hard heads appointed to counsel and direct you in the path of righteousness.

Brother Brigham and I were raised in the midst of mountains, and we have never yet seen the time when threats would swerve us from the line of duty.

I would like to bless all mankind, if they would take a course that would justify me in doing so, and I have extended my hand to the lawyers, judges, military, and civil officers of the United States, and desire to treat them as I would my own children, but how have some of them treated us? They have endeavored, with a few honorable exceptions, to corrupt the morals of this people. I am opposed to those who strive to work corruption for we wish to be pure, and their course leads to death, hell, and the devil, while we desire to rise in the scale of life and happiness. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 9, 1856.

How is the will of the Father done in the heavens? Everyone may read in the Bible that when Lucifer rebelled against the Father, and against Jesus Christ, His Son, he was cast out of heaven, with all those who partook of his spirit.

Were they not all cast out of heaven? We are praying constantly that that may be done on earth, even as it was done in heaven. Would you not like to have the day come when those who rally to the standard of wickedness, which the devil raises, will be cast out; when the Saints may live in peace, and enjoy the comforts of life—partake of one spirit, and be one from that time henceforth, and forever? I am praying for that time to come, and I believe that God will spare my life until I can have the privilege, with thousands of others, of casting corrupt, rebellious beings from our midst.

If I do not live to behold that period, in the flesh, as the Lord liveth, I will see and enjoy it in the spirit, and I will help to accomplish that work. What, in this body? If not in this body I shall in my new one, for I am going to have a new one when I have done my work in this tabernacle which I now possess, and which you now see.

I wish to do my work, and to have it well done, that I may merit and purchase, by my faithfulness, a new body which will be after the similitude of the body I now have.

This tabernacle will be laid down, and my spirit will pass through the veil, into the world of spirits. I told you, the other day, that when you are through with this state of existence your labor is not at an end. The spirit world will probably be equal to this, in that respect, and I think, a little harder.

Here we pray that the time will come when the will of the Father will be done on earth as in heaven. Did not they cast out the devil and all who rallied to his standard? They did.

I have been much interested with the discourse just delivered by brother Wells; it is true. Treasure up the words he has spoken, for your salvation depends upon your observing and walking by them. You are not all indebted to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, but a good many of you are. That Company is in debt, and who does the weight of that debt rest upon? Upon brother Brigham, and upon those whom he calls to his assistance. Do you feel interested in the welfare of that Company? Many of you do not care one dime for the P. E. Fund. That is plain language, but it is true.

Is President Young oppressed? He is; and he is perplexed with those debts which have been made without his knowledge and sanction. It is far easier to contract a debt than it is to pay it.

Many of our Elders abroad run the Company into debt. What a sway I could have, if I had the privilege of incurring liabilities to the amount of fifty, sixty, or eighty thousand dollars, and not be under obligation to pay one dime of it, but leave our President to foot the bill.

It is just as reasonable for us all to run into debt at these stores, and then expect the President to pay our debts. What an unwise policy to run the people into debt, beyond the means for prompt payment, and that too at a time when we were clear of debt, the result of brother Brigham’s skillful financiering and wise management.

He foresaw that these hard times were coming, and labored hard that we might be independent and not be oppressed, but instead of that he is oppressed.

It is as necessary to talk about this as it is to talk about anything else. Why? Because all the poor Saints who are in England, France, Denmark, Italy, Asia, or any part of the earth, where there is a poor Saint, are dependent upon the P. E. Fund to bring them to this country.

They are paying their means into that Fund, are struggling to have an interest in it, and should not you have an interest in it? Yes, just as much as they, and have more need to exert yourselves, if you are indebted to it.

To say nothing of indebtedness to the Fund, there is not a man or woman that professes to be a member in this Church, but what should be just as much interested and as diligent in this matter, as are brother Brigham, brother Heber, brother Grant, or the Twelve Apostles. Do you feel so? To all appearance you do not, apparently the most you care for is your bread and meat.

As to the circumstances under which we are placed, I do not particularly care, all I care about them is the extra care and labor they bring upon me, for I have to keep on the trot to wait on the people who come to me for flour and meal, and for this and that.

Do they come from the Ward I live in? No, they come from different Wards, and some come to beg, some to buy, and some to exchange.

I wish that these matters could be attended to in the Wards where they belong. Let each one take what provision he can spare, from time to time, whether little or much, to the Bishop of his Ward, and let that Bishop and his helps make a righteous distribution of that food.

I do not wish to be placed under the necessity of administering to the wants of so many, in addition to the large number I have to provide for, neither does brother Brigham; it is too onerous a burden, and we have not the provisions.

Some may think that there is a great supply of wheat, corn, barley, &c., now in the Tithing Office. I was there myself, two or three weeks ago, and I asked brother Hill to show me all the grain there, and the whole amount would not exceed six hundred bushels. How long will it take to feed that out? I deal out over one thousand pounds every week, and sometimes over fourteen hundred pounds.

What toll has been taken at my mill during the last seven months? Not to exceed one bushel a day, on account of the want of water, and that does not pay the miller. Brother Brigham’s mill does not have more than one-quarter or one-third the grain it can grind, and he has hundreds of persons to support. He has enough to do and to think of, to kill any man under God’s heaven, unless he was supported and upheld by an Almighty power.

What are my cares? I said sometime since, that my immediate family consisted of seventy-nine persons, which I feed, clothe, and shelter, and I furnish thirteen fires all the time. This care and expense should be borne by the Church, and I, left free to attend to the labors more directly pertaining to the Priesthood. But, as it is, I now assist many, besides entirely supporting my large family. I feed widows and their families, who do not belong to me any more than they belong to you.

Has brother Brigham got a heavier load than I have? Yes, he feeds his hundreds, besides aiding other hundreds who do not directly belong to his family.

I wish you Bishops to take some of these loads. I sometimes feel as though I could not live, still I get along with those I am obliged to feed. There is not a member in my family, with the exception of my first wife and my first children, who have ever begun to see the hard times that I have seen.

In my younger days I have seen the time when, for two weeks together, we were under the necessity of eating boiled milkweeds, and that too with– out having to salt them. Have any of you come to that yet?

I have seen the time in Nauvoo, the last time I went to England, when I could sit down with my family and eat all we had in the house, and then not have half enough. I never was so poor in my life as I was then, and I was sickly and afflicted. Was I happy? Yes, just as happy as I am now, and just as comfortable in my feelings.

I always felt as thankful when I had not anything as when I had plenty; I feel as thankful with a little as I do with ever so much.

But I have heard some people say, that they could not ask God to bless a johnnycake, and feel thankful for it. I could mention many such characters, people who are never thankful, only when they have an abundance. I am thankful when I have a little; I am thankful now, and I never was more so than I am this day, for there is a prospect of some people learning a lesson, though I doubt very much whether all will.

Does it make all humble? No, for many are calculating to start for California directly. Thank God for that, not a soul of them will cause me to shed a tear at their leaving, not even if they were members of my own family. Inasmuch as they wish to go, go, say I, off with you, there are plenty more where you grew. But when you go, do not steal what few cattle we have left.

Brother Erastus Snow, while in the States, borrowed money to assist the P. E. Fund Company. I have some property close to my house, on the west side of the street, five, six, or seven thousand dollars worth, that I will let any of you have for drafts against the Fund. I also have two farms and some cattle that I will dispose of for the same kind of pay, and the farms have as good soil as you will find in the Territory.

I do not wish to let you have my sheep, for I am determined that my family shall make their own clothing. I am going to organize a domestic manufacturing company, in my own family; we are going to make up our own clothing and attend to our own business. Let us do this in every family throughout this City, and throughout this Territory.

It is necessary for us to take a course, to put ourselves into a situation where we may be as independent in our sphere of action, as God is in His. You have heard brother Brigham say, a thousand times, that there is nothing we wear, eat, or drink, but what is in the elements around us. It is for us to take these elements and organize them, and put them into a condition in which we can use them.

I know that there are a great many good people here; the jewels of the earth are in this congregation, and in different parts of this Territory; they are jewels of the earth, both male and female. Some of the meanest of people are here also; on natural principles there must needs be an opposition.

A company of men was selected to go to Las Vegas to strengthen up that settlement, and I understand that other men were getting up companies for other purposes.

We wish those who are appointed to go to Las Vegas, to Green River, and to other places, to go where they are appointed, and nowhere else, and not to listen to any man on earth who would influence them to go somewhere else, unless they are dictated to take a different course by the President of this Church.

Thomas S. Williams is getting up a company to go on an exploring excursion; he proposed doing so, and brother Brigham told him to act his own pleasure. It is his own individual proposal and affair, and not an appointment by the authorities of this Church. I speak of this, that the brethren may not misunderstand the matter.

We are willing that brother T. S. Williams should explore the Colorado regions, the Pimo country, and every part of the earth, but those who go with him, go on their own responsibility.

I am not making these remarks with a view to interfere with his operations, but we wish him to understand that we do not intend to have him interfere with those who are going to Las Vegas, Green River, or any other point to which we are sending brethren. You can now understand the matter perfectly, so that you need not run to brother Brigham, to me, to brother Grant, or to anybody else. When we make an appointment we wish it carried out, unless it is altered by the proper authority. I think I have said enough on that subject, you can now understand it, if you choose to.

My feelings are, if God blesses and sustains me, to build a good storehouse for my grain this season, I am going to lay up everything I can raise. I say this for the benefit of brother Hunter, and all the Bishops in the House of Israel. Follow the example if you think it is a good one, and lay up stores of grain, against the time of need, for you will see the time when there will not be a kernel raised and when thousands and millions will come to this people for bread. You cannot believe it, can you? You may say, “If one of the old Prophets could rise from the dead and declare it, we would then believe it, but, brother Heber, it is hard to believe it from you. You are very liable to take colds, if you were a servant of God, you would not have any colds.”

Upon the same principle I can say, if you are the servants of God, why do you get hungry? I should not suppose that you would ever be hungry.

I am a servant of God, and if you do not know it, I bear testimony of it, and I am a companion to Brigham Young, and will be forever and ever.

When I was in Fillmore, a certain Judge came to me in a dream, and wished to know what a portion of Scripture meant; says I, “What Scripture?” He replied, “That Scripture which says, three men shall die for the world.” I observed, that I did not know that it would be any worse for three men to die for the world than it was for one, but if three men have got to die, they will first have to catch them. When the Lord pleases, we shall die, and not before. Joseph did not die until it was the Lord’s time.

Brethren will you do right? If so, go to and exert yourselves, in every way within your power, in raising grain and every kind of sustenance, and call your wives and children to your assistance, in the accomplishment of the great object now before us.

Since we have been here, my family have always had enough, and I tell them that if they will follow my counsel, they will never go short of food, but if they do not, they may see want. I feel well, I feel as though I could “run through a troop and leap over a wall.” I expect to see close times, and so will you. I expect to see scores of you take the backtrack, that is, many of you will deny the faith. Why do I say this? Because you do not do right; you do not all keep the commandments of God; you do not all pray and humble yourselves in the hands of the Lord, like clay in the hands of the potter. You are not all subject to the authorities, whom the Lord has placed to counsel and direct you. For this reason, many are losing the good Spirit and are going into darkness. If you will not be molded and fashioned to take the place, and honor the position in which God designs you to act, He will cut that lump off from the wheel, and throw it back into the mill to be ground over again. Then He will take another lump and put it in the place where the refractory one was, and if that is not passive, He will cut it off and put on another.

Do I feel to bless you? Yes, I could bless you from this time henceforth and forever, but what good would it do you, without you live for it? You may go to the Patriarchs, to the Prophets, and Apostles, and even get all the men in Israel to lay their hands on you and bless you, and though they bless you from this time to all eternity, yet, unless you continue steadfast in well-doing, you may go to hell after all. What would it avail to receive blessings, if you do not live for them and merit them by doing as God says? If I live to God and keep His commandments, I shall have so many blessings that I shall not have room for them, and you all have the same privilege.

Let us strive to live our religion, that we may continually enjoy the rich blessings of Heaven, which may God grant, for His Son’s sake. Amen.

A Discourse by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 2, 1856.

I wish you to understand and observe what brother Brigham taught here this forenoon. I can say, from knowledge and experience, that every word was true, and, in my humble opinion, he truthfully portrayed the situation in which this people are at the present time, that is, in a careless, stupid condition. I know this from my own feelings, when I stand before this congregation. If you were filled with light, even the light of Christ, I know that I should be constantly inspired by the Holy Ghost, to speak according to the light which is in this people. But it is not so, therefore there is a hindrance to bringing forth light and truth, much more abundantly than they are presented.

The present is a peculiar time, many people are frightened at their condition, and we discover that it is almost universally so; it is tight times. Am I sorry? No, I have never seen anything transpire in these valleys that has given me more satisfaction than do the times that we now see. If you will reflect for one moment, you will remember that the scenery we are now passing through was predicted more than three years past. If this people had observed the counsel that was given to them from time to time, would any of you have been placed in the straightened circumstances you are in this day? No, you would not.

When brother Brigham and myself, with a hundred and forty-one men, came into this valley nearly nine years ago, he proclaimed the propriety of this people laying up their grain for a time to come, a time or scarcity, and a time has come. He said there would be a time when it would be one of the greatest temporal blessings, for this people to have wheat in their storehouses.

You have been warned beforehand, and that by revelation from God through Joseph Smith, and afterward through brother Brigham who is our Prophet, you have been warned, time and time again, to take care of your grain. In future build yourselves good storehouses and save your grain for a time of famine, and sickness, and death upon the nations of the wicked, to get rid of the evildoers. I have noticed those predictions, I have reflected upon them ever since they were told us.

There will not many calamities come upon the nations of the earth, until this people first feel their effects, and when hard times commence they will begin at the house of God, and if there is any house of God on the earth, where is it? It is here, is it not? It is where the people have assembled together according to the commandments of the Almighty. We have got to feel the effects of these things, and if we do so patiently it will be good for us. No serious loss or injury will arise from calamities, if we do as we are told.

Take this people as a people, throughout the valleys of the mountains, and I presume that they are the best people upon the face of the earth, and even here there is hardly a person but what takes a course to live from hand to mouth, that is, they will never lay up anything. This course will not answer for us, we must lay up grain against the famines that will prevail upon the earth. What shall we lay up that grain for? Shall we lay it up to feed the wicked? No, we shall lay it up to feed the Saints who gather here from all the nations of the earth, and for the millions of lovers of good and wholesome laws who will come from the old countries and from the United States, fleeing to this place for their bread, and I know it.

How much have you got to feed them on now? We talk about those in the household of faith, and those who are inclined to serve the Lord, they will be the ones to suffer first. The Spirit has been in my heart all the time, and when the drouth came I laid up all the wheat that I could get in my mill by toll, and never used any for horses or cattle, but kept it to feed my laborers and my family. I have now dealt it out until I have nearly used it up, and I have not sold it for money. I have not sold twenty-five dollars worth of grain during the past year, but I have let my brethren have it, and kept it to sustain my family.

Let us all take such a course, and in future raise an abundance of grain, and save ourselves from the dilemma which we will otherwise fall into. It is necessary for you to understand and comprehend these things, and I wish you to understand them for yourselves; I can only act for one. When I lay up grain and others do not, I cannot let them starve to death, it is not in me to do that, but it is a pretty difficult position to be placed in. When we attempt to draw the line of distinction between right and wrong, it is unpleasant to have individuals among us who will lie for a pound of flour. When we know such individuals is it right for me to give flour to them? No, it is not right for me to give it to anyone, only in exchange for something else, except under certain circumstances.

In the Bible Jesus uses a parable concerning talents which were delivered to different individuals, with instructions to go and improve upon them, to put them to use that they might increase upon that capital. In due time, the lord called upon those men to whom he gave the talents, and the one who had received one talent had hid it, but the others had put theirs to use, and received their reward accordingly. This is the way in which we have got to prove ourselves, and we have got to be tested and become suitable for governors, to govern others and to control our families, and then to control nations and kingdoms.

Have I not worked as hard as any of you for my living? Who ever saw me indolent, or idling away my time around street corners, or about the Council House? No one, either of the living or dead. I am always busy in striving to adorn my plantation, and my works show it all the time. I am not preaching anything but what I practice. Does brother Brigham preach anything but what he practices? No, he practices it night and day, and is just as virtuous and pure before his family as he is when he is before the public, and I would not give a dime for a man who is not. Does not the Almighty know all these things? Some may think that the Almighty does not see their doings, but if He does not, the angels and ministering spirits do. They see you and your works, and I have no doubt but they occasionally communicate your conduct to the Father, or to the Son, or to Joseph, or to Peter, or to someone who holds the keys in connection with them. Perhaps there are some who do not believe much in spirits, but I know that they exist and visit the earth, and I will tell you how and why I know it.

When I was in England, brother Geo. D. Watt was the first man baptized, and his mother was baptized directly after he was. The night previous to my going forward to baptize brother Watt and eight others, I had a vision, as old father Baker used to say, “of the infernal world.” I saw legions of wicked spirits that night, as plain as I now see you, and they came as near to me as you now are, and company after company of them rushed towards me; and brother Hyde and brother Richards also saw them. It was near the break of day, and I looked upon them as I now look upon you. They came when I was laying hands upon brother Russell, the wicked spirits got him to the door of the room, I did not see them till after that took place, and soon afterwards I lay prostrate upon the floor. That was in England, pious England, in the little town of Preston, at the corner of Wilford Street, and they struggled and exerted all their power and influence. That was the first introduction of the Gospel into England, and I was shown those spirits as plainly as ever I saw anything. I was thinking of that circumstance while brother Brigham was speaking this morning, and I was thinking that those spirits were just as much on hand to perplex this people as they were on hand there. I saw their hands, their eyes, and every feature of their faces, the hair on their heads, and their ears, in short they had full-formed bodies.

If evil spirits could come to me, cannot ministering spirits and angels also come from God? Of course they can, and there are thousands of them, and I wish you to understand this, and that they can rush as an army going to battle, for the evil spirits came upon me and brother Hyde in that way. There is one circumstance in the visit of those evil spirits, that I would not tell if brother Hyde had not often told it himself; they spoke and said to brother Hyde, “We have nothing against you,” no, but I was the lad that they were after. I mention this to show that the devil is an enemy to me, he is also an enemy to brother Brigham, to brother Jedediah, to the Twelve, and to every righteous man. When brother Benson goes to the old country he will find hosts of evil spirits, and he will know more about the devil than he ever did before. The spirits of the wicked, who have died for thousands of years past, are at war with the Saints of God upon the earth. Do I ever pray that I may see them again? No, I do not. We had prayed all day, and almost all night, that we might have power to establish the Gospel in England. Previous to this, Mr. Fielding, a clergyman, came and forbid my baptizing those persons who had come forward. Said I, sir, they are of age, and I shall baptize them, if they wish for it, and I baptized nine. The next morning I was so weak that I could scarcely stand, so great was the effect that those spirits had upon me. I wrote a few words to my wife about the matter, and brother Joseph called upon her for the letter and said, “It was a choice jewel, and a testimony that the Gospel was planted in a strange land.”

When I returned home I called upon brother Joseph, and we walked down the bank of the river. He there told me what contests he had had with the devil; he told me that he had contests with the devil, face to face. He also told me how he was handled and afflicted by the devil, and said, he had known circumstances where Elder Rigdon was pulled out of bed three times in one night. After all this some persons will say to me, that there are no evil spirits. I tell you they are thicker than the “Mormons” are in this country, but the Lord has said that there are more for us than there can be against us. “Who are they?” says one. Righteous men who have been upon the earth.

But do you suppose that angels will pay friendly visits to those who do not live up to their privileges? Would you? No, you would not like to visit with persons who lie, and steal your goods, and borrow and never pay. Would not you forsake such persons? Yes, you would. Will the Holy Ghost dwell with a man who will lie, steal, and swear? No. It is written that where the Holy Ghost takes up its abode the Father and Son will come and abide. That is the God whom I serve, one who has millions of angels at His command. Do you suppose that there are any angels here today? I would not wonder if there were ten times more angels here than people. We do not see them, but they are here watching us, and are anxious for our salvation. Will one out of twenty of those who are here today go through the gates into the celestial city? As I told some today, when passing through the gate at noon, when you go to the straight gate that we read of, you will not go through there crowding by hundreds as you do now, the righteous and wicked all mixed up together; you cannot go into the celestial world unless you are sanctified through the celestial law. Do you not think that it will require faith, repentance, and baptism, to enable you to get through the celestial gates? Yes, and it will require obedience to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

There are many who will feed the ungodly sooner than the Saints, but I tell you I will feed the Saints first and the poor devils afterwards, if there is any to spare. But none of them should have food unless they worked for it. I am expressing some of my feelings, and speaking of some of my actual knowledge of things, temporal and spiritual. The Lord has hosts of angels who are qualified to defend us, and they have information enough to march armies and to select leaders to lead them against the enemy of the Saints; and the devil has leaders enough to march his armies against the Saints.

If men and women do not qualify themselves and become sanctified and purified in this life, they will go into a world of spirits where they will have a greater contest with the devils than ever you had with them here. It will not be fifty years, perhaps, before all of us here today will leave this state of existence, and then you will prove whether brother Brigham and the rest of the brethren have told you truth or not. You know that the world has made a great deal of fuss, and told many lies about the devil pitching on to Joseph Smith when he went to get the plates, but they will get to a place where the devils will handle them worse than they did Joseph when he got the plates; if they do not embrace the Gospel, it will be so.

Let us repent and forsake our sins and turn our hearts to our God, every one of us. I have said a thousand times, if I was to die now, today, I could not do better than I have done, still I have my weaknesses. But I don’t go and sell my grain to the Gentiles, and then say that my family are on rations. If there are men who have done so, they will see sorrow and I know it.

Shall we turn unto the Lord with all our hearts, and deal justly, do as we would wish another to do to us? Methinks every heart says, “Yes, we will go to work and try, if we die in the attempt.”

My heart is in “Mormonism;” it is my joy, and I have no joy in anything else. I have no pride in gold or silver, if I had I should take the dimes for my flour. If I have any food to spare I will hand it to the Bishop, and let him hand it to those who are destitute. This is what I believe in doing, and I wish others to do so too. If our Bishops do not attend to their duties, in these and all other matters, we shall drop them when conference comes; I say we, because we shall all take a hand in it. Now mark it. Our Bishops on Juries—under the dictation of those spirits that are in courts! I cannot stay in such places, they are so obnoxious to me. Men will make lawsuits, brother go to law with brother. Does this agree with the word of God? Does this agree with the word of Jesus, or with the words of the Prophets? No, and it is a set of poor devils that will do so, and by so doing they have taken a course by which they have forfeited their right and title as members of this Church and kingdom. Do you wish me to talk softly? If you do, I must be made another man. Let me be made an instrument in the hands of God to play the tune which He influences me to play; that is my way. There are not many who dare do this; they have not got force enough in them, nor intelligence enough, they do not know enough about God.

I am ready, when the time comes, for the line to be drawn, and the ax to be laid at the root of every tree which does not bear good fruit.

I stick to “Mormonism,” and I pray God that it may stick to me. I wish to take a course to love and fear God, that when I bow before Him to ask for His Holy Spirit, I may have the communion thereof. Do I have that communion? I do, day by day, and I am not satisfied without it. If I get into a bad humor, the first thing I do is to pray; and I never am so angry but that I can pray. Often, in the town of Mendon, N. Y., when I went out to pray, it seemed as though there were hosts of devils trying to stop me; they did not wish me to become a “Mormon.” Have I ever been sorry that I became a “Mormon?” Have I ever regretted it? No, never for one moment. I may be asked whether I know Joseph Smith was a Prophet; yes, I know it just as well as I do that you are sitting before me this day; and I also know that brother Brigham is his successor, and that I am his brother. Do not try to get between him and me, nor between me and brother Jedediah, if you do your toes will be pinched. I wish men to keep round about us to encircle us with their love and kindness, but not to get between us, for we intend to stand by each other to death. This is our integrity, and God ever help us to be one, and also the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, and every Latter-day Saint, that we may all be one with Joseph, as is Joseph with Peter, and Peter with Jesus, and Jesus with his Father. This is the connection that we hold in the holy Priesthood.

Do any wish to destroy the union that exists among this people? I am opposed to everyone who tries to do so, and so is every true Saint, and those who dwell here and in the heavens will say, Amen. I am an enemy to the devil and all his imps, and to all who come here to make merchandise of the Saints of God. I know that men come here and act on a principle of policy to get trade, but with us, dollars and dimes are not objects of worship, for we love to deal with the true principles of righteousness. Let us go to work, every man, woman, and child, and strive to fill these valleys of the mountains with corn, wheat, potatoes, beets, and vegetables of every kind, that, when another fall comes, we may be able to say that we have food in abundance, as well as sealings and marriages. I will say a few words about divorces, do they prove that you are loving men and women, having your prayers ascend to God? No, but they prove that you are contending with each other. However, I presume that such cases will occur, that people will keep apostatizing until the Savior comes, and he says that even then they of the king– dom will be like ten virgins, five wise and five foolish.

Take the counsel that you have heard today and last Sunday. Stop your lawing one with another, your quarrelling one with another, and let all cease to do evil, and then will not the angels rejoice? Well, God have mercy upon you all and save you from your follies, that you may be His in time, and His in eternity, which is the prayer of your unworthy servant, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, February 24, 1856.

I do not suppose that any good Saint is tried one particle, by the plainness of the remarks just made by brother Brigham.

As to the principles just advanced by brother Joseph Hovey, and by brother Brigham, they are God’s truth, and I know that the curse will be fulfilled upon every character that it applies to, if they do not repent and turn from their sins, and that immediately.

I can say, with all my heart, may God grant that these words may be fulfilled, and I know they will. I will stand by him in these things, yea, I will stand by the going forth of righteousness until there is not a drop of blood left in my veins, if need be, and so will every honest, upright, good son of God.

I am disgusted myself with the evil practices which have just been spoken of. Day before yesterday was the first time that I have been into a court, for between 25 and 30 years. Did I stay there long? No. I said to brother Brigham, I want to go and see about the missionaries, because my spirit was not there, it don’t dwell there. Still I would not have left if he had not, for I feel perfectly willing to go where he goes. These are my feelings, and have been all the time.

When I see evil spirits working and operating, as I have seen many times, I feel like severing the good from bad, for this people have been broken up and robbed, and our Prophets, Patriarchs, and brethren have been slain, through letting such spirits work in our midst, like the leaven of the devil, until the whole lump becomes leavened with them. I say clear out evil in the start, and sever the bitter branches from the tree, as fast as wisdom will permit.

These are my feelings, and, if you do not listen to the warning voice, not many days will pass before it will be done, and it will not be allowable to introduce into the kingdom that which is against its order, for there is order in the Church of God.

The Elders of Israel, in all their meetings and speeches, say they are willing to do whatsoever they are called upon to do, by the authorities of this Church. As some missionaries are wanted, we are now ready to test whether you are willing or not; and when a man is appointed to take a mission, unless he has a just and honorable reason for not going, if he does not go he will be severed from the Church. Why? Because you said, you were willing to be passive, and if you are not passive, that lump of clay must be cut off from the wheel and laid aside, and a lump put on that will be passive.

That is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine of Christ and of the Father. The Lord’s servant is here to guide, dictate, and advise you what course to take, that he may mold and fashion you into the image and likeness of the Son of God.

I will present to this congregation the names of those whom we have selected to go on missions. Some are appointed to go to Europe, Australia, and the East Indies, and several will be sent to Las Vegas, to the North, and to Fort Supply, to strengthen those settlements.

We wish to have those who are appointed to go to the Vegas and Fort Supply, immediately begin to gather up their effects, and prepare to take a portion of their families with them, or all if they choose, though where a family is large it will be better to take only a part, and go as soon as the weather will permit.

I mention these things that you may not misunderstand, that you may go to work, without running to brother Brigham and to brother Grant every moment. Those who go north are requested not to take their families, but gather up their teams, seeds, etc., and go as soon as practicable. I believe that is all.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, January 27, 1856.

I do not feel as though I desired to take up much time, I merely wish to say a few words in regard to what we have heard today. I am aware that a great many in the world are pleased with fancies, they are gratified and edified with that which is artificial, but if people would be pleased and instructed with such remarks as we have heard today, it would be well, for they are the principles that will save you, that will lead you into the celestial world. Listen to that which you have heard today from brother Brigham; he is our leader, our Prophet, our Priest, and our Governor—the Governor of the Territory of Utah. In him is every power and key of celestial life and salvation, pertaining to every person there is on this earth, and that is a principle which but few persons realize. You take away the keys that are with him, and with those who sustain him, and I would not give a dime for you. Sin to such a degree that brother Brigham and his counselors, and those who are associated with him—the Apostles of Jesus Christ—withdraw from your midst, and I would not give a dime for all the salvation you have got; that is my faith. He holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven, just as much as Peter, James, and John did after Jesus committed the keys to them on the mount, and said, “I give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whomsoever you bless I will bless, and whomsoever you curse I will curse.”

Take away that power, take away those keys, and you cannot find your way into the celestial kingdom. The keys in his possession will unlock the door and let you through into another existence more excellent than this. He holds the keys. Can anybody pass without them? No, only as they get authority through him. Are they appreciated as they should be? Do this people listen to the counsel that proceeds from his mouth, as the words of the living oracles of God?

I would not care if there was not a Bible within ten thousand miles of this place, or any other book or script; here are the oracles living right in our midst, and we receive them from day to day, by word of mouth from a living man, an Apostle who is alive, and through a Priesthood which is living in our midst.

At the same time, a great many persons think more of the testimony of a dead Apostle than they do of a living one, and think more of dead Prophets than they do of living ones who are here in their midst. It is generally the case that men do not fully appreciate their blessings in life; often when their wives are dead they think more of them than they did when they were living, and it is just so with some wives in regard to their former husbands. We do not always appreciate the blessings we have in our possession until they are taken from us; then we begin to appreciate them; so when good men have left us we cease thinking of their faults, but begin to cherish the memory of their good deeds.

It is thus with a great many of our sisters when their husbands have gone to preach the Gospel; they now think they never had a fault in the world, but when they were at home they were full of failings.

I am not going to preach a discourse filled with high flown, exalted words, having no meaning to it, but I will come down to the capacity of every person that they may understand. Many times we do not appreciate our children, and take a right course with them when living, and when they are dead, we mourn and think of their lovely behavior, but never think of their misdeeds. Let us try to think as much of the living as of the dead. That which is dead will take care of itself, while that which is living wants somebody to care for it.

I consider that what we have heard today is of great worth to those who hear, but it is of far more worth to those who receive it, and more still to those who practice it, and bring forth the fruits thereof. Let us treasure up these things in our hearts and be faithful, and serve our God and keep His commandments.

In regard to our doings at Fillmore, all was peaceful and harmonious, so far as the Legislature was concerned; though the brief term of forty days, allotted by Congress for a session, is not long enough for the members to thoroughly withdraw their minds from the various other channels, in which their thoughts are constantly so busily occupied. This fact tends to postpone important and difficult subjects of legislation, until most of the time has elapsed, when it is too late to enter upon them with that care, reflection, and critical arrangement, and wording, which they demand. Aside from this, the Assembly of 1854-55, by their revision, and other acts, presented us with a volume of very good laws, and wisdom did not dictate any material alterations for the present, therefore most of the bills passed this winter have been grants to herd grounds.

It would be but just to our new Territory, and highly beneficial to her interests, if Congress would either lengthen the term of our sessions or sanction, by paying the commissioners, our wise policy in appointing a Code Commission to prepare and present laws of an important nature. The latter course is, by far, the most preferable; for by that method capable men can be selected, who have time and opportunity to give all necessary attention to any given subject, and to thoroughly prepare it for speedy and satisfactory action. Our position, surroundings, and characteristics, prohibit the ancient style of enacting very numerous, wordy, and voluminous laws, therefore the more necessity for a longer period, or the payment of Code Commissioners.

In our votes and feelings we were one, and did the best that the time and our judgments permitted; and may God grant that this people ever be one, and cheerfully obey His commandments and all good and wholesome laws. Amen.

Remarks by President H. C. Kimball, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, October 6, 1855.

I do not wish to detain the congregation long, still I do not think that those who have the spirit of a Saint are tired and wish the meeting to come to a close. Every word I have heard today is salvation and the very quintessence of righteousness, and I assure you that I have enjoyed myself more under what I have heard today, than I ever did in the best party that I ever attended. True, I have enjoyed myself extremely well when I have been with my brethren in the dance, but, gentlemen and ladies, what we have heard today is salvation and eternal lives to us, if we will listen to and obey it.

I am thankful that the time has come when brother Brigham is disposed to lift the veil and expose the iniquities of men, if they are not willing to expose them themselves. I know they were exposed in the days of Joseph, and brother Brigham, myself, and many others were with him and stood by him to the day of his death, and do still. When their iniquities were exposed, men whom we thought much of, and those whom we thought nothing of, turned away from the faith. They were poor, miserable, rotten-hearted creatures; we knew that, and knew it when we were in England, and when we came home; and because we would not pamper and flatter those poor, miserable devils, they became our enemies and the enemies of Joseph.

Joseph would many times ostensibly hold men up to see whether this people would worship them, to see whether they had discernment enough to know the difference between a righteous man and a wicked one, and if we preferred the society of a blackleg, or of a whoremaster, or of any other abominable character, he was perfectly willing that we should have the opportunity to prove ourselves.

Now we are here in the mountains and am I not glad? Yes, I am glad, and I rejoice exceedingly, and if I am concealing wickedness or iniquity, I say, let it be exposed, that others by seeing it may repent and forsake their sins. Men will often tell what they will do—that they are willing to lay down their lives for the sake of this Gospel and for their brethren, but the thing is to come and do it, while at the same time they are not willing to pay their tithing, nor do anything else that is required of them. He is no Saint who will not fulfil the requirements of heaven.

Brother Brigham is a servant to this people, and he serves you and waits upon you by night and by day, and his associates are willing to do whatever they are called upon. He is your servant, and I am your servant, but if you do not treat your servants well while in this time, I am afraid that when they come to what is called eternity, you will not have the privilege of troubling them much. Therefore, listen with hearing ears and understanding hearts; walk up like men to do what God requires at your hands, and be willing to come to the light that your sins may be revealed; and if your sins are revealed and you repent of them, there are men who can tell you what road to take and what atonement to make, that you may be set in the road which leads to life, and if you will not be corrected you will be damned as sure as the sun will again set.

What is called “Mormonism” is the delight of my heart; this people are the pride of my heart, and I wish that everyone would do right, keep the commandments of the Lord, and listen to those correct principles that are taught them from time to time. Some will come with great zeal and anxiety, saying, “I want my endowments; I want my washings and anointings; I want my blessings; I wish to be sealed up to eternal lives; I wish to have my wife sealed and my children sealed to me;” in short, “I desire this and I wish that.” What good would all this do you, if you do not live up to your profession and practice your religion? Not as much good as for me to take a bag of sand and baptize it, lay hands upon it for the gift of the Holy Ghost, wash it and anoint, and then seal it up to eternal lives, for the sand will be saved, having filled the measure of its creation, but you will not, except through faith and obedience. Those little pebbles and particles of sand gather themselves together and are engaged, as with one heart and mind, to accomplish a purpose in nature. Do they not keep the mighty ocean in its place by one united exertion? And if we were fully united we could resist and overcome every evil principle there is on earth or in hell.

Let us all listen with care and attention to the counsels that are given and that have been given unto us today, for they are more precious and delicious to me than the sweetest thing I ever tasted in this life. Shall we sit down and not rebuke sin?

If you oppose any of the works of God you will cultivate a spirit of apostasy. If you oppose what is called the “spiritual wife doctrine,” the Patriarchal Order, which is of God, that course will corrode you with a spirit of apostasy, and you will go overboard; still a great many do so, and strive to justify themselves in it, but they are not justified of God. When you take that course you put a knife to brother Brigham’s breast, and to the breasts of his associates; and more or less so when you oppose anything which God has instituted for His glory and the exaltation of man. I do not like such conduct myself, and I am opposed to such characters; I do not ask any favors of them, and I have often said that I never want one of them to darken my door. I am against them and God is against them, and I am for sustaining His cause, the cause of my Father who dwells in the heavens; the cause of His Son, and the cause that brother Joseph has been the means of bringing forth by the revelations of Jesus Christ. We sustained Joseph in this cause in his day, and we sustain the same cause now, and we will sustain it forever, and that is our desire and prayer from this time henceforth, God helping of us.

The principle of plurality of wives never will be done away although some sisters have had revelations that, when this time passes away and they go through the veil, every woman will have a husband to herself. I wish more of our young men would take to themselves wives of the daughters of Zion, and not wait for us old men to take them all; go ahead upon the right principle, young gentlemen, and God bless you forever and ever, and make you fruitful, that we may fill the mountains and then the earth with righteous inhabitants. That is my prayer, and that is my blessing upon all the Saints and upon your posterity after you, forever. Amen.