Discourse by Elder Henry W. Naisbitt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, June 7, 1885.

My brethren and sisters and friends: I arise to speak with a little embarrassment, but I look to the Saints, asking for their faith so that I may overcome.

There is nothing that interests the Latter-day Saints so much as the enunciation of the principles which they profess and literally accept; but it would seem as if there was in the outside world, less comprehension and understanding in regard to the principles that the Saints believe in, than there is in regard to any other subject which has acquired the same prominence.

The Church of Jesus Christ for a great many years has kept a large number of missionaries in the field; they have traversed the whole of Christendom, in a greater or less degree, visited also the heathen nations and lands that are afar off; but yet a traveler would find that but little impression has been made among the masses of mankind. Even among those which are most ad– vanced, and whose citizens are presumed to be intelligent, and to comprehend the questions which agitate the public mind, there is an amount of ignorance which is, to say the least, discreditable. It has been my lot individually, to come in contact with many who have visited this Territory and city, and to hear their expressions of surprise in regard to the religious faith of the Latter-day Saints. To tell a stranger that the people of Utah believe in the Bible, appears to be something altogether unlooked for. The assertion of their faith in God and in His Son Jesus Christ, appears to be received with more or less incredulity, and there are others who believe that the marriage customs of the Latter-day Saints are the beginning and the end, and all there was and is or will be, to give them distinction and peculiarity among the people of this nation. And yet if you were to sweep your eye over this congregation—which is pro– bably an average one of the people of this Territory, you would instantly say, that there does not appear to be much difference in the appearance of the people here and the average congregations of worshippers elsewhere. The facts are that the people here—the older ones at all events—have been called and gathered from among mankind, and from Christendom, as a rule. There are in this Church many native-born citizens, who have come from every State of the American Union, and are fully acquainted with all its religious sects and creeds. There are those who have come from the different nations of Europe, and they have been familiar with the institutions which exist there; they have attended the services and been identified with the same organizations that you find today. They know all about the churches and the ministers and the Sabbath schools and the literature of the religious world. They have analyzed and compared and contrasted these until they understand not only the differences that exist between the several churches, individually, as they are known in Christendom, but they understand also the vast differences between those churches and that record called the Bible. They have been familiar with that, including the New Testament, from their childhood. They were taught it of their mothers and their fathers. They read it in the Sabbath school. They listened to the exposition of its truths and doctrines in the churches to which they belonged, and it was personal mental analysis and comparison that gave conviction to their souls and induced them to receive that order which the world has designated “Mormonism.” As a rule the people of Utah are “Mormons,” from conviction and from choice. They have left the institutions of their fathers because of the defects which were discovered therein, because of the inconsistencies which prevailed there, and in thousands of instances have reached conclusions because of the teachings that many of them received in the religious organizations of the world. The Latter-day Saints, to the surprise of many, call themselves Christians. Notwithstanding the opposition that they have encountered; notwithstanding the prejudice with which they have had to contend; notwithstanding the ignorance that is everywhere manifest in regard to them and to their institutions, they claim to be Christians—or followers of Christ; and in assuming this title, they accept it with all that it implies. They defend with as much devotion and persistence the character and institutions and teachings that were given of their Lord and Savior as recorded in the Books that have been handed down from the fathers as do the disciples of any system, either secular or religious, who follow out the dictates, theories and ideas of those whom they have accepted as their leaders. The followers of John Wesley are no more tenacious of the teachings of their illustrious predecessor, the founder of their church, than are the Latter-day Saints in regard to the teachings of the Savior, and of His servant the Prophet Joseph Smith. Those who revere the name of Washington and of the fathers of this republic, and because of that reverence, cherish the fundamental truths of the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, are no more tenacious of the truths uttered by those whom they accept as leaders, than are the Latter-day Saints in regard to the teachings and ordinances as established by Christ. They have accepted Him as their authority; they have accepted Him as their example; they have accepted Him as their leader; and while their claims to Christianity, or the epithet of Christians, may be ignored, disputed, or repudiated by others, still they are abundantly able to prove that their position is correct. To those who would dispute this let it be said that they can find (if they so desire it) testimony in abundance in the publications which have been issued by this Church; they can find testimony in abundance if they will visit our Sunday schools; they can find testimony in abundance if they will inquire of those who are “Mormons” or Latter-day Saints by faith and profession. It is not usual, however, for inquirers to address themselves to this class. It is well known that of the thousands who travel this Territory, and who visit the people in the capacity of tourists every summer, that there are but few, very few, who ever seek an interview with those who are believers in and receivers of, that which they designate “Mormonism.” They as a rule are more willing to receive all the flying rumors and reports, and to listen to all who buttonhole them, and believe anyone they come in contact with, in regard to the character of this community, in regard to their faith and practice, their social theories, and the results of these, than they are to inquire of Latter-day Saints; and yet there is not a man or woman within the confines of this Territory or elsewhere, who is a believer in the Gospel, but who is more than willing to impart what information they possess and to give a reason for the hope that is within them, though they might do it conscious of their own weakness and with a measure of fear—not fear as to the truth of that which they might repeat—not fear because they have any doubt as to the character of the truths they have received, but with that trembling which inevitably grows in the feelings of those who are ostracized by society and who are vilified and repudiated by the world.

It may be asked, what then as “Mormons” are your views in a religious sense? What are your peculiarities? Where do you get the doctrines that you teach?

I am of the opinion that the doctrines of the Latter-day Saints can be easily proved and established from the sacred Scriptures, and I can further say that the missionaries who have gone from Utah—the Elders who have labored in the midst of the nations of the earth—have always been able to substantiate their testimony by the word of God. They have never asked the world to receive a doctrine that they could not read in their own Bible, in their own study and in their own homes. They have never asked mankind to accept any dogma, doctrine or principle which they believed would be calculated to work them injury, but they have believed that the nature of man everywhere was of such a uniform character, and the purposes of his creation were of such divine intent, that those truths which in their essential nature would bless one man, were equally calculated to bless all mankind.

I presume that it is everywhere comprehended that man is a religious being; that he has within him aspirations, feelings and thoughts in regard to the Supreme, which unitedly declare that he needs some assistance from outside sources if he is to possess knowledge and understanding of the nature of his existence. Knowledge in regard to the purpose of that existence, in re– gard to its past, and in regard to the present and future of that existence. All the facts of a man’s organization bear testimony to the necessity (and where there is necessity there is advantage) of religious training, culture and education. The soarings of his spirit, the dissatisfaction with earthly things, with its failures, and lack of recompense, the consequent reaching out into the future for an assurance of compensation, are all so many evidences that there is somewhere the material to satisfy these aspirations; the same as the feeling of hunger and thirst is abundant testimony that somewhere there are elements to minister to the gratification of that hunger and thirst. And when this conclusion is reached it is very easy to advance another step in religious science, and to understand that if there is that material, that intelligence calculated to minister to his religious aspirations, its faith and hope, it must come from a source outside of himself—in other words it must proceed from that Being who is the originator, the Creator, the Lord of man, that in Him alone there must be that fountain of inspiration, revelation and intelligence which is essential in developing in man the purposes of his creation. This argument appears to me to be philosophical, to be sound, to be suited to every man’s condition, and there is implied in that conclusion the inevitable necessity and advantages of inspiration and revelation. The Christian world have accepted this idea, and they will tell you that the fountain of inspiration was open to man some 1,800 years ago. The religious world hold to the theory that there was a period in the history and experience of mankind when this spirit of inspiration existed among men, but that it was some two or three or four thousand years ago. The Christian—I might emphasize that and say the CHRISTIAN world—have professed to have faith in the Savior of mankind as occupying an intermediate position between the Creator and his children, They will take up the Scriptures and point us to illustrations which establish his character in that respect. They will tell us in quoting the same that “He was a teacher sent from God;” that “He sought not His own will but the will of the Father who sent Him; that He declared that He spoke not of Himself, but of His Father who sent Him; that He did nothing of Himself, but as my Father hath taught me. I speak these things, for I do always those things that please Him!” They will tell us that even his enemies said, “He spoke like one having authority, and not as one of the Scribes.” In all the churches of Christendom they will repeat the marvelous parables that He gave to His disciples; they will read to us the sermon on the mount; they will tell us of His miracles; they will endeavor ostensibly to carry out the institutions which He established, all of which substantiates the idea that they have at least some faith in the mission which He claimed upon the earth. But if you ask whether that spirit of inspiration and revelation which He promised His disciples was to be continuous, or whether it has been continuous, or whether it is now necessary, the whole religious world, both priests and people have reached the conclusion that it belongs to an era of the past; yet if ever the religious world needed teachers it is now. If ever mankind needed revelation it is today. If ever there was a necessity for inspiration, we feel and know that it is in the midst of the nineteenth cen– tury. If ever there was a time when confusion, contention and strife, when inconsistency and skepticism prevailed it is surely now, among the most advanced nations of civilization and of Christendom; there men are to be found laying the axe at the foundation of religious faith, endeavoring to popularize their own doctrines, and to bring into disrepute and into contempt the teachings of the Book that for ages has been held sacred. This is being done with that force of rhetoric, with that glow of imagination, and with that wealth of illustration which belongs to men of the type of Ingersoll, and congregations everywhere, hang with breathless suspense upon the words they utter, and thousands are grateful in their iniquity that the myth of religion, the fear of God, the certainty of punishment, the future life, have been swept away by so ruthless and so untiring a hand. Ministers are paralyzed and stand aghast in presence of the enemy, and before a sin-sick world, and now if there is one medicine needed more than another in this age, it is that medicine which will minister to faith, to peace, to order, to confidence, which will bring assurance, and will give men that trust and satisfaction with and in the doctrines that they teach and practice, such as was possessed by the Apostles and Teachers and Saints of olden time. Where in the Churches of the world can you find men ready to say as Paul said to his converts, “The Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and the Holy Ghost, and much assurance?” 1 Thes. 1:5. Where are those who have the same authority to say, “though we or an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accused.” “I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither receive it of man, neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Gal. 1 and 12. This assurance is not to be found. It is not known. The spirit of authority, the confidence which grows from the possession of truth is not in connection with the churches, or enjoyed among the intelligent of Christendom. To be sure the world go to a great expense in order that they may secure religious instruction. Colleges are erected. Men of certain temperament spend years and years in order that they may be fitted for the ministerial profession. The people delight to pour out of their wealth for the spiritual food that they receive of their teachers; but with it all, that uniformity, that beauty, that simplicity, that consistency, that force, that assurance which pertained to the primitive days of Christianity is not to be found in the religious world of today.

Now, I might ask what was the order of things in the primitive church as established by the Savior? There are certain first principles which pertain to all branches of science—chemical science, agricultural science, astronomical science, or any other branch—there is implied in connection with all these a possession and use of primary or fundamental principles upon which the superstructure is built, and it is the same in regard to the science of religion. There are certain fundamental and foundation principles upon which the superstructure is built, and it is the same in regard to the science of religion. There are certain fundamental and foundation principles upon which the edifice is to be built, and upon which it must forever stand, and these principles did not originate in any school in connection with any college, or really in connection with any organization or body of men. They are divine. They were revealed. They came through chosen messengers who tabernacled in the flesh, who taught and then transmitted them to their fellows, who in turn taught others, and thus made them powerful by final dissemination among nations. This idea, I think, is invulnerable. What, then, are the primary or foundation principles of religion? Faith in God, growing out of the necessities of man’s nature, growing out of the nature of his spirit, the origin of his being, the history and memory of the past, the outlook into the future—these all foreshadowing the necessity and advantages and blessings of faith in God. Hence every man who is a religionist has sought unto a Being of some kind; whatever his conception of that Being may be, he looks upon it as fundamental that there is a God, and there are none but those that David speaks of, namely, the fool, who has said in his heart that “there is no God.” Having established this faith in God, we want to know what position we occupy towards Him. He is our benefactor. He is our friend. We are His children. The Scriptures tell us that we are created in His image and likeness. They tell us that the Savior was “the express image of His Father’s person.” We, then, are like our Father. We are His posterity. We are His sons and daughters dwelling and tabernacling in the flesh. What is the position that a man’s children occupy toward him as their parent? Every parent expects obedience. Every parent expects respect to his wishes. Every parent expects that when he makes a law that that law will be carried out in his household; that there shall be order, rule and authority there. This is the idea which prevails between God and man upon the earth, and that again implies the principle to which I have already alluded, the spirit of inspiration and revelation; for in our present condition the Almighty cannot communicate directly, probably, but He has selected certain mediums of communication. Who are they? His servants who—like His servants of Biblical note—teach in His name. He promised, and gave unto mankind a witness of Himself, even when there was no law, by His Holy Spirit, and He has sent that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, while to every baptized believer is given “the manifestation of the Spirit, to profit withal.” 1 Cor. 12:7. And this Spirit will bear testimony to the truths, or laws, that are revealed by His Son, and taught by His appointed servants.

Well, now, how shall we ascertain these truths? Why, through this channel. Jesus Christ was the lawgiver. He established that system of things calculated to bring man back into the presence of His Father, and He commanded men everywhere that they should seek after Him, that they should pray unto Him, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven,” and He communicated that will unto those who listened to His teaching. What was that will? He continuously advocated and enforced the spirit of repentance. Why? Because men—all men, had wandered from the path of rectitude. They lived in violation of those laws which are divine; they failed to carry out that which would lead them on toward perfection. Hence as a natural and philosophical conclusion men are called upon to repent. What! Does this generation need to repent? There are many who think they need no repentance; that they occupy positions in society too elevated; that they belong to the upper crust, the great “upper ten,” who are leaders in science, in art, and in literature, and who are among the cultured of our nation and in other nations of mankind. They think they have no occasion to repent; they “thank God that they are not as other men, not even as this publican,” or as this “Mormon.” But, brethren and sisters and friends, there is no royal road to salvation in the economy of God. There are no principles in the science of religion that can be repudiated, or neglected, or disobeyed by man, without his subjection to the penalty, repentance of all evil and a return to that which is right is one of the primary elements and evidences of true manhood and womanhood, and it is also an essential part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When man has thus accepted and manifested his faith in God by his repentance, having believed on and in the word of His servants, and acquired active faith in them, he has made an advance. When I say His servants, I mean the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in a primary sense, and those whom He has delegated and appointed in a secondary sense; for we read that the Apostles were commanded to teach that which He had taught them; they were sent out to “teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you;” they were not to teach their own ideas, their own theories, their own conclusions, but that they should teach the principles taught by Him, when they were asked the question, What is necessary for us “to do to be saved.”

It is almost an insult to a great many people now, to tell them that they need salvation, but yet in the innermost recesses of every man’s heart and every woman’s soul, in the depths that no plummet hath sounded, not even the one made by themselves—there rests the feeling that they need be sorry for many of the things that they have done in life, and if not for those that they have done, at least for the thousand and one things that they have left undone, for there are sins of omission as fatal as those of commission.

Faith in God and repentance, then, and faith in His servants, rests upon a philosophical as well as upon a scriptural basis. It is rational and reasonable, it is easy to be comprehended, these things are true, in and of themselves!

What shall we do after we have thus repented? What say the Scriptures? What said the Apostles? Why, when asked the question, “What shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” “Why,” say the religious world, “we don’t believe in that?” I know it. I cannot help that. If you choose to repudiate the authority that you at other times profess to accept, I do not know that it is much of my business. If Americans choose to apostatize from the political principles of the fathers of the Republic, I do not know that I can help that. If any man belonging to any religious or social organization chooses to neglect or repudiate the principle of that organization, I do not know that I can help it. I do not know that any community can help it, we can only state the facts as they are, premising, however, that apostasy admissible from the institutions of men in no way justifies the same action in regard to that which is divine. Jesus as an example went and was baptized of John in Jordan, and there is abundant proof in the New Testament, if I had time to quote it, to show that all the early Christians were baptized. Have you any record that all the early christians were baptized? No. But we have a record that many were baptized, and the fact that one or more were baptized is evidence presumptive that the whole were, for we read of only “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.” “Well,” says one, “I do not attach any importance to baptism.” Probably not. I was amused just before I came to meeting in reading an account in the newspaper of a circumstance that occurred lately in the experience of General Grant. We have all sympathized with General Grant in his affliction. We have honored him for the position that he occupied in the nation, and many of us have hoped that he would live long to do good among the people. But at one period of his sickness the doctors asserted that the disease was likely to prove fatal at any moment, and Mrs. Grant was called into the room where he was. Dr. Newman, and two or three of the General’s medical advisers were present, and Dr. Newman in the excess of his religion, or of his soul, and probably with some faith in the ceremony, got a little water and baptized the General—that is, sprinkled the water upon him—in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. General Grant was at the time unconscious and not expected to rally. But one of the doctors went out to an attendant and asked if he had a little brandy? Yes. After procuring the brandy he injected a little into the General’s veins, which speedily restored him to conscious– ness. Dr. Newman on this recovery immediately said, “Oh! our faith and prayers have saved the General again. “No,” says the doctor.” This incident I only mention to show that there are theories in the Christian churches and among its most noted ministers in regard to the ordinance of baptism, and probably the great majority of Americans at some period of their lives have been baptized—as it is called, some having been sprinkled in childhood, some in more mature years, others by immersion, having been raised among the persuasion called Baptists, whether or no, there is some little importance attached to this ordinance of baptism, and this ordinance of baptism, the Latter-day Saints accept in common with their fellow Christians, or with other so-called Christians. They believe in being baptized as a necessary consequence of their faith in God and in His Son Jesus Christ!

Now, how were the early Christians baptized? I do not think that there is a shadow of evidence in the New Testament that they were any of them baptized by sprinkling, or in any other way save by that of immersion. We read of some that were baptized in a certain place “because there was much water there.” We read of others who were converted in the night time, and who went straightway and were baptized. We read that the Savior told Nicodemus that, “except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” We read that Paul in writing to the Romans said that they were buried with Christ in baptism, and that their being raised from the water was an illustration of the rising of the Savior from the tomb, and we are further told by Peter that as the ark saved Noah, so also doth “baptism now save us.” Baptism, indeed, was a divine ordinance. It was one of the steps in the science of religion having its own special position of power and blessing in the economy of God—one of the ordinances established for securing a certain measure or portion of salvation.

And after the disciples had thus been baptized they received the Holy Ghost by the “laying on of hands.” Numerous illustrations of this fact might be pointed out; but as we are not speaking to heathens, as we are not speaking to skeptics, but to those who profess to believe the Bible, they can at their leisure refer to these illustrations, where the early converts had hands laid upon them for the gift of the Holy Ghost. And they can also look at the practice of the churches in our day, where in some denominations there is practiced the ordinances of confirmation and where the minister says unto those of his flock, “receive ye the gift of the Holy Ghost.” This was also one of the principles of the Gospel. This gift of the Holy Ghost was the source of life, the source of intelligence, the source of knowledge and understanding: it was the power of inspiration and revelation resting upon the baptized—the men and women who had accepted the Savior as their leader and guide.

I might multiply these illustrations of the science of religion. I might go on to show that there were other important elements in the teachings of those who were converted in early times to Christianity. The world today is full of organizations. It knows the weakness of individual effort. It is when men and women are aggregated that they wield large influence over mankind, and the early Christians were no strangers to the advantages of organization. They formed themselves into little groups called churches. In some places in the New Testament they are called the “church,” in other places “the Church of God,” in others “the Church of Christ.” In these organizations there were officers. There were men appointed to fill certain positions in these organizations. This implied rule, authority; their power and authority to teach are everywhere exemplified in the Acts and Epistles of the New Testament. So much so that one of the apostles tells us that God had set in His Church Apostles, Prophets, Teachers, Evangelists, etc., for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. These were the officers, the most active members of the church—those who had charge of its interests—those who had charge of the spiritual and temporal education of these early converts in the Church. There was a Christian church, then, in the early history of Christianity. Men were organized into groups—into churches and belonged to the true church of which Christ was the head! So there are organizations called churches in our day, and in the age in which we live. But there is one great difference between our age and that one. And what is that? Why, there is diversity in our time. The Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of the former-day Saints, was an unit. There was no rebellion within its ranks, no division in its councils, no clashing theories taught by its apostles. There was no rival or other organization ostensibly Christian that could stand up and presume to dispute or deny that authority which the Church of God maintained. Yet in our time we have every variety of Church organization—the Mother Church; the Episcopal Church; Methodism in all its forms and phases; Presbyterians, Baptists, and a host of others. These are diverse from each other in doctrine and sentiment and organization and theory and practice, and consequently unlike the primitive church as established by Christ and His Apostles. Now, can they with these differences, with these divergences, and with this variety of teaching—can they accomplish that designed by the founder of the original church? I hardly think so. Common sense says this is impossible. If the first church was divine in its order, divine in its ordinances, divine in its officers, divine in its institutions, if it was to accomplish a divine purpose, nothing short of that divine order could accomplish that purpose in this or any other age of the world. That is why Sectarianism has failed to bring the people to a unity of the faith. That is why it has not accomplished so much good as it might have done upon the earth. It is like a rope of sand. Every minister fighting, and every congregation quarrelling for the ascendancy of their own special and peculiar sect and faith. You go into any little village of a few scattered hundreds and you will find four or five churches there, each one endeavoring to perpetuate its own special idea, partly irrespective of the salvation of the masses. In fact they have become money making institutions. Ministers have become professionals.” They preach for money and divine for hire.” They are more content to ask the congregation what they shall preach than to stand valiantly for the truth as preached by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, and as recorded in the book which from first to last they profess to reverence and sustain.

This is the criticism of the Latter– day Saints upon the religious world, and because of this criticism, because of this understanding, thousands and tens of thousands have been led to embrace that which is known to the world as “Mormonism.”

What is “Mormonism?” It is a restoration, a re-revealment of the same principles that were practiced by the early Christians. They had not a doctrine, they had not an ordinance, they had not an officer, but what is taught and found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now, the world have no idea we have got away with them that far. Has it come about by our own wisdom? No, sir. Where did you get it? Right in the State of New York, through a chosen man—a boy, rather—by the name of Joseph Smith. Who was Joseph Smith? A man like you and I. Who were the old prophets? Who was Elijah? He was a man with all the failings of his fellow men; subject to like passions with his brethren. Who were the Savior’s Apostles? Men like ourselves! Who was Joseph Smith? A young man with many weaknesses and follies, it may be, of his own, and some akin to the failings of those by whom he was surrounded. How did he acquire this knowledge and information? It was communicated from on high. The spirit of inspiration and revelation rested upon him. He held communion with God and with His Son Jesus Christ. He received the ministration of Angels, and the power and authority of the Holy Priesthood from those who once exercised that authority in the flesh and he was ordained and dedicated to introduce this order again among mankind. Do you believe that? We Latter-day Saints believe it. Nay, more, we know it for ourselves. We have had testimony for year upon year in our experience that God was with him in manhood; that He enabled him to establish His Church, and that He gave him power to ordain others to go forth to the nations of the earth and gather the obedient and the good from the masses of mankind. The good I said. “Well,” says one, “do you mean that you Latter-day Saints are any better than we are.” I do not know that I do in this sense of the word. I mean that there was found scattered among the nations a people prepared of God for the reception of the truth. Individuals were looking for the salvation of Israel. They had been suffering under the inconsistencies, traditions and superstitions of the churches to which they belonged, and they were waiting for the coming of the man sent of God. And when he came or sent his representatives, there were thousands everywhere that heard the word gladly. Where? In enlightened America, in the land of Bibles, in the land of churches, in the land of culture, in the land of religious liberty, where every one is supposed to have the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and with none to molest him or make him afraid. They accepted the teachings of this lad. Was he an educated person? No, not in the sense that the world would call education. He had not been raised in any college of our great country; he had not studied the classics; he was not born in Boston, or anywhere in its immediate vicinity; but he was taught of the heavens, he was inspired of God, and he went forth in the strength of that education, and Utah Territory spreading from the north to the south, from the east to the west is the product of his labors and the labors of the Elders that have followed in his wake. “And,” says one, “you believe this, that he was a prophet of God.” Yes, we do. We will apply the same test that was applied in former days, the days of the Savior. Jesus said: If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself, and as was said of the Savior “we know that thou art a teacher sent from God, for no man can do the things that thou doest except God be with him,” so we can say of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Though he was called in poverty and raised in ignorance, yet the Lord made him mighty, and no man unless he had been thus sent of God, could have accomplished the work that he has performed. You can find in this Territory people of every nationality almost. You can find them from every state of this Union. You can find people that have been identified with every religious organization. You can find people that are well up in the doctrines of the religious world, and who comprehend the truths that are taught to them from time to time. These have been gathered from the nations by the power of truth, by the influence that the Elders carried, and they have colonized and spread abroad until the population is numerous in all the valleys of this mountain country. Strangers come here very curious to know what kind of people these “Mormons” are. They come filled with prejudice and with hatred, with contention and strife. Many envy our prosperity, and some say, “If we let this people alone they will take away our place and nation.” Well, as I have said, this has been done by the power of truth, by the preaching of the simple principles that you can find in the Bible, and that can never, no never, be overthrown. The Elders of Israel have never been met successfully by the combined learning of the ministers in Christendom. The Elders have gone for them like giants, while conscious of personal weakness; like little David, they have taken the sling and the stone gathered from the brook, until the heads of many Goliaths of our day have reeled and fallen beneath the blow.

This is what “Mormonism” is. It is nothing more, nothing less, than the restoration of the old Gospel under the sanction and approbation of the heavens. The Elders of Israel hold the authority of the Holy Priesthood to induct men into the Kingdom of God; to baptize in water for the remission of sins, and to lay hands upon them for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and as in olden times, the signs have followed the believer.

With this knowledge don’t you think we can stand a good deal of this persecution to which we are subject? Do you think that bonds or imprisonment or death affects so sublime and decided a faith? “But,” say some, “you are not persecuted for these things: you are persecuted for other things. Here is that offensive practice that you call polygamy, this is the great trouble between you and the fifty-five million of the nation.” Well, who of that fifty-five million have we robbed in that? Have we taken any man’s wife who may have passed through this Territory against his consent? What law have we violated in regard to this thing? Any law in this book (holding up the Bible) against it? Can you find it, you ministers, you religious professors, you widespread organizations? Have we done violence to the laws of God, or have we not honored the practice of the patriarchs? Have we not accepted that which was approved of God in the ages that are past, and which gave men prestige as the favored of our race. Men whom we are told were the friends of God. “Ah, well,” says one, “that was in the dark ages.” Just so. But it was when God made Himself manifest among His children; when angels communed with those that dwelt upon the earth; when the spirit of revelation was felt among mankind; when the institutions of God’s house and the ordinances thereof prevailed among the chosen people of God! And you call that a day of darkness! Boston was not known then, it is true. The great cities of this day had no existence in their present form. Civilization with all its concomitants were not then in existence, or like Sodom and Gomorrah under the hail of brimstone and almighty wrath, its cities might only have been found today, as great, dead, saline seas. The dark ages! The age of Abraham! The age of Jacob and the founding of the tribes of Israel. The ages of Samuel! The age of the Judges of Israel! The ages when God made Himself manifest among that great people in delivering them from the hand of the iron rule of Pharaoh, and gave unto them a goodly land. The ages that gave David and Solomon and the magnificent Temple of Jerusalem. Dark ages, that brought on to this stage of action the Savior of mankind! Dark ages, when the church which He established, flourished in the midst of persecution, when its leaders suffered martyrdom. Dark indeed, if they had not had the light of the Gospel; if they had not had this sunshine of inspiration; if they had not known of the power of God; if they had not had a testimony within themselves that they had received that which would enhance their welfare not only in this life, but the life to come. Would to God we had again a renewal—nay, a glimpse of the dark ages of the past, and that the same benignant light was now spreading throughout this our land with its Christian churches, schools and colleges, that its corruptions and evils might hide their head and be banished from the midst of sorrowing mankind.

This, then, as I have intimated to you, is “Mormonism.” It is the power of God unto salvation to all those who shall obey. And the promise is not unto us only, but unto our children, and our children’s children, down to the latest generation. And if men and women anywhere, want that salvation which comes of God, which comes of the Gospel, which comes of the acceptance of Jesus as the Savior of mankind, they will have to find it in “Mormonism” as the world call it, or in other words in the restoration of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; and if they want men to induct them into that Kingdom, to baptize them in water for the remission of sins, to lay hands on them for the gift of the Holy Ghost, they will have to find them in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the poor, despised, derided, and as men believe everywhere, ignorant people in the valleys of the mountains, called “Mormons;” whose faith and institutions are now sought to be overthrown by their enemies, by legislation of Congress, by proclamations of Governors and the action of the Courts, they will find salvation with that people just as assuredly as in primitive Christian times the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and other sectarians, found salvation at the hands of the fishermen of Galilee.

I presume I have taken up all the time that is necessary; but I pray that the power of God may rest upon this congregation; that strangers may lay aside their prejudices and preconceived notions in regard to the Latter-day Saints; that they may be willing to believe that some good may come out of Nazareth, even from here; that every man and woman professing to be a Saint of God, may be able to give “a reason for the hope that is in them,” in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Discourse by Elder H. W. Naisbitt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, March 8, 1885.

My brethren, sisters and friends: The congregation is large, and I hope to be so directed by the Spirit, that all present who so desire may be enabled to hear and understand.

The Sabbath is the day provided expressly for the reception of spiritual food. The speakers, or those who may be called upon to teach, need all the resources that are within their reach in order to satisfy a congregation of hungry souls, they need particularly the faith and prayers of the Saints, the influence and power of the Holy Ghost, the manifestation of the authority of the Holy Priesthood, so that there may be instruction upon the important topics and principles of the Gospel, not the theoretical ones alone, but those that are interwoven with our daily life.

There is a vast amount of experience in the aggregate among the people. Individual experience forms one of the treasure houses from whence a speaker can draw the supplies that are necessary and advantageous for a sympathetic audience. There is a great deal implied in a congregation like the present one; there is much more implied in the aggregation of congregations forming a community, from communities to nations, from nations to mankind at large. The most narrow as well as most dense communities are made up of the family organization. There is found circle within circle, or as the Prophet had it, “wheel within wheel;” and the homes of a community should be the outgrowth, not of theories alone, but of the faith, knowledge, and understanding of those relationships which exist there. When these family organizations are based upon knowledge they are likely to be more permanent. If they are only thoughtless or theoretical, or if they exist without information, circumstances, pressure, opportunities are very likely to disintegrate them, to break them up, to dissolve them, and so through indifference for each other substitute an anomalous condition of selfishness amongst those members who otherwise should form connected and interwoven circles.

In Christendom the marriage covenant is the foundation of the home. The ideas which men hold concerning it, lay at the foundation of all social order, all unity and all government, and even the welfare of future ages depends upon the theories cherished in regard to home and family associations. The thoughts held and the practice growing out of these, are surely higher than could be possible in the families of a community where the sexual relations remain undetermined, where they are without restraint and without order, there will inevitably be chaos, disruption and contention, and the body politic would speedily and inevitably under loose conditions, degenerate and pass away. But this marriage organization and institution has existed from the beginning. It has been the binding and sealing power of the family; it has perpetuated those families from the time that Eve was given to Adam to the last marriage that took place in our own immediate neighborhood. The Lord said that it was not good that man should be alone. He gave to him as a helpmate one of His daughters by the name of Eve. This relationship was then, instituted by the Almighty, and therefore a man and his wife should really become one; their interests, their labors should be blended; their responsi– bilities should be mutual; and in thus helping and aiding each other they should train the posterity that God might give them in His fear and in the practice of righteousness, so that His rule and Kingdom might exist and prevail upon the earth.

In all nations, from the highest civilized to the lowest tribal relation, among the wanderers of the earth, there is more or less semblance of this organization, this family compact, this united responsibility; garnished in many lands with pomp and ceremony, and with all the appliances and sanctities of religion. In others with less, and still less of this, until we come to where with but little ceremony the dusky Indian captures the maiden of his choice, and takes her to the tent which he has erected for himself.

The Scriptures give an account simply of the woman Eve; declaring that this name was given her of Adam, because she was “the mother of all living;” but outside of biblical record there has been handed down from time immemorial the idea that Adam had two wives, the narrators go so far, or rather so near perfecting the tradition so as to give their names, Lilith being said to be the name of one as Eve was the name of the other, and while it may be difficult to harmonize all the Rabbinical and Talmudic versions of this matter, it is said that Joseph Smith the Prophet taught that Adam had two wives. Without however, assuming or basing anything upon this theory, or upon this tradition—which may be mythical in its character—it is nevertheless, very evident that marriage was ordained of God; and when we take into our hands the record of the Holy Scriptures that have been handed down to us by our fathers, that have been cherished in parts by the ancient people of God, and in latter times consolidated; passing through various channels under peculiar circumstances, and with an apparent special providence continuing and protecting the same—we find throughout the pages thereof that marriage everywhere for four thousand years, at all events, was recognized as of divine origin. One of the latest assertions in regard to it, as addressed to the early Saints by Paul, was, that marriage was honorable in all, and further that it was typical of that union and headship held by Jesus to the Church, and from this comes an added force to the Savior’s words, who, when speaking on this topic said: “what God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”

The sanctity of the marriage relation had another feature in ancient Israel: that great family of promise were divided into tribal relations, and by these their genealogical tables were kept perfect. Any marital connection or alliance, outside of that order was visited with indignation, condemnation and punishment. Those who were guilty of violating the order of marriage were looked upon as guilty of something which destroyed the root and foundations of society. They were held to be guilty of introducing things and practices which vitiated the value of genealogical record, and which made the perpetuity of families a comparative impossibility and had it not been for tribal carefulness in this direction, for this supervision which controlled and regulated the people of God, it would have been impossible in the days of the Savior for the Apostles to have traced His genealogy back to the early Prophets and Patriarchs. That which men now apply only as a rule, in regard to stock, or to some of the most ancient families of mankind, by the people of God, was looked upon as the one perfect chain to demonstrate hereditary descent.

We are told in tracing one of the genealogies from father to son—or from son to father, in a backward direction to Adam—that finally Adam was said to be the son of God, and by a close application of the principles of logic, it may be assumed that all the posterity of Adam are by direct descent the sons and daughters of the living God. It will also be found in the prophecies of Isaiah regarding the Savior, that He should be called the “Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” When we come to His own conversation, where His Apostles asked Him if He would show unto them the Father, He said: “Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” This statement is reiterated time and again in the Book of Mormon, and in the sacred writings that we have received. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world, was not the Son only, but the prophetic declaration was fulfilled in Him—He was verily and indeed the Everlasting Father. So by the same application of logic and inferential evidence from holy writ, wherever you find a man he is the son of somebody, and his existence is perpetual and eternal. Every Father becomes, by virtue of his position, an everlasting father. He in this respect represents the same characteristic as that occupied by the Great Father of us all. And throughout the countless ages of eternity, any man who has ever assumed or occupied the position and continues faithful to its respon– sibilities, will forever remain to his posterity “the Everlasting Father.”

As far as we can glean from the sacred records, we find that this relationship was established for the bringing upon this sphere of action a posterity. The powers and functions which had been conferred upon man and woman were exemplified in this direction, and when a man’s wife was barren, when any of these daughters of Israel in ancient times were childless, it was considered to be a reproach to them, yet in the exercise of faith and by the blessing of the Almighty, and by obedience to the patriarchal order, many of these ancient sisters, the progenitors of the Israel of the latter days, were delivered from barrenness, and became the mothers of a vast and ever increasing host of posterity. Those who are familiar with the sacred Scriptures will remember one of the wives of Jacob; they will remember the case of Hannah, the mother of Samuel the Prophet, and there are others which are familiar to our minds which need not be quoted. The desire for offspring among the wives of Israel was a prevailing feeling, because it was understood that from that lineage should come the Messiah of the latter days, and every daughter of Israel was anxious that in a direct line she might be the honored of God, in being the medium through which should come the Redeemer, the promised Immanuel.

It ought also to be remarked in connection with this question, that marriage was at times polygamic as well as monogamic—that is, right away in the early history of the world there were men who had more wives than one. Lamech was the first who is mentioned in Scripture. And here it might be observed, although probably all understand it, that the Bible does not profess to give a perfect history in detail of the habits and practices of the ancient people of God, for these are only secondary to the ever present assertions of divine interest in and regulation of the human family. There are only revealings or incidental glimpses here and there in regard to the principles of social and domestic life, and hintings of some which have been kept hid from then to now; but that marriage was the heritage of man is certain, and that while under many circumstances it was monogamic, there were also many cases in which it was of a polygamic character, and in both instances it was given by command and then received the approbation of the heavens. It was regulated and sustained by the great lawgivers of ancient Israel, who were inspired to point out in detail the limits of consanguinity, the times and seasons of privilege, and what should be the method of securing posterity under such and such circumstances; until the time came when Israel as a nation enjoyed its highest glory, and then we find that this principle (polygamy) formed one of the leading features of the household extension in the kings of that time. David is a noted illustration. Solomon was another, and in the comments of the Scriptures regarding these two men, notwithstanding their multiplicity of wives, we find no condemnation save in the fact that they in other respects violated the fundamental law of ancient Israel. David, we are told, captured the wife of another man by stratagem and because he did this he fell under condemnation. The son that was born to him of that connection died a premature death; but afterwards when he repented, he married and still retained that self same woman, Bathsheba; the Lord blessed and acknowledged David’s repentance and her position by giving her for a son the great Jedediah, or Solomon, and finally in a direct line through her, came also the Redeemer of Israel. The Scriptures in commenting upon David’s practice say that in “none of these things did he violate the commandments, save in the case of the wife of Uriah” [1st. Kings, 15, 5.] We are also told that Solomon multiplied wives and families unto himself, yet his reign formed an era in the national life of Israel. It was during his administration as King and Priest under the order of God, that that wonderful temple was built and dedicated which received the sanction and approbation of the heavens; of the resting upon it of the cloud by day so that the Priests could not minister at the altar, and the descent of fire from heaven, which consumed the sacrifice presented, were both tokens of divine acceptance and recognition, and we have not found in reading the history of Solomon that his conduct was condemned save in the fact that he took unto himself wives of the outside nations contrary to the law, which declared that the marriages of Israel should be within their own immediate families (Deut. 7th, 3rd), and as a result the record declares that it was these heathen wives which he took, those women that were captured in war or those that he had from choice or were given to him for conciliatory alliance from surrounding nations who led away his heart from the worship of the God of Israel, and turned him to the practices of idolatry. With this exception the presumption is from the evidence that his other marriages were approved, and in them was his posterity perpetuated. It was the direct result of the blessing of the Almighty, and through him, as he stood in a representative position, we may surely assume what the feelings of Israel were in regard to polygamy or the plurality of wives.

It is more than inferential evidence in favor of this principle which grows from the consideration of the practice of Solomon and David, and Abraham and Jacob, and Moses and Gideon, and Jehoiada and Abdon, and Rehoboam and Abijah, and Esau and Lamech, and Jerubbaal and Jair, though some of these men were not examples in every act of their lives, yet the facts are no more in favor of monogamists as to this than in the day and age in which we live.

Unfair advantage has been taken by opponents of this practice, because of the Adamic era, but the Rabbinical tradition already mentioned, while not conclusive, shows that no repulsion existed in the minds of the honored priesthood of Israel; and, as the Rev. Dr. Newman quoted the words of Lamech, so we may also have our opinion and that is that his declaration possessed no reference whatever to his plurality of wives.

However, in the Christian dispensation it has been assumed that this practice had become almost obsolete; some have said that it died away because it was deprecated by the Savior and by His Apostles, but there appears to have been thoughts in the minds of the latter concerning marriage which open to our minds many things in regard to that institution. For instance we are told that man is not without the woman in the Lord, neither the woman without the man. [1 Cor., 11, 11.] It takes the two, at least, to make a complete and rounded man. When the first pair were created the Bible expressly declares, “male and female created he them,” and called their name Adam. [Gen. 5, 2.] It included the two; it included the man and wife; and the theory of the Gospel in Apostolic times was, that a man was an imperfect being without the woman, and that a woman was also an imperfect being without the man, and this perfect state could not be realized or wrought out without the institution of marriage.

It is, then, by this marriage relation that men and women were in the Lord according to the divine order, carrying out the examples of their great predecessors, and of their Father in heaven. It may safely be assumed that marriage with them was an eternal principle; that it was not meant for time only, but for eternity; that it was a relationship that was perpetuated, and that this not only included the man and wife, but of necessity the entire family organization. For our God is not the God of the dead but of the living, “and what he hath joined together no man shall put asunder.” To the older people here, who are familiar with the facts made manifest in the human organization, it may be said that there are certain elements of attraction which lead the one sex towards the other. This attraction is designated by the name of love. We are sometimes afraid to exhibit this characteristic; we think it is unworthy of men or women; and that when a man is said to be in love, or a woman, it is something that should be veiled from the eyes and knowledge and understanding of everybody but themselves. But insomuch as love is one of the great attributes of Deity, this idea does not recommend itself. It is not only a great attribute of Deity, but it is the greatest and most potent attribute to be found in man’s and woman’s organization. To those who have been allured by its power; to those who understand its force; to those who realize that it is the parent of all action almost in life; how it leads men to sacrifice, to labor, to effort, no argument is needed to show that it is the greatest power of the human heart. For it men will endure any amount of sacrifice; for it women will endure and submit to almost any indignity. The fact is, it is the only element that will bind together in its original purity the family circle: it is that which leads a man to go forth in the battle of life to earn the bread that perisheth: it is that which enables him to look upon his wife as paramount to all else: it is that which enables her to watch by her infant children, and in the moment of sickness, with sleepless nights and days of vigilance, await until there is a restoration to health; it is this that glorifies the family circle and makes it a little heaven upon earth; and every man and every woman is cognizant of the fact, that where love has died out from the altar of home, that home has lost its greatest attraction. A man does not go there and look upon it as his little resting place from the care and anxiety of the world when that feeling has died out. No. He finds his pleasure in the club room, on the race course, at the gaming table, in political life, in business, or in many other directions, rather than in the little heaven called home. Ah! Sad indeed is the fate of those families where this beautiful, this beneficent, this almighty, this glorifying principle has failed, or finds no resting place therein.

Now, this is the key to marriage in the abstract. It is its foundation. It constitutes the glories of its architecture. It brings upon it its capstone, and finishes the edifice that God Almighty hath ordained. Yet this element which lays at the foundation and runs through the whole fabric of married life, in and of itself is not sufficient to produce and perpetuate that perfect happiness which men and women desire in this relationship. Man is a compound being. Woman is a compound being. There are other feelings of the heart beside affection and love, although these will cover a multitude of sins. But it is necessary for the best interests of the family relation that the tastes and habits, feelings and thoughts of the high contracting parties should run pretty much in the same direction—that is, so far as intelligence is received. Hence we have the apostolic injunction given to the early Christians which said: “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.” This was one of the commands given to the early Christians; because it was realized that though the fire of love may burn fiercely in the early years of wedded life, yet unless there is unity of sentiment, of thought and of action in regard to the religion that married couples should possess, and that should be imposed upon the children there will ever be a probability of disintegration and disruption, and this rule had its counterpart, or had its origin, in ancient Israel. It was not intended, as already stated, that the sons of any of the tribes of Israel should take to themselves wives of the nations that were round about them; they were commanded strictly to keep with that family, and where they failed in this, whether as individuals or in a national capacity, it brought down upon them the blighting curse of the Almighty, and led them finally to bondage, and to be carried away to the ends of the earth, and so many families in our Israel, after years of suffering of counsel and commandment, have become in a measure lost through the influence of misdirected and disobedient love.

We all realize the influence that a woman exerts over a man. A man, to be sure, exerts a good deal of influence over a woman. But I think the bulk of experience will show that if even a good, devoted Latter-day Saint woman should be foolishly guilty of marrying outside of the Church, or marrying a man in the Church who is half-hearted, that her children will retain more of her individual impress than they will of the father’s. I think observation will establish this fact: that where there is a devoted father, and an indifferent, unbelieving mother, the probabilities are that disintegration will set into that family, and that the majority of them will pass away from the influence of the Church and from the institutions of the Gospel. Not that either of these conditions is good—that is, they are not the best conditions. The best conditions are where there is a devoted man and a devoted woman, or women, all laboring in the interests of the Kingdom of God upon the earth, and impressing their own individuality, by the powers of an educational character upon the posterity that God may give them.

But in regard to this objectionable form of marriage called polygamic, if this marriage is an eternal principle, it follows almost of necessity that there will be a period in the experience of thousands when it must be essentially and eternally polygamic. How many young wives are there who leave this stage of action sometimes without children, and sometimes leaving a little fam– ily? And under these circumstances a man marries again; he takes another wife and raises up another family, and for two or three times or more this may be the experience of some. Now, if marriage is not for time only, but for eternity; if the marriage relation is continued, there is a condition of things which demonstrates that in the life to come at all events, marriage must be in many cases polygamic—that is, a man must be possessed of several wives.

Now, our theories of heaven are, that there is nothing there save that which is pure, save that which is ennobling, save that which is progressive, save that which is according to the order of God. If, He, then, in the eternities that are beyond the veil can admit of this relationship by virtue of the fact that marriage is eternal, does it not appear strange that such an order is decried by His children upon the face of the earth.

Nor need it be urged, that in some experiences there is a reversal of this order, that a woman may be the wife of several men while in the flesh, and that as a consequence, this arrangement must also be eternal. It has already been said that woman is subordinate to man, she was given to be his helpmeet, he was to rule over her, to be the head, as Christ is the head of the Church, that the man was not created for the woman, but woman for the man. [See 1st Cor., 1 to 12.]

Besides in the keeping of genealogical record, in the tracing of family or tribal relations, it is evident that a woman must be the acknowledged wife of some one man, and that to him alone pertains the eternity of the marriage covenant by the authority of the Holy Priesthood. This query is however old in history, it is precisely the one addressed to the Savior by the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection. He, however, without condescending to explain the sealing power to them declared that “when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage,” and the darkened inference of Christendom has been, that all family organizations, all characteristics of sex, all procreation of the species would be obliterated as something pertaining only to the shores of time.

This polygamic form of marriage, however, when we come to consider humanity, is far in excess of the monogamic. Its influence and power and practice are felt around the globe, and we can judge of its nature by that which we have seen and heard of in our own experience. Ishmael, the son of Abraham, was of polygamic lineage. It was prophesied of him that he should become the father of many nations, and in the eastern lands of the earth he has multiplied exceedingly; and today we find that the gigantic power of England with all its wealth, with all its appliances of science and civilization, is held in check by this selfsame Ishmael, the son of Abraham, the friend of God, so that assumed degeneracy consequent on this system is not established by facts.

In this land of ours, we find that monogamy is the rule; that there are laws preventing a departure from this order, and that any departure from that is visited with a good deal of criticism, with some legislation, with some pains and penalties, and is made to the nation a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense. Yet we might here pertinently ask the American nation—“From whence did you derive your monogamy? We might ask Old England the same question. I would like to ask if it has been accepted as the result of an intelligent understanding of the two modes of marriage? Rather has it not been inherited without investigation, without thought, without reflection, without understanding the marriage covenant? We all know it is the outgrowth of tradition; that it has been received from the fathers; and so far from having been an intellectual reception of a principle, fundamental and eternal, it possesses nothing of that character whatever. Monogamy was practiced by the fathers, the same as the religions of mankind were practiced by them, it was received and accepted unhesitatingly without comment or consideration, without understanding as to whether it was conclusively the best, or whether it was the worst, or whether it was of God, or whether it was of man, or whether anything different today might or might not be of Him.

Now, here is a little community called Latter-day Saints, who believe in both orders. They have accepted marriage in the abstract. They do not believe that society should run at loose ends in its sexual relations. They believe that a violation of those laws is as much a wrong today as it was in the days of ancient Israel, and they believe further that all sexual irregularities should be visited by penalties of divine sanction and appointment; and still more, that that which was right, that which was commanded, that which was encouraged, that which was practiced, that which was regulated among ancient Israel, and that which will be practiced and is inevitable behind the veil, cannot be an offense in the sight of God, in the day and age in which we live.

But it may be said, why speak of this matter when there is so much excitement in regard to it? For the best of all reasons, that this is a free country, that free speech has never been forbidden, has never been checked, has never been curtailed. It is the heritage we have received from our fathers, and we are at liberty to speak of the institutions that lay at the foundation of society, and to analyze and understand them. There are thousands of our youth growing up that are not familiar with the fundamental principles pertaining to marriage; with the ideas and theories and practices of the nations that have grown out of this relationship; and it needs that they should understand why this turmoil exists, and whether there is a good foundation for the position that men take everywhere in regard to that principle, and which leads to the persecution of their fathers, and the ostracism of their community.

When we come to the sacred books that have been received by the Church we find that, in regard to this dual idea of marriage—marriage in the monogamic form, and marriage in the polygamic form—the Book of Mormon expressly declares that it was necessary in the first colonization of this country that marriage should be monogamic, because the sexes were equal, and the people realized that marriage was an indispensable thing to both man and woman; but there is also indication that necessity would give final enlargement to this practical question.

So it was when Noah came out of the ark, and there are other periods in the history of mankind when nothing but monogamic marriage could prevail without doing an injustice to those round about them. But where there is no chance of this injustice; where every man is free; where every woman is free; where there are thousands of mankind that never marry at all, and thousands of women who by law cannot marry, there is room for the exercise of the polygamic form thereof; so that, in argument, the sacred books of old Israel, the sacred books of Christendom, the sacred books of the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, all tend to substantiate the idea that marriage in the abstract is of God; and that it is or has been of Him, both in the monogamic and polygamic form. Still further, these written revelations are not the only evidence of the fact that monogamic marriage and polygamic marriage are both susceptible of practice by the human family. Who is there that is acquainted with himself or herself—where is the man and where is the woman who does not realize, if they have attained to mature years and experience, that all the functions of manhood and womanhood can be subserved in both forms of marriage, and often better in the polygamic. If in this ever present revelation of the Almighty, of the finger of God in man’s organization, and in woman’s, it had been decreed that polygamy was an immoral thing, and that it did violence to either, then that would be evidence to go against the sacred books that we have received from the past, and from those of the present; and if Joseph Smith had come forth claiming to be a Prophet of God, and had given a revelation testifying to the necessity and advantage of polygamic marriage, and this revelation had come in contact with the revelation of man’s experience, with the revelation written in his own organization, then it would have nullified itself; but it is in harmony with such a revelation, and shows the possibility and susceptibility and natural character of marriage in the polygamic relation. During a certain debate held in this house in regard to this very question, Doctor Newman asserted that there were evidences against this practice in the Bible. I consider that the Bible has been read by the Latter-day Saints as much as ever it was read by Dr. Newman, although they may not have done so in the original tongue—they may not have Leviticus 18:18—as he had it—but yet they have that great gift of God which is called common sense, to say nothing of the inspiration of His Spirit, and they are just as well able to understand the revelations of the past as Doctor Newman with all his knowledge of the original rendition and meaning of the Hebrew character.

And if a tree is to be judged by its fruits, what of the whoredoms, the adultery, the fornication, the prostitution of women in monogamic nations? What of sexual diseases, of blighted lives, of martyred women, of little graves dotting every hillside and the resting places of the dead? What of feticide, infanticide and abortion? What of the decimated power and numbers of the best society, what of their liaisons and their divorce courts, and other damning features which cling closely to the skirts of modern Sodoms, the paragons and promoters of monogamic marriage?

Dr. Newman also made another remark something like this: that polygamy was not intended for the poor man, that it was intended for the kings of the earth, overlooking the fact, however, that Israel is a nation of kings and priests; so that when he said that polygamy or the practice of a plurality of wives was intended only for kings, it brought home a truth pregnant with thought; for God decreed that he would gather His Israel from the poor of all nations, and so in Rev. 5, 10, they are represented as singing a new song, “Thou hast made us Kings and Priests to God, and we shall reign on the earth;” and this principle was to extend not through time only, but through the countless ages of eternity, so that His people might occupy the position of eternal fathers and eternal mothers, and be indeed Kings and Priests forever and forever.

There are also other avenues of information besides those sacred records, and besides those revelations written in the organization of man and woman at large, and that is the revelation of individual experience. There are many men and women who have practiced this principle in the midst of Israel for thirty years and upwards. I have heard their testimonies time and time again, and they declare that their experience corroborated the exhortation, commandments and practices of Holy Writ, and the revelations written in their own organization; and they tell me that in this relation they have been blessed, they have been prospered, they have had around them the influence of the Spirit of the Almighty; that peace has been upon their household and habitation, and that they have been enabled through that principle to multiply their posterity upon the earth. Where are these? They are everywhere throughout this Territory, and their experience, corroborating those other revelations which I have mentioned, forms a threefold cord that cannot by any process or by any power be broken. I will say as the result of my own experience—for I have lived in that relationship—that to me and to mine it was productive of good, although it came in contact with our tradition. Although it came in contact with the practices of the fathers, and with our feelings, yet, in its experience it demonstrated itself to be of God, and no better time have I had in thirty years of married life than when I had three wives given me of God, and occupying but one habitation. The power of God was in that home; the spirit of peace was there, the spirit of intelligence was there; and we had our ever present testimony that God recognized the patriarchal order, that which had been practiced by His servants ages and ages ago and revealed to us in the dispensation of the fullness of times; and although two of these have gone behind the veil, they went there with a consciousness of having done their duty in this life, and that they would meet in the life beyond those who agreed with them in practice and in faith; from this condition came the discipline of life, the power of self-restraint, a tender regard for each others feelings, and a sort of jealousy for each others’ rights, all tempered by the consideration that relations meant to be enduring claimed more love and interest and soul than did monogamy under its best conditions.

Here, then, are some of the evidences in regard to this married relation that forms the foundation of civilization and of human life, and that lays at the foundation of the Government of God upon the earth; according to our ideas concerning this relationship so will our society and this community become. If we treat the marriage relation with levity; if we should believe that it was but a civil contract, and for time only, we should be weak as others and should not excel: if it is not part of our religion and of God, then it is not of value to us. In my experience—and that is not a very lengthy one—I have marked the change in feeling that has come over the nations in regard to this marriage question. When I was a lad it was very unusual for a man to take to himself a wife without the sanction of religion. All the marriages of Old England had to be celebrated in the Established Church, and a record was kept of them there, and of the posterity issuing from that marriage, and when these died, their death also was recorded, so that there was an unbroken chain of genealogical evidence in that respect often of immense value for legitimacy and other purposes. But by and by the spirit of religious liberty, as it was called, began to spread. It is but a hundred years ago, or a little over, since Methodism was established—the now dominant, or next to dominant religious organization of Christendom. It began in a small way; but it increased and spread abroad; it multiplied its converts, its ministers and its chapels; it became a potent factor, in a political sense, in the nation, and it was necessary that political parties should conciliate and cater to this increasingly wealthy religious organization; and when the Methodists wanted marriages performed in their own, instead of going to the Established Churches, their power and influence, the influence of wealth and numbers, their power as a political factor of the nation, gave them favor in the eyes of the ministry and the legislature. By and by they were allowed the privilege of marrying in their own churches and chapels, and by their own ministers. And as it was with this body, so it was with the smaller bodies, the satellites thrown off and revolving around the great planets of religious organization in that country. And then as this so-called religious liberty increased in spirit, skepticism began to grow in the minds of many in regard to religious doctrines. There were thousands of people that had no more faith in Methodism than in the Established Church, or in Catholicism. They had more faith in Tom Paine, and Voltaire, and Rosseau, and such men as Ingersoll, and their liberty made it appear plausible to them that there was no necessity to go to any church, or seek the aid of any minister, or have any religious ceremony in connection with their own marriage or the marriage of their families. So provision was made for this ever increasing host of skeptics, and finally it was decreed that marriage was nothing but a civil contract, not needing the service of a minister, or the sanction of religion, but requiring simply that it could be entered into after due notion was given, in a public place and not before a worshiping assembly. In such cases marriage was entered into as “a civil contract,” and when this stage was reached, inasmuch as it was but a civil contract, “only this and nothing more,” the next step of necessity was, that it could be dissolved. Where is there a contract of this nature that cannot be dissolved? If I am engaged by an employer we can dissolve the engagement whenever either of us is dissatisfied. And so this feature was applied to marriage; the laws of divorce were introduced, and that which was once considered discreditable, difficult and expensive, and would have been sounded from one end of the land to the other as such, became common and unworthy of remark.

Thus the bonds of society are loosened; the sanctity of the marriage relation is destroyed; and the world is filled with entanglements that are the product of this civil contract business, and even where this contract remains intact, there is a spirit made manifest to avoid the responsibilities of marriage as to offspring, and to live together in numberless cases without any marriage at all; so that when the connection is broken it may be swept to the wind with no results traceable or injurious to any of those concerned.

Now, for the safety of society, for the welfare of the human family, for the love of order and responsibility upon the earth, for faith in the revelations of God, and for high regard to the practices of His anointed, I am in favor of the marriage relation. The Latter-day Saints are in favor of the marriage relation, and they are utterly opposed to sexual intercourse outside of that. And they do not believe that marriage is a civil contract alone. Whatever power there may be in the courts to enforce the claim of a wife against a husband, or the husband against the wife as a matter of protection, in the main, marriage is of God, is of divine origin. Marriage requires the sanction of the authority of the Holy Priesthood in order to give it force, in order to make it valid in this life and the life to come, and marriage—polygamic or monogamic, according to the necessities of the case and the condition of those who enter therein—is in harmony with all the laws of life; and despite what the world may say, those that are of polygamic descent without knowing it are to be found among the rulers of today—the most exalted and the most prominent in a national sense—even in repudiating Christendom.

In the carrying out of this relationship the Latter-day Saints are numerous everywhere throughout this Territory: and it is incumbent upon the rising generation that they should hold to those sacred views that are held by their fathers; that they should marry within the confines of the Church; that they should seek for their husbands or wives, as the case may be, among those who have been obedient to the principles of the everlasting Gospel, and who comprehend something of the nature of the marriage covenant. Those of our posterity should not depart from the ways of our Father; they should not be willing to take up with the practices of Christendom. They should be under proper restraint, proper control and direction in all the relationships of life, because this parental relation among the faithful is an eternal authority. Those children of ours, they never can get away from their father and mother in this life, nor in the life to come. If they should form connection with those outside of the Church and become aliens to the Gospel, after a long day of repentance they will have to return and bow the knee if they would have access within that organization, if they would enjoy all that belongs to that relationship, if they would inherit the glory with which that relationship is identified; they will have to repent, as it were, in dust and ashes and come back to the family circle, compact and covenant, wherein the Almighty gave them a being. And in this respect it may be well to drop a hint in regard to the practices of some of our sons and daughters in this city—where they step outside of what some call priestly authority. When they come to get up amusements of their own, they should see that that only which pertains to good order and good government are introduced, for those inevitably tend to consolidation and unity. It would be well if our boys would listen to their fathers’ counsel; would respect the authority of their fathers and mothers who are good Latter-day Saints; and when they want enjoyment they should seek to keep within the circumscribed limits of all reputable authority.

There are a great many thoughts arise in my mind, but I presume that I have occupied all the time desirable and I do not wish to weary the congregation. The subject I have touched upon, however, is a very important one. It lies at the foundation of things, and, as I said before, as it is comprehended by the human family, by us as Latter-day Saints, so will be their position among the nations, so will be their power in renovating society, and so will be their measure of approbation by the heavens.

May God give us wisdom to so maintain ourselves in this relation whether it be polygamic or monogamic—that we may gain His smile and approbation, that we may feel His Spirit in our families, in our hearts, in our going out and coming in, and may we realize that we have the approbation of heaven, and the sanction of all the powers of the eternities past, present and to come, as well as the example of the Patriarchs and Prophets. And when this life shall come to its end with us, may we be privileged to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of our Father and God, and make part of a family there, a great nation of Kings and Priests, associating with those who have passed through much tribulation and washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb through the ordinances of the Gospel; which I ask may be the case, through Jesus Christ, Amen.

Discourse by Elder H. W. Naisbitt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, May 15th, 1881.

However disagreeable it may be to my personal feeling to stand before a congregation, the consciousness which the Elders of this Church possess that they have had committed to them the authority of the Holy Priesthood, and that they are entitled to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and that they possess the faith and prayers of the Saints who are their associates in the Church—those who understand their needs—is enough, I think, to buoy up an individual when he is called upon suddenly to address the people; indeed it is these thoughts alone which give me courage at the present time; I count upon a measure of the Holy Spirit; I count upon the faith and prayers of the Saints; and while I take up a little time I hope that that which may be said will be profitable and advantageous to all who listen and to the speaker himself.

Numerous have been the methods and channels through which the human family from time to time have received intelligence. Preaching is as old as history. Men have learned from each other. The results of individual experience have been transmitted to those who had less opportunity, and in this way knowledge has been increased in one from the resources of another.

But Christians believe, I think, as a rule, that men have not always been dependent upon those who dwell in the flesh for the intelligence which they have acquired. Those who have accepted the Bible, the Old and New Testament, will understand that there have been in past ages other methods by which intelligence was communicated than simply through men who dwelt in the flesh. Spiritual communication is one of the cornerstones of the old book. It is filled with instances where intelligences not directly of earth have visited members of the human family and communicated with them from time to time. Abraham, whom Christians look upon as “the father of the faithful,” was one who was privileged to receive angelic visitations. Lot was another of those who had experience of this character; and so were many of the ancients, from the beginning down to the time of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whose divine mission was announced by the visitations and communications of the angelic hosts. Whatever the character of these angels might have been, whether they were resurrected beings who had dwelt upon the earth—whether they were those of higher grades—archangels, as they are called—or whether they were de– signed and appointed specially to minister to individual men—which of these varieties they may have belonged to, it is very evident that the scriptures are full of the history of angelic communication, and that they were the instruments in the hands of the Almighty, sent to communicate his will under certain conditions. It is quite true that in our age this has been accounted one of the lost arts; it has been numbered among the things that had been, but had fallen into disuse; something that had become obsolete or unnecessary in the advanced condition of human intelligence.

But the same scriptures which tell of such visits in ancient times also point out with remarkable distinctness that there would be periods in the history of the human family when this angelic communication would again be restored, and that messengers would again come from the heavens to communicate with the children of men and introduce a new condition of things or prepare for conditions which must and will exist in order that the economy of God might be saved. Hence we have an account in the revelations of St. John, of the different angels that were to follow each other in the several epochs or dispensations of Providence among mankind. We have an account of the opening of the seven seals, which according to that record is to be done by angels appointed by divine authority, for the express purpose of the unfolding of the divine program in human history. But there is mention made there of one particular angel of whom it is said that he was seen “flying through the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto those that dwell upon the earth.” That this was to be in the far distant future from the period when John dwelt upon the earth and was a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos, is abundantly evident to all who have been but casual readers of the sacred Scriptures; but to those who have been students of that book, to those who have sought to read it understandingly, to make it their rule of life and to be guided by it in their travels, and through its teachings to fit themselves for the future, this statement could not pass with common notice—it no doubt has arrested their attention many a time, as covering a series of interesting and important periods of events. While in the nineteenth century such an idea by religionists has been ignored, being considered unnecessary, yet the documents have come down to us from the primitive times and the assertion is not denied that such an occurrence was to take place at some period of human history, if the word was to be fulfilled. Now I think that there are advantages to be derived from this angelic communication. Whenever a man realizes who and why he is upon the earth; whenever he realizes the instincts which are implanted within him and which make him soar after something that goes beyond the reach of human life and time, I think every one will agree that there is a vast field and need also for the acquisition of intelligence that would tend to the advancement of thousands and millions of the human family.

Ideas that could be communicated in regard to the past, ideas in regard to the present, ideas in regard to the future, might thus be obtained. Those ideas are not particularly within the range of the schools, colleges and educational institutions of mankind, they must come from a source and through channels where

Discourse by Elder H. W. Naisbitt, Continued from Page 376, Journal of Discourses, Vol. XXII, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, May 15th, 1881.

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 376, JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, VOL. XXII.) there have been larger opportunities for the acquisition of the knowledge which pertains to the designs of the Creator. I think that all thoughtful men and thoughtful women have felt within themselves that there were a great many problems in regard to human existence upon which they would like to have light and intelligence, they would like to understand and to have a surety as to whether a man was anything more than a mere animal in creation, whether it was his destiny only “to eat and to drink, for tomorrow we die,” or whether his existence was of a continuous character; whether after having laid down this tabernacle of flesh he would be privileged to enjoy again the associations which have been agreeable to him on earth, whether the family circle would be burst asunder, or whether continuing to exist he would be divested in a great measure of the temptations which seem to influence him on the right hand and on the left, and which appear to lead so many thousands of the human family down to degradation and death. It appears to me that there are questions in connection with all these things that thousands would like to solve, and questions which really never can be solved by the ordinary wisdom and knowledge which pertain to the educational facilities of mankind. Now, in reading these prophecies concerning the future angelic visitations that are to take place in the history of mankind, I have no doubt that those who have pondered over these prophecies have thought that in these visitations they would find the key which should unlock the past, the present and the future, and be of great value in the salvation of the human family—salvation from ignorance, from sin, and from death. These are the things which men everywhere need. They need to be saved from themselves; they need to be saved from each other; they need to be saved in regard to the future, according to the Scriptures, and the generally received notions of the Christian world.

Now, this angel that was to come in the latter times was declared to be one who was to bring the everlasting Gospel in order that it might be preached among all nations. Now, the everlasting Gospel, whatever that may mean, is something that is divine in its character. It is not conjured up by cunning and designing men. God was its author; in fact the Scriptures say that His Son Jesus was the “author and finisher” of the Christian faith on earth. Whenever, therefore, the revelation of that Gospel comes it must give man an account of his origin, of the necessity of the circumstances of the present, and something of his future. There is one thing which strikes the reader as being very peculiar in regard to this angel coming to the human family. It is implied upon the surface, and in its depths also, that there would be no necessity of sending the Gospel if the children of man had the Gospel already, this would be superfluous. Then when this angel comes is he to come to Christendom, or is he to come to heathendom? Is he to come to men that have not heard of Jesus, know nothing of God, know nothing of the way of salvation, or is he to come to the Christian world. If he is to come to heathendom it of course would be to bring salvation, the redemption of the soul and body of man; but if he is to come to Christendom it would almost seem to imply that amid them even the Gospel of redemption was unpreached or misunderstood, for in all the creations of our God there does not appear to be anything of an unnecessary character, there are no steps fallen in His government that are inapplicable to the existing condition of things; but the fact that an angel was to come in “the dispensation of the fulness of times” naturally implies that the Gospel would not be at that time preached on the face of the earth. Now this is rather an awkward conclusion to arrive at when all Christendom is said to be doing so much in regard to the building of churches, the teaching of religion, the payment of ministers, the sending of the so-called Gospel to the heathen, and the furnishing of Bibles to all the nations of the earth. And on reflecting upon the visits of this angel a man would naturally enquire, if this angel is going to bring the Gospel, in what does the Gospel consist, and as a necessary consequence he would also begin to enquire as to what the records say which have come down to us from ancient times. He would look into the New Testament; he would read the sayings of those whose names have become historic; he would read the sayings of the Great Teacher, who was sent from heaven, even Jesus Christ the righteous; and he would read the acts and doings in that book of His successors the Apostles, and of the primitive church, and from this record he would endeavor to find out what the Gospel was as preached in ancient times, and after he had done this he would begin to contrast the Christian organizations with which he was surrounded, the theories which Christians hold, the doctrines which they teach and put them side by side in parallel columns with the teachings of the ancient Church. He would institute comparisons and so would show a desire to understand the necessity for this angel coming expressly from heaven to “preach” the everlasting Gospel “unto them that dwell upon the earth, and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.” And in taking the New Testament for his guide, in pondering the acts and teachings of Jesus and his Apostles, he would begin to understand that there was method and order in connection with that Gospel; that it consisted of a series of principles, of ideas, and thoughts and practices, which were intended to work out some desired end. Hence it was said that the Gospel in ancient times “was the power of God unto salvation.” It was an important thing, it was something of value; it was something calculated to affect a man’s interests in time and in eternity, it was “the power of God unto salvation;” and I do not think that in any other recognized record are we so likely to find a portrayal of that Gospel in its purity and original simplicity as in the record called the New Testament. When we come to search that, we realize that Jesus professed to be the Son of God. He encouraged his followers to exercise faith in his Father, and in regard to his works he told them that he “did nothing of himself, but that which he had seen the Father do that did he,” and that which he did before his Apostles, and which he commanded them to do, was according to the commandments which he had received of the Father. I think the Christian world will be willing to acknowledge that this faith in God was a principle which was calculated to enhance the welfare of the human family. It was calculated to infuse high and lofty thoughts into the man or woman who accepted it; faith in the existence of God, faith that they were his children; faith that he was alive to their interests; faith that he was able to teach them the purpose of their existence, and the design that he had in their creation, faith that he was able to hear and answer their prayers. And the man who enjoyed this faith in God after he had been taught it was a man who was likely not only to feel higher conceptions in regard to humanity, so far as he himself was concerned, but there would be bound to spring up in his heart feelings, growing out of this, in regard to his brother man, and to his sister, woman; he would be bound to look upon them with more regard for their interests, well-being and salvation upon the earth, than he would have done without this conception. He would be interested in the moral, mental and spiritual condition of his neighbor; he would be interested in imparting to his neighbor the truth, and thus the spirit of faith in God would begin to spread and exercise a salutary influence wherever it was felt among those who received it.

And Jesus was not satisfied only with teaching this faith in God, but he realized that there would grow out of it these or similarly certain principles of action with regard to the conduct of those who received it. A man would begin to realize that inasmuch as he was a child of God, that he had in many respects been unworthy of that position, that he had been guilty of many acts both of commission and omission that were derogatory to such origin, and he would naturally begin to repent, to be sorry for having committed himself in this way and not to be sorry only, but to lay everything of this character aside in order that he might stand approved of God, His Heavenly Father. Hence there would grow out of faith the spirit of repentance for past sins, and then it was found that there was an ordinance in the Gospel by which through divine appointment, a man was enabled to receive the “remission of his sins,” consequent on the sacrifice that was to be offered on Calvary. That ordinance of the Church, as established by Jesus, was the ordinance of water baptism for the remission of sins. This was one of the principles of the Gospel, one of the principles of salvation, one of the steps in the educational process of those who submitted themselves to the authority of the Great Teacher, Jesus Christ. Now there is a vast diversity of opinion in the Christian world in regard to baptism, but this diversity we need not stop to consider. We can take the New Testament, and see what is laid down there upon the subject. Some think baptism unimportant. Christ, however, evidently thought it important. In speaking to Nicodemus, he said, “Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” And when he commissioned his Apostles to preach the Gospel, they went forth among the people, “baptizing them in water, confessing their sins.” Indeed, there are illustrations in abundance of this fact, that will be familiar to all the students of the New Testament. The great Apostle Peter, who appeared to have been the master spirit of the Church on the day of Pentecost, when men began to inquire what they should do to be saved, answered the inquirers in this way, “Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” This was the ancient order; this was the order established by Jesus, and the presumption is beyond dispute that if it was necessary for any one single member of that primitive church, or for any of the Apostles, or for Jesus himself to be baptized in water, it was necessary for the whole. Hence the irresistible conclusion is, that every member of the primitive church was baptized, “buried with him by baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” This was one of the doctrines of the ancient church, and the next doctrine that followed it in the program and system of the Gospel was the giving of the Holy Ghost. Now the scriptures tell us that “the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” In every land and clime, in all conditions of the human family, of every color, among the most highly civilized as among the most degraded, there is given to every man this measure of the spirit of God to profit withal, and it is in accordance with his obedience to the measure received of that spirit that he will be rewarded in the future. But in the Christian church there appears to have been an order that went in advance of this universal gift of the spirit. It was called “the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands.” Hence those who are familiar with the New Testament will realize that when men were baptized they were afterwards confirmed by “the laying on of hands,” and upon that confirmation they received the Holy Ghost. This Holy Ghost in them was the power of God. It opened up their minds, it informed their reason, enlarged their capacity, and enabled them to comprehend, as the scriptures say, the past, present and future. It was a grand gift, and one essential to salvation. To one man it gave the spirit of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge; to another faith; to another the gift of healing; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues, etc. It was to them the fountain of divine intelligence and power. And these manifestations followed the believer everywhere. It harmonized all the conflicting thoughts and ideas that they might have had in regard to God, in regard to the institutions with which they were surrounded, in regard to the duties devolving upon them, in regard to their destiny in the future. It made them one in Christ Jesus. They were baptized by one baptism, and they enjoyed one spirit. They were rich in the unity of the faith. And when men were thus baptized and received this spirit it was not expected that they should stand strictly upon their own individuality. They were not left to wander abroad to the right and to the left, but there appeared to have been in the primitive times a good deal of what we see in our own day. An organization grew up. They formed what was called a church. It is called in the New Testament, in some places “the Church of God,” in other places it is called “the Church of Christ.” It was a church composed of those who had thus been baptized, and thus received of the Holy Ghost. They were united together for self-defense. They were united in order that they might be taught by the authorities of that church. They were not taught by strangers or by men who had never passed through the same gateway and received the same spirit as themselves, but according to the New Testament they were taught by Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers and Evangelists, men who were engaged in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. These officers were “set in the church,” according to the New Testament, for the edifying of the body, for the training of the members, until they all came to the unity of the faith and to the full stature of men and women in Christ. Now, that was a glorious age. I have heard good men and women, ever since I heard anything, wish that they had lived in those primitive times. They have said how glad they would have been to have the privilege of even touching the hem of the Savior’s garment, witnessing his miracles, hearing his teachings, and to have been obedient to the principles which he taught. Men and women have said that they would have been glad to have lived in the Apostolic age; that they would have belonged to the primitive church; that they would have been in their glory to share in its trials and persecutions, to have enjoyed its spirit, to have received of its blessings, and to have acquired the knowledge and intelligence which accompanied the Priesthood that had control of that special church. I believe there are thousands everywhere today—men who are Elders, Deacons, Superintendents of Sunday Schools, teachers in Sunday Schools—who, on reading the history of the past feel that they would have been glad to have lived in the primitive times and seen the leaders and apostles of that church. Well, now, these feelings are natural. We realize the glory and blessing which belong to that ancient order. But it appears that this order in a great measure has become obsolete; it has passed away, it is not to be found anywhere in the form in which it existed anciently. There may be a church that has faith in God; there may be many churches that include repentance, that practice baptism; some may have faith in baptism for the remission of sins; there may be here and there men who believe in the reception of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands; but in its beautiful primitive order it is nowhere to be found among the children of men.

Now, in regard to the angel that should “fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth,” it is only reasonable to suppose that when the Gospel is restored, it will be restored with all its ancient power, blessings, ordinances, Priesthood, and everything that gave it grandeur and glory in the primitive times. But now the query is, Has this angel come? If he has not, are the children of men looking for him? Is there any anticipation in the midst of the Christian world of his appearance? I think not. But here among a small section of men and women in the Rocky Mountains, gathered from all the nations of the earth, there is an understanding that this angel has come, and should not the world be pleased at the assumption; for if they are delighted in reading the account of this angel’s probable visitation, why not take comfort and delight in the thought that angelic visitations may again become general or partial, as the case of necessity may require. Here, then, we have a little nucleus of men and women who say this angel has come in the 19th century, in the “dispensation of the fulness of times;” that he has brought with him and given to those who are preaching it, the “everlasting Gospel” as it existed in the ancient times; that in their practice they are in the habit of exercising faith in God, that they have repented of their sins; that they have been bap– tized in water for the promised remission; that they have laid aside their follies; that they want to free themselves from error and from all unrighteousness; that they have again identified themselves, as did the ancient Christians, with the Church, possessing within itself the ancient organization, the ancient Priesthood, the ancient authority to teach, to lead, and to govern and control, until all the obedient come again to the unity of the faith. Now if the Christian world take joy and satisfaction in reading ancient history or prospective history; if there are thousands of longing hearts in every denomination who say they would have rejoiced to have lived in the ancient times, to have listened to the teachings of the authorities of the primitive church, and to have shared in its blessings, etc.; what should be the thought when they hear again from men passing to and fro in the nations of the earth declaring that the ancient order has been restored; what should be the thought of men of intelligence, men of reflecting minds, men that know the merits and demerits of the Christian world, should not these hearts leap for joy when they hear that the Gospel has been thus restored in all its ancient glory?

The Latter-day Saints testify—it is a standing testimony to the nations—that this angel spoken of by John, the Revelator, has come to the human family, that he has brought with him the ancient Gospel, and that all those who are willing to accept their testimony, to exercise faith in God, to lay aside their dead works, their foolish notions and their false traditions, to divest themselves of the errors of the ages, and to be baptized and receive the power of the Holy Ghost, that they shall be as full of assurance as were the Saints in ancient times. For this, the Gospel of the kingdom neither was nor is a cunningly devised fable, nor was it something got up by the craftiness of men, but the obedient realized and know that it is “the power of God unto salvation;” it has come to them not in word only but in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance; and there are thousands throughout the length and breadth of the Territory, thousands throughout the United States, the islands of the sea, and throughout the nations of the earth, that rejoice in this Gospel. They are ready to testify that they know that God lives, that Jesus was the Savior of mankind, that the Gospel in all its pristine purity and beauty has been restored, and that in our own day all the blessings and privileges necessary for a complete salvation are offered to mankind. This may seem a reflection upon the intelligence of ages that are past and gone. But it is not so. I presume that there are thousands and millions who have passed away, that did the best they could, they lived up to the light they had, they sought to please God in their daily walk and conversation; but the Elders of Israel take the liberty of pointing out “a more acceptable way,” and they are free to testify and speak of their own knowledge that God has restored the Gospel and prepared the way for the salvation of all who are willing to give obedience to that which has been revealed.

May God enable us to appreciate the day of our salvation and live according to his design, that we may be saved in his kingdom, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by Elder H. W. Naisbitt, delivered in the Assembly Hall Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, Feb. 20th, 1881.

It is related in the history of the Lord Jesus Christ, that upon a certain occasion (after some of His marvelous works), He was followed by a great number of people; and upon noticing that this continued, He called His disciples and said—

“I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint by the way. And his disciples said unto him, Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said Seven, and a few little fishes. And he commanded them to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children.”

In looking upon a congregation like the present, I think that every Elder in Israel must feel that from the few small loaves and fishes which he may have accumulated in his experience, he is unable to feed and supply the necessities of the multitude before him. But while he occupies the position, he realizes that the infinite resources of the Holy Spirit are within general reach, and that this can be supplied and so administered as to bring home the little food that may be presented; and that by the processes of its multiplication, every man and every woman, and all the youth who are assembled, may have their “portion of meat in due season,” they may go away satisfied and refreshed and fitted for the duties of life, and their minds may be so expanded as to realize that through the inspiration of the spirit there is more left than appeared at the beginning. If this result depended upon a man’s native intelligence, if it were to come alone from the narrow field of his own experience, in my opinion it would be presumptuous in one to expect to be able to do much good. But the Elder who stands before the congregations of Israel, realizes that he is but the instrument, that he is but the medium, and that he needs to be taught as well as to be the medium for teaching; that he needs to be fed, as well as to be the instrument of feeding others; that his character and capacity are pretty much like the majority of those who are in communion with the same Church; that if he is to grow, to increase, to acquire strength, to become filled with intelligence, that he must reach beyond the confines of man’s thought; that he must get beyond the boundaries of man’s experience, that he must draw his supplies from resources which are greater than those that man controls; and that it is only from this outreaching that he will be able to satisfy the wellings of that spirit within him which desires to comprehend and to accumulate and to enjoy all truth.

The many agencies which are at work among the Latter-day Saints, to bring to pass the purposes of the Almighty, are more or less understood by all. I think that there are none of us scarcely, who would claim the title of “Master of Arts.” We are all, I think, satisfied to be ac– knowledged (and to feel it an honor and a privilege to be acknowledged) as students or pupils in the great school of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have all comprehended the depths of our ignorance; we have all realized that the training which has been necessary for us, the lessons which have been given unto us had to be adapted to our capacity and to our condition; no matter how high our spirits might soar in anticipations of the present or the future that spreads before us—when we have come to ourselves; when we have really felt our insignificance, when we have realized how easily we are influenced by temptations that are opposed to our best interest; when we realize how easily we are diverted by the fashions and frivolities of life; when we realize how we are cast down by opposition, and how the efforts of our enemies seem measurably to test our faith—I say, when we realize that these are the feelings of the masses of the people, we then comprehend that we need to be buoyed up and sustained by a power that is vastly higher and greater than ourselves.

We are a good deal in the condition of our boys when they go to school. They come in contact with those who are far in advance of themselves; in their simple primary lessons they realize what an immense gulf there is between them and their preceptor. And when in our ignorance we realize how far we are behind many of those who have grown gray with experience, who have been passive to the reception of the spirit of revelation, who have been able to grasp a large amount of truth, and to comprehend the bearings which one truth had upon its neighbor truth, (all together jointly working out that process which is called and constitutes education in the life of a Saint), we have had our ambition stirred, our feelings wrought up, our minds illuminated by the influences of this same spirit of inspiration. Sometimes this has been in reading the productions of the old Prophets, sometimes in listening to the champions of the Gospel in our day, sometimes in sitting beneath the combined influences of the hosts of thoughtful men and women among the congregations of the Saints. Probably we might illustrate, for a moment or two, how the changes we look for are likely to be brought to pass, and the ways have been presented to us from time to time. And if the illustration is drawn from homely things, I hope that it will bring home to the good Saints and to this audience the truth sought to be established.

Many of the inhabitants of this Territory are agriculturists—tilling the soil of these mountain valleys. Looking at it naturally, it would not seem to be so highly productive, or to yield the vast advantages which spring from tillage, that subsequent experience seems to confirm. But here is a man engaged in this occupation who has had a measure of experience, and who knows, at all events, the rudimentary principles which pertain to his occupation.

In the beautiful months of summer he walks into his field. He remembers his labor there, how he took pride in the preparation of that field for the harvest which he desired. It was well ploughed; it was well harrowed; it was well seeded; and as the spring rains descended it became clothed in a garment of lustrous green. As the weeks pass by it advances towards a higher form, even towards maturity, until with the warmth of the increasing sun, and partly as the product of the good cultivation which it has had, it glows in this sunshine of the summer with the promise of an abundant harvest.

The farmer, realizing the destiny of the grain, was disposed to question it, after the manner of the fables we read in the days of our childhood. He goes into this field of grain as the passing cloud flits over it; as the wind sweeps across its face he notices how it bends with its weight and wealth of grain, he admires its beauty and he says, “What a magnificent field of wheat is here.” And addressing himself to it he suggests:

“How would you like to be presented to the king?”

The wheat is growing up in the dark soil of the earth, having no idea of its purpose or future; but the question being asked, it lifts itself in pride, it rejoices in the prospect that is suggested, and finally says:

“Yes, I would like to be presented to the king.”

But by and by, as it colors to ripeness, the laborers come, and with the reaping machines or sickle they go to work in this beautiful field of grain, and before it knows where it is, instead of waving in the sun and enjoying the elements surrounding it, it finds itself lying prone upon the earth. And as it lies thus prostrate, the question naturally arises, “How is the promise of my master going to be fulfilled? How am I to reach the destiny to which he alluded?” While it is pondering over the situation, more laborers come along, and they take it and bind it into bundles; and the wheat wonders to itself whether the bundling process is a step towards its destiny. By and by another set of hands comes, and the bundled wheat is set on ends, in (what they call in the part of the nation from which I came) the form of “stooks.” After the stooks have been formed, a cap-sheaf is put on them, to protect the grain from the changes of the weather. It stands a while in this condition, undergoing the mellowing process; but after standing sufficiently in this form, another gang of laborers come along, and thrusting their steel forks into the sheaves, pitch them on to wagons and haul them away to the barnyard, where they are put into a stack. Here it remains probably for a time, undergoing another process, passing another stage, which fits it better for its final use. But it does not remain very long before it is moved again; this time it passes through the threshing machine. It goes through the beaters, and is subject to the fan, and is thus separated from the straw and chaff. It is then put into sacks and tied up at the mouth, and after a while it is hauled away to the mill, and there it is put into the smutter, and cleansed from foul seed, smut, &c.; then passing between the upper and nether millstones, it is ground almost to powder; from thence it must perforce pass through the bolt, and finally comes out fine, or very fine flour, according to the quality of the wheat, or the design of the miller. But notwithstanding the many changes it has undergone, its end is not yet; it is not yet in a condition to realize the fulfillment of the promise. The flour is now taken home to the good housewife, who puts a little of it into a pan, and then pours hot or cold water upon it, and adds the elements which cause fermentation; and then it assumes another condition. It begins to think again, “Surely my destiny is now about to be fulfilled.” But the good wife takes it, and works it, and kneads it into loaves, and finally opens the oven door and thrusts it as it were into the furnace. By this time it thinks that its end has come; it is now about to be consumed. After it has undergone this baking process for a while, it comes forth from the oven a beautiful, brown, pleasant, well-flavored loaf, in which condition it is fit to be presented to the highest authority in the land.

Now, to return again. Here is the human family unconscious of their origin, unconscious of their destiny. But the Elders of this Church go forth and tell mankind that they are the children of their common Father; that they had their origin in the eternal worlds; that there lies before them a grand and sublime destiny; and they say, inasmuch as this is so, how would you like again to be presented to your Father—to the King? How would you like to return to His presence, and to enjoy His smiles. How would you like to be brought back again to the surroundings you once enjoyed? And as the stirring impulses of these warm thoughts rush through the hearts of the listeners in the midst of the nations of the earth, their minds begin to expand and their hearts begin to swell with the newfound dignity thus spread before them, and in the promise of the future; but by and by there is a change in their condition; in the pride of their hearts, under the inspiration of those men who thus taught and counseled them, they thought they were going to be somebody. But other contingencies of life were upon them. The sickle is at their roots; adverse circumstances come along, and withal they are perhaps laid low upon a bed of sickness; and when they least expect it they are called to pass through the valley of humiliation. And under these circumstances they inquire, Is this the way through which I am to pass into the presence of the King? The Elders who first prompted them to these ennobling thoughts have now induced them to take another step in this preparatory process. They repent of their sins; they go down into the waters of baptism and become members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they are now bound in bundles, or, as they are called, “branches;” and when they are tied up in this fashion there is a cap-sheaf put over them in the authority of a presiding officer of the branch. I know that occasionally there are those in the lower sheaves who are disposed to find fault with the position they occupy. They say, we are just as good wheat as you can find on the cap sheaf; we are just as valuable, we possess just as much intelligence; but while this is the case, and they may rebel, yet they finally realize that there is an order in the organization with which they are identified, and the increase of the spirit of intelligence tells them that the same destiny, the same grand future awaits the wheat in the sheaves that stand upon the ground, as it does the wheat which crowns the pile.

But a new impulse begins to work in their hearts, and the agents came along and gathered them up to the railroad and to the steamboat. “From the east and the west, and the north and the south,” they are taken away in a body and placed in the form of, or in the stackyard—this is the gathering place in Zion. They are with the body of the Church, in a larger form, than they were in the little branches in the old world. And after they have been in the stack a while, they begin to look around and to ponder upon the changes which they meet from time to time; they find themselves in the midst of new conditions; that they are surrounded with new combinations of circumstances, subject to new influences. Soon they discover that they have reached the threshingfloor of the Almighty, and as they pass through the cylinders (as it were), through the trials and friction which belong to the gathering place of the Saints, as their defects and surplusage become apparent, there may be groaning in spirit, but the conclusion is reached that they need to lay off the straw of old tradition, the chaff of early training, the influences and powers which molded them in the past, and to make themselves satisfied with every process pertaining to the present and the future.

By and by they come forth from the threshing machine measurably divested of extraneous and comparatively useless characteristics; but no sooner have they got through than change is on them again; they find themselves in the mill, and between the upper and nether millstones at that—between the friction of their enemies and the direction of the authorities in the Church of Christ, they are almost ground to powder, in order that they may know themselves, that they may understand their characteristics or defects, and that they may be the better prepared for the future.

After a while a man is called upon a mission. He goes out to colonize the desert, or he is sent to the nations of the earth, and here comes the kneading process. The call may be to a hot or a cold country, to a pleasant place or a disagreeable one, but he all the time realizes that his character is changing, that it is being molded into a higher form, becoming more and more willing, yet also becoming solidified and established. And after having been thus kneaded and watered until in thought and inspiration, he begins to ferment, he is again molded into still another form and thrust into the oven, that it may consume that which is evil, that he may throw off those gases that are unnecessary for his future, and having passed through this process, he comes forth purified, as it were by fire, and fitted for the Master’s presence.

I presume that all the Latter-day Saints are more or less acquainted with these trials through which they have passed—with the influences that have been at work upon them since they yielded obedience to the Gospel. You that are from the old world, or from the new, will realize the feelings of joy and of gladness with which you received the Gospel. You will comprehend how, for the moment your judgment was carried captive by the power of the Spirit of God; how you realized the grandeur and the adaptability of the Gospel to your condition, and how much you enjoyed association with those who were of a like spirit with yourselves. You took satisfaction in their society. If you saw a man or a woman who belonged to the same branch, you used to rush to give him or her the morning or the evening greeting, as the case might be. In the midst of your daily avocations you looked forward to the meeting in the evening, or you looked forward to the meeting on the Sabbath. But after you had been but a little while in the Church, you began to realize that every one did not look at the Gospel as you looked at it. There were those who began to think that you were foolish, enthusiastic, deceived; who began to show you that they had no interest in that which you had accepted. They treated you with indifference, looked upon you with contempt, and you soon found your only satisfaction was in the association of your brethren and sisters; you were drawn, even forced, into their society. The bitterest opponents you found were in the religious world. The old Sabbath school teacher, the old class leader, the old superintendent, the old minister, became enemies to you. While professedly anxious for your welfare, they considered you were in error, they feigned sorrow for your delusion, they hoped for your deliverance. And if you lived in a small village or in a small town, it became almost an impossibility for you to secure employment. The opportunities of living were measurably denied you. Hence you found more abiding solace in the Gospel, and you began to comprehend the advantages of gathering. You began to realize that there was something of an intelligent character in connection with it; that by gathering you would escape from this contempt and from this opposition; that you would be in the midst of those who were of like faith with yourself. By and by you had the chance of leaving your native land; but the trials and difficulties which you had to meet on the way to “the valleys of the mountains” were very hard, and such as you were not accustomed to in your native land. You were placed under new conditions, subject to new trials. You felt yourself surrounded by new temptations, and you began to comprehend that you had within you features of character that were comparatively unknown before. You felt the inconvenience of traveling on the plains, as we used to do in olden times, with eight, ten, or a dozen in a wagon.

After a time you landed in Zion, and you soon began to realize that here was another state, or condition. I recollect my own experience when I first settled in this city. I came from the active ministry in the old country. No one knew me here, and no one seemed to care to know me. I occupied no position; nobody bade me welcome; I was a stranger in the midst of a strange land. I began to feel a little blue. I had to wonder within myself whether gathering had made any difference in my feelings or faith, and it was only upon reflection I discovered that from a life of comparative activity I had been brought into a condition where I was comparatively dormant; my faculties were unexercised, and instead of being sought unto, had to seek counsel from those who presided over the Ward. Conditions were reversed, circumstances were changed, and it was only reflection that led me to comprehend this fact. After I had been here a little while, I had to look for something to do. I was not sure that I would find the employment to which I had been accustomed. I had been used to standing behind a counter and attending to business of that kind in the old world, but when I came to Salt Lake City there was hardly a counter in it. I could find no occupation of that character. I therefore went to work as a carpenter, in order to sustain myself and family, and become a useful member of society. This was a new experience. It brought with it its trials. When Saturday night came I was not sure as to the kind of wages I would receive. I would likely be paid in something; it might be in something I had made myself—the product of my own hands; it might be in something I did not want. These were the old days of “barter and swap” in the midst of Israel. When we wanted a candle we had to melt a piece of fat in a saucer, stick a piece of rag in the center, and by this means light ourselves to labor, or to bed. When we wanted a fire we had to get a little wood—there was no coal—and go to work and chop it, and instead of a fireplace, we had to make the fire on the hearth, in stooping to which my wife would almost break her back in attending to the necessities of domestic life. These were in their way trials. They gave us new thoughts, new feelings, they brought momentarily strange conclusions; we began to inquire whether the Zion we had reached was worthy of the ideas we had cherished in regard to it. We met with many trials. If we had to trade in any way, we came in contact with those who were disposed to take advantage. We were “green” in our way, so to speak; we were not acquainted with this order of things, and there was more or less friction until we became used to the ways and methods which belong to a new country. The old land is the product of thousands of years in the history of the past; this was a new land, it was but of yesterday, and had all the newness that pertained to infancy. Yet I must say that even at that time, after a little acquaintance, social life was very warm. People used to visit each other with great freedom. There was no vast amount of style; there was nobody able “to put it on.” When we visited we were satisfied to enjoy our molasses and bread and squash pie, and with these we thought we feasted almost upon the food that the Gods were wont to eat, or upon angels’ food. We enjoyed these things, until by and by we began to increase in means and to build up our homes.

When we look back upon these primitive times, we see how little really the human family can get along with. How many things we hunger after, desire to have, and spend our lives in obtaining, yet how easily we can get along without them. I think that one of the greatest losses I experienced in this Territory was that of intellectual enjoyment. I had come from Mechanics’ Institutes, Lyceums and Athenaeums, which offered opportunities of amusement and intellectual growth. But you know how it was here in those early times. The newspapers have been telling us lately that we were occasionally two or three months without a mail, while newspapers and books were few and far between. We had left even our Stars and Journals and pamphlets on the plains; we had thrown them out of our trunks—and I do not know but some had to leave their trunks also—and we were thrown more decidedly upon our own resources, and we had each to seek more earnestly the inspiration of the Almighty to give us intelligence. But even in these adverse conditions our minds became enlarged, we continued to grow, and had feasts of fat things in the tabernacle, and in the Ward, Quorum and other meetings of the Saints. The spirit of inspiration rested upon those who spoke to us, and our minds expanded to the truths of the Gospel, and the future of the grand system with which we had become identified.

Gradually the Gentile world came into our midst in considerable numbers; as they kept increasing they tried many methods to divert our attention. They pointed out to us the mines in the everlasting hills; they brought along the fashions that belong to Babylon; they tried to work upon our feelings; they called upon our sons and daughters to throw off the bondage (as they called it) which had been placed upon them by the Priesthood. But, when we pondered upon these things, we realize how little they understand our position, how little they understand our condition, how little they understand the thoughts we have in regard to the future, how little they comprehend the foundations of our faith, even while they pray, beg, beseech and coax us to recant, how little they know of the power of the spirit and of the result of the experience we have passed through in the school of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, they continue in this direction, and we have to meet it. We must comprehend the rivalry—if I may so express myself the ever-present opposition which exists between the powers of intelligence and the powers of ignorance.

Well, we continued to live in Zion. Our families continued to increase. People gathered in from the nations of the earth. They spread out on the right hand and on the left, built up cities and redeemed the waste places. The power and authority of the Priesthood has been conferred upon the rising generation. Hosts of them are going forth as missionaries in the midst of the nations of the earth. They go with power and force, and when they return they acknowledge that the process through which they have passed has agreed with them. It has given them strength, increased their faith, and enlarged their thoughts.

And so Zion continues to grow. Her population increases in intelligence; they are becoming more and more fitted and adapted for the society of “the Church of the Firstborn and the spirits of just men made perfect.” They are men and women who are looking forward to the time when, through their faith– fulness and integrity, they shall be admitted into the celestial kingdom and presented to the King. Their “eyes shall see the king in his beauty: and the land that is now afar off;” there they shall rejoice in His presence, and feel amply repaid for all trial, when they have triumphed and overcome.

I pray for and am assured that God, by His Spirit, will continue to work with the Latter-day Saints; that they will continue to be passive to its admonitions and more active to obey; that they will seek and learn, by “line upon line and precept upon precept,” and that while they follow this goodly advice, while they are edified by the ideas which are thrown out before them, while they enjoy the songs and the anthems which are rendered by the choir, I hope they will be strengthened in their faith, and carry home with them the influence and the power of the food they have received here, and that thus there will be more life in the midst of Israel. I hope that even today, from the few words thrown out, that they will be spiritually strengthened, and so know that there are positive elements of growth to be obtained by attendance at the sanctuary of the Lord.

That we may continue to enjoy the life which has been given unto us, and that we may finally “become men and women in and through the Gospel,” is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder H. W. Naisbitt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, August 29, 1880.

I stand here today, as you are all aware, to speak of those things which pertain to the faith that we have received, of that order which we call the Gospel of the Son of God, that order which the world entitles “Mormonism,” a system which contains within itself many elements which are strange to mankind, but which are very powerful in their character and calculated in their progress and growth to arrest the attention of the human family. With all the faults, weaknesses and traditions which encumber the people who dwell in these mountains, I believe the universal testimony is, that they are entitled to credit for earnestness, for industry, for honesty, and for many results which have grown out of these characteristics. One source of territorial, or state, or national greatness consists in a proper understanding of the purposes for which men dwell upon the earth, upon their ideas in regard to family organization, social ethics, or those principles which bind man to man and family to family, and make of a nation a grand united whole.

The Latter-day Saints, it is well known, are strong advocates of marriage. They believe that every man and every woman should enter into that relationship. They believe in the divinity of that first command, that the human race were destined to multiply and replenish the earth. Consequently, wherever any large assembly of the Latter-day Saints are brought together, there you will find a very large proportion of those who are young in years. The theories which are held by some philosophers, by some men and women who enter the marriage state, find no place among the Latter-day Saints. The universal faith among them is that children are “an heritage from the Lord;” that “happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them,” in contradistinction to an increasing tendency elsewhere, to believe that there should be a limit to the number of children which a man should possess, and that wheresoever they may be considered undesirable, from the claims of society, from the disposition to follow the fashions of the age, from a feeling that self-gratification is the highest destiny of the human family, that there the family increase should be curtailed. Among the Latter-day Saints those ideas have not obtained a foothold. Although they have come from the outside world, gathered from the nations of the earth and measurably partaken of the influences which prevail there, yet they have not so far done violence to the instincts which God has planted within them as to practice the theories of the parties to whom I have alluded. And in all our assemblies, as I have said before, in this tabernacle as an illustration, in our ward meetings and in all our settlements and colonies, there is substantial testimony to be found of the fact that in this obedience to the law of primitive times, to the law of the constitution of human nature, and to the law as revealed to us in this “dispensation of the fullness of times,” the Latter-day Saints have paid marked and decided attention.

This increase of population brings with it many thoughts; it is the father or parent of much reflection to those who grasp the situation. I recollect many a time in my travels east, when gentlemen in the great cities of this country made reflections in regard to our emigration from the different portions of the earth, I have said: “Yes, we have quite an emigration; the gathering is a fixed fact, fundamental in the economy of this Gospel.” But outside of this gathering there is another one, which fails to arrest the attention of the world because it comes in a less ostentatious manner, and that is the wonderful home increase of that people dwelling in the mountains. And whenever tourists visit here, if they travel outside the limits of this city, if they visit our settlements in the length and breadth thereof, they cannot fail to be struck with the rapid multiplication of those who have thus gathered from the nations of the earth. When we inform the world that in a population of 150,000 souls there can be found in the neighborhood of 50,000 in attendance upon our schools; when we realize the immense number under the age of maturity, it would require a mathematician to tell what will speedily be the increase if the present policy is pursued. In a few generations to come, if this characteristic continues to manifest itself proportionately, there will be a continual necessity for spreading forth, Utah will become too small for her spreading population, and in all the adjacent Territories and States, those who have been drawn together under her institutions, who have accepted her faith and believe in her destiny—those will be found measurably carrying out the ideas which today permeate our society in a local capacity.

In considering this element growing up in our midst, we may form some idea in regard to the future of the people who dwell here. I believe there is an ancient proverb which says that “the stream cannot rise higher than its fountain,” that “as men sow so shall they also reap;” and whatever we may have anticipated when illuminated with the spirit of prophecy, whatever our private ideas may be in regard to the glory and the greatness that shall rest upon the people, one thing is sure, that it depends upon the growth, development and characteristics which are imprinted and made manifest in the posterity of the Latter-day Saints.

Education is one of the “catch words” of this generation. It is considered to be one of the mightiest levers for the future prosperity of the United States; but opinions in regard to what constitutes education are as various almost as the individuals who are questioned. With a very large number, education is supposed to consist in the ability to read and write, and in the understanding of the geographical character of the country in which the student lives. It is considered to be comprehended in the rules of arithmetic and in the various branches of an advanced or classical education, as it is called, where the youth of the country graduate, and are then called scholars. But I apprehend this style of education may be given with a generous and extended hand to every son and daughter of this republic, and yet when you come to analyze the whole you will find that the mass of the people thus trained are, as a rule, absolutely deficient in the great and grand element which constitutes the higher form of education and of human culture.

There is in the scholastic institutions of the United States something of a disposition to eradicate from them everything which savors of religious training. It has been sought in many places to exclude the Bible as a text book, or a book to be used in any form whatever, much more the idea of including any form of religious faith or practice. Rather has there been an idea in the mind of most Americans that it was fundamental in the constitution and genius of the country that there should be an eternal separation between what is considered and called religious and secular things. Yet, when we reflect upon the wonderful organization we have and that we see around us, when we reflect upon the faculties and endowments which men possess, can we not see that this very idea of “church and state,” or religious and secular faculty, is interwoven and is the very fabric of humanity, placed there by God himself, and that there is a disposition under the religious sentiment to draw sustenance and support, comfort and solace from the conceptions which pertain to divinity; and growing out from this fundamental religious idea or sentiment and established thereupon can come alone all the highest attributes that we look for in the future, a time when man shall find all his powers and functions harmoniously developed. And it is just as impossible to separate this great constitutional principle which exists in the human organization as it is to divide or break asunder anything which is formed, created, or intended to be formed, created, or intended to be adopted by the great ruler of the universe. Man possesses his religious faculties, no matter how dormant they may be, no matter how wrapt up by superstition, or blinded by the ignorance and misconceptions of the teachers who have molded him. God has planted in the human organization those attributes which seek communion with the divine. And it is upon righteous conceptions of man’s origin that his future will depend. If the young men of any community have no correct ideas in regard to this; if they believe that they are but the product of chance: if they are impregnated with the thought that they are simply in a transitory condition and that they may “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” if these are the thoughts which entertain, all their actions will correspond with these thoughts, they will not reach out, nor after the higher attributes which belong to humanity, they will be filled with selfishness, with a disposition to gratify their own passions, even if they have to accomplish this at the sacrifice of the feelings and interests of these with whom they come in contact. But if the youth of our country realize that they are the sons and daughters of the living God; if they realize and comprehend the fact that before they dwelt upon the earth they enjoyed a pre-existence, that their spirits dwelt in the eternities, and had a home there, had associations there, and that they comprehended something of the purposes for which they should come and tabernacle in the flesh, then we may be sure that such thoughts and feelings will have their influence upon the entire course of their after life. If the youth of a community are thus trained, if they comprehend the relationship which they sustain, to the great ruler of the universe if they have faith in God and have received of the fact that God lives, that he holds in his hand the destinies of the human family, that he hath provided rewards for virtue and penalties for vice—if they comprehend these things, their actions in life will be shaped by these ennobling thoughts. But if the education which the youth of a country receives is devoid of training for the religious sentiment, if the grand revelations of the ancient times which God has given through “his servants the prophets,” are set on one side, and if instead thereof education is supposed to consist of arithmetic and the kindred branches of that science, of political knowledge and all that goes to make up what is called a scholar, leaving out the cultivation of other attributes which God has implanted in man—if that is the kind of education imparted, then of necessity it will, at some period of time in the history of that country, bring about religious death, and as a consequence the bonds of society would become loosened, men would live for themselves instead of living for each other, and they would become simply as “the beasts that perish,” ignoring the past and caring nothing at all for the future. Hence I believe that this education and training is an important matter as pertaining to the youth of a country, that it should not be a Sabbath exercise only, but that at home, at the family circle, and in the common day school there should be as much attention given to the religious faculties as there should be given to intellectual and mental culture about which we talk so much, and for which we erect so many schools. And it is also to be remarked that according to the conceptions of the people on religious matters, so also will be their conceptions in regard to morality. Morality is the outgrowth of religion. It is the fruitage of the tree of life in regard to men’s ideas of God, of the past, and of the future. Without the cultivation and spirit of true religion, the moral faculties are very likely to be perverted, warped and misdirected. If the idea of brotherhood finds no place in the education of our youth, they will be disposed to take advantage of their brethren, take advantage in trade, speculation, etc., and society would thus become so individualized, that men would become a race of Ishmaelites, “every man’s hand against his brother.”

I believe that among the people who inhabit these mountains that this idea of brotherhood—the brotherhood of the human family—forms a very prominent feature in their education. I think our youth are taught that they should not live for themselves alone, but rather that in living for others they can and do best subserve their own interests. And we have examples of this in many directions, most notable among which is the missionary system which obtains among the Latter-day Saints. Have we not seen in our experience in this Territory, some 300 to 400 men called at once to go forth and preach the Gospel, to leave their homes and families, their friends and business, and travel to the nations of the earth to propagate the religious ideas which they had received. We have known those men sent throughout the United States, to every section of Europe, to Australia, to the Islands of the sea, to China and to India, and such has been the devotion of those who were thus called, that in the course of three or four weeks, every man had left the scenes and associations that were dear to him, and through the midst of difficulties and trials have finally found themselves in these widely divergent points of the compass, to which they had been called by the voice of the people and by the authority presiding over them. And when they have gone to these different nations they have gone in the spirit of brotherhood, they have looked upon the human family as their brethren and their sisters. They have gone in the capacity of saviors, and they have carried with them those principles which are the foundation of that civilization which the Almighty intends to establish on the face of the earth. They have not gone to preach that which would narrow the views of mankind; they have not gone to teach that which would introduce a spirit of selfishness or of anything degrading, but have gone carrying with them the principle of universal brotherhood which, when put into practice, will cement and bind society together in such a manner, that should any power touch the interests of one they would inevitably touch the interests of the whole. And it has been by the faith which they have exhibited; by the earnestness with which they have labored, by the blessings of God and the power of his spirit which accompanied them, that they have been able to gather from among the nations the best elements of their society, and transplant them into these valleys of the mountains, then weld them into a comparatively united people—a people measurably animated by one thought, one impulse, one faith, believing in one God, and putting into practice one order—a people who are looking for one result, and that is the regeneration and redemption of all those who place themselves beneath the influence of those ideas and ordi– nances which have been advanced. This is the tree which has been planted, and the seed which has been sown, and the result can be best calculated by those who have given most attention to that which has been taught.

This idea creeps out in almost every direction. I have given this illustration, of the missionary effort which has sent its thousands and tens of thousands from this community—even when it was much smaller in numbers than it is at present—around the habitable globe. There is also another phase of this same spirit which the Latter-day Saints have exhibited, they have not only sent and are sending these men on missions, and sustaining them by their means, by their faith and prayers, but in obedience to the spirit of gathering they have given great assistance to those who were unable to gather of themselves. Indeed, in the history of the past have we not seen the time when the authorities of the Church have called for from 200 to 600 teams to journey to the Missouri River to transport the poor and the meek of the earth across those dreary plains—where the railroad now makes its welcome music—and they have landed thousands in this way in the midst of these mountains and introduced them to the new order of civilization which has been inspired by the spirit of the living God. In addition to all this they have taken from these valleys, and laid up at convenient points on the route, provisions enough to sustain those thousands while thus traveling for three or four months across the plains, they have also provided at such times a strong mounted body guard of the youth of the territory to protect the emigrants from the assaults of the Indians, so that they might perform their journey in safety. And they have gone still further: they have not only brought those thousands from the boundaries of civilization, and from the training and education of the systems and governments of the old world, but they have colonized all these valleys, and it is these thousands who constitute today the cities, towns, and villages of Utah. Not only have they been placed in these settlements but they have been taught the rudiments and the advanced principles of self-sustenance and of positive independence. The thousands and tens of thousands of Utah are beyond the depths of poverty that you find exhibited in the old world. The poverty which is known to exist there, the strikes which occur in the ranks of labor in the old world, the difficulties which belong to even in so blessed country as the United States, find no place among the people who dwell in these valleys. The majority of those who have thus come in strangers, who have been thus surrounded by new conditions, and subjected to new influences, have produced good results. Travel wherever you will throughout this territory and you will find the majority of people live in their own homes; they pay no rent to anybody; they are not, when poor and unemployed, subject to be turned out into the public streets; they are not, when old age creeps upon them, likely to be thrust into the union, or poor house as it is called, where the husband is separated from the wife and the wife from the husband, thereby giving practical force to the new reading of the marriage ceremony as suggested by some of the radicals of the old world, that that service should read, not as it does at present, but “till death or poverty do us part”—they are not subject to these conditions, but a man and woman have the privilege of living together, the man with the wife of his youth; they see their posterity grow up in thrift and peace, and when “the weary wheels of life stand still” they lay themselves down in hope of a glorious resurrection unto eternal life!

There is also another feature which is worthy of remark in this territory. Can it not be safely said that the mortality of the people thus gathered together bears a marked contrast to that which exists elsewhere? Can it not be said that the influence of industry, of peace, and of good order, has had a good effect upon the masses in many directions. The mental pressure which excites elsewhere sends tens of thousands to suicide or drives them into houses built for those suffering from insanity, does not exist in the midst of the Latter-day Saints. Mentally, the people of this territory are pretty evenly balanced; one of the results of their faith in God, is that it enables them to contend manfully and patiently with difficulties instead of yielding to the circumstances thrust upon them, and thus they become valiant in the battle of life; they are not afraid of obstacles, or danger, or duties which may surround them; they believe that it is best to work, to fight and overcome, instead of cowardly taking into their hands the opportunity of depriving themselves of living upon the earth and filling a suicide’s grave. The faith of the Gospel teaches them that life is a school, that it is an honor and works out future glory to submit to its discipline, to overcome its difficulties, to solve its problems and to fill its purposes, so that all the attributes of their manhood may be cultured and developed. This springs from the fundamental idea which the people of this territory have received and which they have accepted in their faith, and whatever social, commercial, political, or other class of difficulties may arise, and even though surrounded by the fire of persecution, they will still exercise this faith in God, and believe that from all apparent evil he will bring forth good. Does not the mental balance which this people exhibit, this absence of that tendency toward suicide and lunacy—which exists in all the nations of the earth by virtue of the pressure which society brings to bear upon the characteristics of men—does not the fact that this pressure is unknown among the people of Utah, (or at least if not unknown, nearly so) stand as an evidence of the better character of the institutions under which they live? On the other hand they are giving to their posterity all that the world calls education. Not that they consider it the primary object and end of life, but they do consider it useful to their children in enabling them to fulfil some of the responsibilities of manhood, to attend to the business duties and affairs of life, and for this they are building schoolhouses, for this they employ teachers and erect academies, and in this way they have spent in poverty as much, comparatively speaking, as will bear a pleasant contrast with any part of this country, of which they are a part. And while they have endeavored to carry out this joint style of education—that is, the cultivation of the highest attributes, which consist of faith in God, faith that we can commune with him, faith in the Scriptures handed down to us by the ancient servants of God, faith that by the introduction of the Gospel and the practice of its principles will be laid the foundation of a higher civilization, calculated in its nature to supersede all other forms with which man may have been acquainted in the ages that are past—yet for all this, politically they do not feel obliged to be either democrats or republicans, whigs or nationalists, but rather feel to cultivate all the qualities of patriotism and citizenship, developing these to the highest possible perfection. But even in connection with a system which aims at these results, a system which has set before its believers so elevated a platform, there will occasionally in individuals be comparative failure. But wherever men are possessed of this faith, it is simply a question of time as to its ultimate success, and the day is not far distant when those who hold this faith will not be confined to Utah and the adjacent territory, they will not be held in bondage and vassalage, and have appointed over them men in whose election they have no voice, but they will stand qualified with all that of excellence they desire, and have the privilege of being free and full American citizens.

I said awhile ago that there had been a good deal of talking and a good deal of writing in regard to a bugbear called the union of Church and State. But it is folly to talk or write against a thing which God has incorporated into the very fabric of man’s being; and it would be a good deal better now for the nation in which we live if the ranks of political parties were less divided, were more imbued with a sense of honor, virtue, purity, and the spirit of brotherhood. This would remove from them a great many of the evils with which they are afflicted: it would help to strengthen their efforts for the good of the nation—in every way—if they, in the spirit of the Christian faith, went forth to receive the suffrages of their fellow men, and then take with them into the halls of Congress the same spirit, there to labor with just conceptions of justice and brotherhood, realizing that “God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.” If our political parties were animated by this spirit, would not the name of America stand higher than has ever yet been dreamed of by those who entered her counsels or sat to administer her affairs. I am an advocate for the system which has been established in Utah Territory, because I have studied it, I have seen its influences, I have marked its power over the lives of those who have been obedient and subservient to it, and I know myself that it is calculated to develop the best features of our humanity, to unite the human family together, to bring heaven to earth, to bring men into communion with the angels, and to hasten the day when not only the angels, but Jesus shall come to the earth and reign, and when the thousands of those who have been prepared under the influence and institutions of Zion shall have the privilege of associating with “the Church of the Firstborn; and the spirits of just men made perfect.” This I know to be the power and spirit, the end and aim, the final triumph of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I feel proud that thousands in Utah have consecrated all that they possess to the establishment of this divine system which you can read of in the history of the past, and which has again been revealed in our day through the ministration of angels to the Prophet Joseph, on the eastern shores of the continent of North America I know also that in the progress of this work it will not only take hold of the poor and meek of the earth, but the day is not far distant when it will take hold of many of the more thoughtful and cultivated among men; and while we may look back through the history of the past and think there never were statesmen like Washington and others who have left their names on the records of fame, yet, my brethren and sisters, the Gospel tells us that these were only the precursors of many in the future who in intellect and culture shall stand unfolded in all that harmony and glory which belongs to the eternities.

I know the Latter-day Saints understand these things, and in the spirit thereof they are seeking to cultivate their faith in God, seeking to consecrate their time, talent and ability to the building up of Zion upon the earth; and to those who are strangers in their midst who are not acquainted with their program, not acquainted with the ambition which prompts and inspires the Latter-day Saints—to such we say these are the ideas by which we are actuated. They know they are workers for God, they are laborers in the great field of human progress, and they are using that which they have received from the heavens, believing that divine purposes are best served by divine edu– cation and divine culture, and when these are operating, all the facilities about which men boast, sink into comparative insignificance in contrast with that higher education which belongs to and grows out of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I ask our friends who turn in with us occasionally, to give us credit for this earnestness of purpose, and although they may not see as we see, although they may consider the Latter-day Saints mad, yet they must admit that “there is method in their madness.” The results which are now seen are but the drops before the shower, the little progress now made is but the shadow of that which shall be seen when they shall return to the land of the rising sun, for then in every State of the Union will be found wonderful colonies of the Latter-day Saints, wielding power and influence under the administration and institutions of Zion, working as they work now for the elevation and progress and redemption of the human family.

May God give us wisdom “to work while it is day,” to labor diligently in the duties to which we have been called, and when we have done this, may we be saved in the celestial kingdom of our God, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by Elder H. W. Naisbitt, delivered in the 16th Ward Meetinghouse, Sunday Afternoon, March 7th, 1880.

I presume we all understand that the Spirit of the Lord is in the congregation of the Saints. If we do not understand it and if there is any one that does not realize the necessity of enjoying it, it would be a good thing perhaps for him to get up here a while.

When a person is called upon to address a congregation and notices the upturned faces before him, waiting, wishing, very likely praying, for the blessings which they particularly desire, I think that no man can look upon such a sight unmoved, he must feel his own ignorance and weakness, and dependence, and when he does this I believe that all public administrations will be an advantage and blessing both to the speaker and hearers, and I am sure that is my object this afternoon. I have no personal ambition to serve, but I do want to bless and I do know that I need to be blessed. And this is the place appointed (so far as this ward is concerned) for the reception of those blessings which pertain to the public services of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here is the place where there should be intelligence. Here is the place where there should be wisdom. Here is the place to expect revelation, and that not in any vague, misty, half understood sense—not lost or covered up by a multitude of words, but divested of everything that will deprive us of knowledge as to the essential principles which belong really to revelation. The world, however, holds very peculiar ideas in regard to this. Every elder in Israel who will look back upon his experience, if it reaches even to the early history of this Church, will comprehend how odd and mythical the ideas in regard to revelation were as then held by mankind. It is true that the masses of the people as well as the teachers believed that in the ancient times there had been some communication with the intelligences who dwell behind the veil. They all agreed—all Christians did at all events—that the Spirit was made manifest and its utterances recorded in a book. They believed that without that book the world was in a lost condition, that men were left to grope in darkness and to wander in ignorance, but with that book it was believed that every man and every woman could understand themselves; they could understand something of their origin and the purpose for which they were dwelling upon the earth, the destiny which belonged to the human family, and also the process by which that destiny could be best secured. But it is astonishing what a little light will do for a man. It is astonishing how our minds expand when we receive the key to the situation. And when we look at the vast difference there is between the community who inhabit these mountains and the communities of the nations from which we have been gathered—probably most can see and are aware that between the two there exists a great and ever widening gulf. Men who reject the principle of revelation in any direction must inevitably become stunted, they must inevitably cease to live, because revelation is the element of life, it is the secret of growth, it is the power of increase, and it is only in proportion to the receptive ability of a man, or woman, or child, that they can increase in intelligence. Now, divested of all extraneous or outside ideas, divested of all the mystery that has been thrown around the idea of revelation by manmade teachers, divested of all traditions and thoughts that have been written in regard to it, what is the essential idea involved in revelation in its significant simplicity? What is there that is difficult of comprehension? What is there that it should need men of classical education to explain it; what is there that there should be these large colleges and this immense army of ministers in order that the world may be enlightened in regard to the principle of revelation? Why, when you come to probe and to reach the foundation of the idea it is nothing more nor less than the communication of intelligence possessed by one to another who in regard to that subject remains in ignorance. That is all there is involved in revelation, and whenever you find a human being who is ignorant of any subject pertaining to any direction of human thought, or in regard to any useful field of human experience, there revelation is an absolute necessity.

Now, then, revelation may vary in degree; it may vary in character, according to the necessities of the case, according to the intelligence of individuals. The mother who guides the destiny of a family and endows it with all the comforts of domestic and social life finds herself surrounded by a few crude men and women, or, as we call them, boys or girls. You consider the character of this offspring. When they were born they were helpless, and in infancy they possessed no intelligence save those animal instincts which lead only to the preservation of life. But in a few weeks or months the spirit of intelligence begins to dawn. The mother watches the growing spark and seeks to fan it to a flame; to point out the remedy where difficulty occurs in early experience; to explain the educational process through which the child must pass from man or womanhood; and to show that when the first efforts are made, and even when they are comparative failures, that these only stand as sentinels or pointsmen in the great highway of success—prompters to ultimate and final success. The probability is that every young woman who has learned to make bread has had an experience of this character. And it is true that many of the first trials, unless the mother watched very closely, would not be successful, the bread might be heavy, or it become sour. Now it is the mother’s duty to reveal, to give from her intelligence to one comparatively ignorant, a solution or remedy for the difficulty. The young girl is expected to listen to the mother. She has the faculty to receive the intelligence that is communicated, and to put that intelligence into practice. And when the bread was heavy the mother showed the cause which brought about that condition. If the bread was sour, a little neutralizing element had to be put into the dough, in order that the acidity might be removed, a little soda or something of that kind; and this is a revelatory process from the mother to the child. If you take one of our good mothers in Israel who has grown grey under the weight of experience, you will find that she possesses a vast fund of information, and in every direction in domestic or social life she is the great standard of appeal, and even when the daughter has become a married woman, when she passes into the responsibility of motherhood, when sickness takes hold of the darling that God has given her, she instantly appeals to the higher or wider intelligence and experience of the mother, and that which the mother, by the advantage of years, by the experience through which she has passed, has gained, she communicates unto the daughter, and thus the daughter becomes the recipient of revelation. And as it is with the mother and the daughter, so also it is with the father and the son; so also it is with those who are learning a trade, so also it is with those who attend our daily or our Sabbath schools, and the very fact that we are so constituted that we can receive revelation in these channels is a revelation in and of itself, written in the fundamental organization of the human character, that revelation is not only possible and desirable, but that it is also a necessary and inevitable element pertaining to the highest welfare and the grand destiny and future of those who submit to its varied processes from day to day! Now, this character of intelligence may be said to mark the very lowest phases of human life; but while man is an animal, while he has his physical necessities, while he is surrounded with domestic life, while he is subject to and is a member of the social arena of life, there are also attributes of character which are beyond this physical, this animal, and this social cast. There is something in every man and in every woman which savors of the divine, in all the circumstances of life there is a reaching out after something which is beyond the grasp; there is a soaring of the spirit, a seeking after something to which the present surroundings gave no clue. Man feels that he is. He not only feels that he is, but thousands and millions of the human family have an inkling of the great fact that they have been, and millions and millions more have an inkling of the other great fact that when they leave this stage of existence they will continue to be. And it is the realization of such things which establishes the idea outside of any other special revelation that our origin is divine as well as human. When we sense these ideas, when they become interwoven into the fabric of our lives, when we instinctively feel that we do possess this characteristic, there must be certain elements and certain principles which will minister to the growth of such ideas; just as there are elements of and in nature which minister to the welfare of the lower, so there are elements which minister to the higher, and fitted for the cultivation of every attribute of the human character, no matter how low we may esteem it to be, or how lofty we may conceive it to be, there are resources in the economy of God for the development and growth and glory of that characteristic. Hence when a man realizes that he had a pre-existence, when he realizes that the present existence is but a transitory condition, when he realizes that there is a vast and illimitable future before him, he desires to comprehend how he shall best minister to his individual welfare in that future. And here steps in the necessity of revelation based upon philosophy, based upon human necessities and human needs. The only way that we can be educated in this direction is by revelation coming to us from outside sources, from higher intelligences; from those who have passed through the selfsame experience as we ourselves have and will forever pass.

Now, then, as a fundamental process for our education in this respect we have given unto us the Gospel. That Gospel is just as systematic and just as orderly as are the details of education in a school. It is just as orderly and systematic as are the methods by which our boys are taught and trained in the various branches of education or trade. It is just as orderly and systematic as the education our wives give to their daughters, or that mothers give to their married girls. You never find a mother, in training her children for domestic life, begin to tell them in the first place how to make one of those very rich cakes that we sometimes make ourselves sick with at Christmas. You would scarcely find a man who took an apprentice, begin to teach him in the first place some higher branches of his trade. You would scarcely find a teacher begin to teach his pupils the advanced principles pertaining to a classical education. There is an order; there are steps and processes in every educational direction, which we take in their order and in their time and place. Now one of the most startling revelations that has been given to the human family in the day and age in which we live, by the elders of Israel, to a dark and benighted world, is the great fundamental idea of “the fatherhood of God.” Now, this may not appear so startling to the American citizen whose mind is impregnated with the idea that the human family are equal—that one man is as good as another, but in the Old World there exists conditions of class and of caste. You who have come from England or from any European nation, will realize what I mean by class and caste. There is the charmed circle of the royal blood, into which the plebeian never enters. There is the larger circle of the aristocracy, or, as we call them, the “upper ten,” and into the precincts of that circle, jealously guarded as they are, a stranger scarcely ever enters. Then you were surrounded in England by what is called the middle classes, and even they look upon the lower classes as being made of some material distinct and different from themselves; but when the elders of Israel landed in Old England and proclaimed “the fatherhood of God,” and laid the axe at the root of caste and class, they were preparing for the foundation of a kingdom that should recognize the essential unity of the human family and of necessity the brotherhood of man. It is quite true that under some social, religious or political circumstances, we hear of a certain unity and equality among the human family; but if you attempt to put that unity and equality into practice, what are the results that inevitably flow from such a course? You are surrounded with obstacles on every hand, and it is only perhaps after the lapse of two or three generations that a man in his posterity is able to make his way from the ranks and associate with the higher class. It is true there are those here and there who do this, and they do it by virtue of inherent genius or some chance legacy, and when they are accepted into this higher class, it is by virtue of this chance, etc., but as a rule they are looked upon as intruders. Take the Prime Minister of England, Lord Beaconsfield. There is a man who has made himself a necessity to the government of the country, to Her Majesty, to the higher classes; he has done this by virtue of the inspiration of the Almighty, and yet with all his grand attainments, that man is looked upon more or less as an intruder because he was not nobly born! And so I might multiply illustrations which would be familiar to you all. But the Gospel sets out in the first place with these two ideas, twin ideas, that never can be put asunder, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of the human family.

Now, then, if we are one in our origin, if we are really one in destiny, we must all reach that destiny by the selfsame process, and that process is to be found in the ordinances of the Gospel, in the power of inspiration and revelation resting upon those who initiate men and women into that order. And in connection with this, wherever and whenever you comprehend this higher intelligence that bears rule in the eternities, controlling the destines of these great orbs that we see from time to time in the midnight heavens—wherever you find those that have graded from a fallen world you will find those who graded up and through the instrumentality of the selfsame Gospel that is given to you and me. There is no other Gospel. There is no other way to that exaltation which pertains to the Gods only through the revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So that there is “no royal road” to heaven; no matter what a man’s condition, no matter what the class to which he may have been known in social life on earth by virtue of birth or by virtue of wealth; no matter what position he may occupy because of his ignorance or lack of information; no matter whether he may live in a hovel or dwell in a palace, or though he may have but a crust to eat or his table be laden with all the good things of the earth, he must submit to the selfsame ordinances, be controlled by the selfsame spirit of revelation, and reach the final issue through the selfsame channel.

Now, then, what is it that we expect through the Gospel? Why, that it may develop in you and me, from our crude, ignorant, unlovable condition—the results of many a fearful fall—the appearance and the characteristics of the eternal Father. This selfsame idea animated the Saints in ancient times. They had faith that by obedience to righteous laws there would be evolved in and from them, through the attributes which they already possessed, measurably dormant or measurably active as the case may be—that they would be able to produce the likeness of God the eternal Father. Now, at first view this may appear sur– prising, but suppose we reason upon it for a moment or two.

Here are some of you good brethren; you go to work this spring and you set out an orchard of apple trees, and by and by the time for fruit arrives and you go and look for pears, or plums, or cherries upon the apple trees! Now, what would be thought of your intelligence? Why everybody would say you have certainly made a mistake; they were apple trees that you planted, and apples are the fruit; if you want pears you must plant pear trees. Men don’t gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles. Then, if we are the children of our Father you can see at a glance by that illustration that if we submit to the process of education which he had pointed out and laid down, we must become like him. Well, now, this may seem incredible to some that a human being, defiled and deformed as he is by sin and transgression, the result of ages—I say it may seem almost incredible that a human being should be able to rise to the characteristics and attributes and appearance of the Father; but it is not only possible but it is inevitable, and all the ancient Saints had this idea. One of the old prophets, for instance, when under the inspiration of the Almighty, has said, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness;” and in the New Testament, one of the apostles said, looking forward to the time of the resurrection, that, “When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” We shall have an opportunity of demonstrating our likeness. We shall be able to make the contrast, “We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” And of Jesus it was said that, “He was the brightness of his Father’s glory and the express image of his person.” He was like his Father, and this likeness was in him by virtue of the fact that he lived in possession of the inspiration of revelation; his course was marked out by that spirit. It animated every faculty, controlled every action, prompted every motive, and because that spirit was poured upon him “without measure,” he became the glory of his Father and exhibited in himself the “express image of his person,” and he, in speaking to his disciples, declared that they should become “like unto him, even as he was like his Father,” by the reception of “line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.” Now, probably I might illustrate this from the facts of everyday life, the possibility, I mean, of a change in the features of those with whom we are familiar. Did you ever notice a man and wife who had lived happily together, whose thoughts were one, who had become assimilated to each other in their tastes and feelings so far and to such an extent that when you see them white with the snow of years you would say of them, “I never saw a couple so much alike; they are positively like brother and sister.” Did that ever come under your observation? It has come under mine many and many a time. Now, what was the secret of that? Why the wife had become assimilated to the husband and the husband to the wife; they were actuated upon in a great measure by the selfsame impulses, until they had become similar in their habits of life, so thoroughly one that they were like each other even in their facial expression, and when death claimed one or the other, but a few hours or days would pass before they were again and for evermore united. And this is a characteristic in which we glory. But to illustrate this in another direction. Here is a mother, now, or a young wife. Her heart overflows with affection for the husband of her youth. God has blessed the union that was made by the authority of the priesthood. She passes along until she attains to the condition of motherhood, and in the fulness of her heart she brings the babe to the assembly of the Saints that by the authority of the priesthood it may be dedicated to the service of God and to the building up of this kingdom. The mother’s heart is full. It bursts almost with gratitude for the great boon she has received. She breathes many a prayer for the child that God has given, and by and by, even when the cup seems full to the very brim, some of her sisters come along and say, “what a beautiful baby you have got; how very like its father;” and that is the last drop needful to make the mother’s soul and ambition full to overflowing. To say that the babe was like herself would perhaps have been quite as correct; but when it was pronounced to be like his father, more especially if its father was a good husband, if he was everything that he should be in regard to character—there was no limit to the love and affection she could bear for her husband and their child. * * * * *

There is an illustration we can apply in another direction. We have all come down from the eternities of the past to this period of probation. I think the probabilities are that while we dwelt there we were in possession of a good deal of intelligence. There were many facilities, I expect, for the acquisition of such intelligence as was adapted to our condition. I believe that we were there taught the necessity and advantage of taking a probation upon the earth. I believe that there we exhibited a great many of the attributes of our Father, the Father of our spirits; but we came down here and we took upon us tabernacles; these tabernacles are given to us by our earthly father and by our mother. And they came to us corrupted, they came to us contaminated by the vast variety of evils with which our fathers have afflicted themselves during many generations. When we consider the exalted character of our first father, when we consider the position that he occupies, and when we consider his offspring on the earth subject to the infirmities of the flesh, it is not unlikely that many are led to say, “how can we be the children of our father who art in heaven? And if we are his children how can we renew or be restored to his image and likeness, how can we develop the attributes which he possesses, how can we become like him in our spirits and more or less in our tabernacles.” Why we shall have to do this by the reception of his spirit, and by cultivating the principles of life that come through revelation. When we come to look at each other as we are, we see stamped in our countenances selfishness, we see exhibitions of sensuality, we see the evidences of a thousand and one conditions to which we have been subjected and our fathers before us. Now, the Gospel has been given us to do away with sin and death; it has been given to develop in us the attributes and characteristics of our Father in heaven from faculties we already possess. Well, now, we will suppose that one of those angels of intelligence surrounding the throne of God comes down to the streets of Salt Lake City. He goes up one of the principal thoroughfares and peers into the face of everyone that passes. He marks our plainness, or, in some instances, ugliness. He can detect at a glance where the faculties are perverted, and where they are in their normal condition. He can see in a moment how we have been beclouded by sin, how we have been subjected to evil influences, how we have given way to temptation, and how we are the subjects of the conditions which surround us. But as he passes along he meets one of a little different stamp. A man may be dwelling in a hovel on the bench or in the low wards of the city, and he steps up to such a one and says, “how do you do.” “Why,” says the person addressed, “you have the advantage of me, I do not know that I ever saw you before.” “Well, now, probably you never did, but,” says he, “I know you although I never saw you.” “Well, how do you know me.” “Why, I am from the eternities that are beyond the veil, I am come from where your Father dwells and I can see in the luster of your eye, I can feel by the aura or influence which surrounds you as you move from place to place, that you are animated by the spirit of your Father’s house, I can discern in your physiognomy the lineage of your progenitors.” Well, what is the secret? Simply that there is a man living his religion. He is filled with the Spirit and power of God. It is a lamp to his feet and a light to his path. It actuates him in all the circumstances of life; as a father, as a member of the Church to which he belongs and as a citizen. It is this which gives luster to the eye and elasticity to the step, even when the body is bent with weight of years, and the stranger who has come direct from the eternal worlds can see that there is a man who has been with Jesus and has learned of him. Will it glorify a man and woman in this respect while they are in the flesh? Yes, it will, and when men and women in general come in contact with them, they will be prepared to bear testimony that they are in the enjoyment of a good, or as we may say, right spirit. While they are tabernacling in the flesh they are preparing for the more exalted condition and state which belongs to them in the future, and many and many a man and woman have exhibited some of the characteristics which were exhibited by the individual who came to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. John fell at his feet to worship him, “See thou do it not (said he), I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” John thought from the glory surrounding him that he must be God himself; and he began to bow the knee to him. “See thou do it not.” And when we see a man whom we recognize as faithful in all the conditions of life, as “a man whom we can tie to”—to use a common expression, a man who is on hand all the time, who is living his religion, we feel involuntarily to lift our hats to such a one, and this intuitive reverence which we pay to human character, is testimony of God within the veil of flesh, and also an evidence of the spirit of revelation and inspiration.

Now, this is the purpose of our religion, and although our receptive faculties may be comparatively dormant, yet they can become enlarged. You and I have a right to enjoy revelation and inspiration. It is not confined to officials or to the ordained elders of Israel, it is not confined to the first presidency, to the twelve apostles, to the seventies or the high priests, but it is within the reach of every man and woman in Israel, and we can bring that spirit of revelation to bear upon our duty, in our social as well as our religious life. Now, I know there are a great many who think that the spirit of revelation and inspiration is of no use in the details of every day life. This, however, is a mistake, for the selfsame inspiration and revelation can qualify a man in business, it can help his faculties, enlarge his reason, and make him more noble and godlike and intelligent in all the directions he may be called upon to act in. To be sure there are those who say that our religion has nothing to do with our business. I recollect one of our leading men asserting that President Young might direct in spiritual things, he might direct in matters pertaining to the Gospel, “but, when it came to business, he knew what business was!” Now, that is a mistake because the object of this Gospel is to minister to our spiritual and also to our temporal wants and interests. Take our bishops as an illustration. Are they not called to administer in the temporal affairs of the kingdom? What is their office? They are fathers to the people. They are to see that every man becomes self-sustaining. They are called upon to open up industries for the growing youth of our Territory. We sustain them in that office. Thus our religion enters into temporal things and they are ordained and set apart for this. When Brother George Q. Cannon goes to represent us in Congress he is set apart for that office, and the priesthood lay their hands upon him in order that he may be blessed in that capacity. When Brother Staines goes down to New York, he goes there to attend to those duties which are temporal, but he is set apart by the Authorities of this Church to officiate in that character. The Gospel therefore interferes in our temporal arrangements. And this is no new theory. It is as old as the everlasting hills; it pertains to eternity, it will exist throughout all the eternities of the future. If you turn back in the old book to the history of the tabernacle in the wilderness, you find that under the jurisdiction of Moses, there were certain men who labored on that building that were inspired of God. He caused his Spirit to rest upon them, and you will notice it in a greater degree when you come to the building of the temple of Solomon. You will find there were men inspired to work in that direction. And that which was good in the years of the past is good in the day and age in which we live, and the day will yet come in Israel when men will be set apart to act in more temporal capacities than many in Israel dare to think of now. When a man shows that he has received a gift from God, no matter about its character, whether it is a gift of wisdom, or whether it is a gift leading into mechanics, science or literature—whenever that man exhibits these attainments, and he is taken and set apart by the servants of God, you will see that spirit enlarge his faculties, increase his judgment, and when that day comes, you will see a good spirit in the midst of Israel. It will glow and grow and increase in every direction that will minister to the welfare of the kingdom as a whole. Why, even now, in the building of our Temples, Brother T. O. Angell and others are sustained as architects. Now, what has religion to do with building a house? Much. Has it to do with teaching a school? Yes. Has it to do with domestic economy? Yes; I know it has; and wherever you find men and women who will cultivate that spirit and follow its counsel, you will find that they will become famous in the direction in which they act. They are inspired of God, led by his spirit, and have access to the intelligence that lies behind the veil, and those who have had experience there will minister to our wants, so that when Zion begins to grow she will fairly shine. She will support everything that will contribute to the welfare and glory of the greatest kingdom that was yet set up upon the earth, until men shall say, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” Now, this is the purpose for which you and I have come from the Old World, from the different States in the New World, and from the different parts of Europe and the islands of the sea, to be taught of God, to enjoy his Spirit, to be educated in his Church, to be subject to his authority, and to grow and increase in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that is something worth having, something that is worth living for, something that outshines and outdistances all the organizations and systems which men may have introduced. It is the Gospel of the living God. It is the Spirit of the living God burning in the hearts of the Saints. But far too many of us neglect this Spirit, we grieve it, we do not listen to its admonitions. How many in Israel have bartered their homes and sunk their means in a “hole in the ground,” because they would not listen to the counsels of God through his servants? How many failures in life, because of our ignorance, notwithstanding the fountains of intelligence are open at which we can drink? How many of us lose our children because we fail to apply to these great fountains, so that all could operate and under– stand how to resist adverse influences, while we are in the flesh. Now, if we would cultivate this spirit, if we would listen to its teachings, it would come to us in many ways, in visions, in dreams and manifestations of the power of God. We could have the ministration of angels, and many of us probably the ministration of the Son—as some have done in the history and experience of this Church—and this is the position to which we will all arrive if we are faithful to the great trust that is laid upon us; we shall not only enjoy the society of “an innumerable company of angels,” not only come “to the general assembly and Church of the Firstborn,” but we shall also be privileged to go to Jesus, and to God the Father of us all and there bask in his presence and be educated in his ways and sit down to the glory which awaits the just.

Now, may God bless us with his Spirit, may he lift us from the groveling condition in which we find ourselves placed; may he infuse into and surround us with the influence of his Spirit, that we may live indeed a new life, and so glorify God “in our bodies and spirits which are his,” is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder H. W. Naisbitt, delivered in the 13th Ward Meetinghouse, Salt Lake City, November 23rd, 1879.

My brethren and sisters: I can say that I have had some very pleasant and interesting reflections while listening to Brother Fowler’s remarks, and think the purpose for which we have met this evening has been a success. I have felt that I have been fed, that I have been blessed, and that I shall carry with me more or less of the influence and spirit of those remarks, and upon re– flection we all understand that this is really the purpose for which we come together.

Mormonism, in a sense, is opposed to formality. All that there is associated with it is meant for use, and there are results expected to accrue from all the practices of the Church that have been established by revelation, and everything is intended to aid in the great work which we call salvation. To be sure, that is a very common word, it is a word that we are all familiar with, it is something that we have heard from the time that we were children, from the time that we went to Sabbath school, and before we went there, and after we attained to youth and manhood. But in the light of the Gospel how narrow and contracted and how offensive the word in its sectarian sense becomes to us, so much so that many of us scarcely like to use it; we would prefer to use another expression which more thoroughly carries with it all the ideas associated with the reception and practice of the Gospel.

Our memory has been cited to the fact that during the history of this Church, and during the history of the primitive church, there were those who possessed the spirit of unbelief, there were those who became more or less indifferent and negligent in regard to that which they received, and we have been referred to the history of those who have fallen from this Church—men who have seen great things, men who have had wonderful experiences, men whom we might have considered as stable as the eternal hills by virtue of that experience. Now what is the difficulty in such cases? What is the difficulty in any cases, in your case, and in my case, when we lose an interest in the things pertaining to the kingdom of God? Is it a healthy sign? Or is it not rather, if continued, a sign of approximating death? Is the man or the woman who are alive to their duties—are they those who apostatize? Is it the faithful man or the active, stirring woman, who are laboring earnestly, following the practice and principles of the Gospel, that leave the Church? No, it is not, but it is those who, from some cause or other, become cold, heartless, indifferent, and neglectful of their duties.

Salvation, in its largest aspect, consists in the proportion of truth received; men and women only are saved in proportion to the truth which they appropriate. An ignorant man will only obtain the salvation which belongs to the ignorant. The idler will only obtain that salvation which belongs to an idle man. Is it not “the hand of the diligent that maketh rich?” And there are parallels running through all the actions of the Saints in a religious sense similar to those which run through the actions of men in a social sense, even down to the lowest details of human life, into every avenue of life, in every direction in which human happiness is involved, constituting as they do in their entirety that which is spoken by the Apostle Paul, “how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” I presume, if I am to judge by my experience, that every man and every woman realizes that it is just in proportion to our experience, our use of the opportunities of life, our understanding of the principles involved, that we are successful. If you find a man who essays to be a merchant, who desires the accumulation of wealth, you will find a man who points his energies in that direction. He is a man who not only looks at things in general but at things in detail; he not only looks at his business as a whole but he looks at it in its parts; and if he were to abstain or refrain from a consideration of the details which insure success the probability is that he would find himself in the courts of liquidation. Many a man, fortunate in a mercantile sense, has gone to the wall through carelessness in regard to little things as boxes, paper, time, etc., through trivial waste that every prudent man would be disposed to notice; but the successful merchant in almost any instance—and these instances are the exception and not the rule, is the man who is economical, prudent and careful of the details of his business. If you go into our houses, and you take our girls that are grown up, and they are unable to bake bread, unable to cook a potato, unable to wash and attend to all the duties which belong to domestic life, how much of a domestic salvation will they receive? What attraction will there be for the husband, working away in the battle of life, when he comes home to find that rest which is so desirable? Our domestic salvation depends upon attention to the details which lie at the foundation of domestic happiness, and there can be no peace in the domestic circle where there is a lack of intelligence, there can be no success only where the good housewife masters the details of her daily life.

As it is in these two everyday yet diverse instances of life, so also it is in all other directions, and the same principle is just as prominent and just as applicable to the details of our most holy faith. You go out into the missionary field and preach the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. After you have finished your discourse some one may come up to you and say, “my friend, I believe the doctrine which you teach, I acknowledge the existence of the Deity, I believe in the message of his son, I understand the necessity of obedience to the first principles—including baptism.” But mark when a man has been baptized if he becomes careless and indifferent and says “Well, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to this extent.” In your estimation now, what would be the amount of salvation that man would receive? Why, he might receive the remission of his sins and that is all he is entitled to, but the salvation which belongs to the ordinance of the “laying on of hands” would form no part of his blessings. But supposing he advances a step further and says: “Having done so well I would like to enjoy a little more of the blessings,” and he goes and receives the laying on of hands. He feels the promptings of the spirit of intelligence from above, he rejoices in its influence; it suggests, persuades, counsels, and advises. Supposing that under the operations of this spirit he should turn a deaf ear to its promptings—suppose that it prompts him to go in one direction and he feels to run the other, suppose that he should resist this influence, how much of a salvation in that respect would he receive? For instance, you are all aware of the power of the spirit, or rather the impulse it gives to gathering. We have all felt this. It has been a part of our experience when we have been under the influence of that spirit; we desired to associate with the Saints in a local capacity in their general assemblies, and in a larger sense we have been desirous of gathering with them to the great gathering place wherever that may be. Suppose that spirit of gathering is resisted, and a man says “Well, I have got a good situation here, a nice little home, I enjoy the society in which I mingle”—and he continues in that course, how on earth or heaven or anywhere else, can that man get the special and particular salvation which belongs to gathering? It cannot be done; it is not in the nature of things. If he would enjoy that salvation he must absorb the principle of gathering until it grows and blossoms into life. And there are those even in this Territory who, when they get among the Saints believe that all the purposes of their holy religion have been served in their experience, and they set themselves down and say, “Well now, I will endeavor to get for myself a good home; I will try to make myself comfortable; I will spread out on the right hand and on the left; and as for some duties which pertain to my religion—well, I have not time to attend to them, they absorb too much of my attention, and I will give my life to making myself and family comfortable.” They think that because they have been baptized, because they enjoy the spirit of the Lord through the laying on of hands, because they have forsaken fatherland and come to the mountains, that, therefore, they are sure of “the great salvation” which the Gospel brings. Why, it is all a mistake. They will get the salvation which is necessary consequent upon the truth which they have absorbed and put into practice; no more and no less.

Again, we find that some of our people when Christmas comes round will begin to make excuses in regard to their tithing. Now, tithing is one of the eternal principles which pertains to the order of God. But a man goes up to his Bishop and says, “Well now, it’s all I can do to make both ends meet; the necessities of my family, the responsibilities and cares that belong to the position in which I move, compel me to use all the income I receive, and it scarcely suffices to serve my wants.” Do you believe that that man will ever enjoy that particular portion of salvation which belongs to those who promptly pay their tithes to the Lord? No, it cannot be done; that man never can enjoy the special and peculiar blessing that belongs to all those who pay their tithing.

You go into a man’s house and you find there disorder, children disputing, the wives—two or three as the case may be—at loggerheads (to use a rather vulgar expression) in fact the spirit of peace has fled from the hearthstone, what salvation in a domestic sense does that man enjoy? Is that the outcome of the order of family government, or rather was it not instituted to promote peace and harmony, so that we might have a type of the great heaven which we desire to enjoy in the not far distant future? The man who would have domestic salvation has got to work for it. He must understand the nature of the element with which he deals, he must so manipulate that it will bring forth the domestic salvation which he earnestly seeks. But supposing a man has got the peace he desires in this respect, yet in the morning as in the evening the song of prayer or praise is never heard in his house. Now there is a certain position of domestic salvation which pertains to the carrying out of these ideas and principles which we have received that cannot be secured by any other process, and the man who neglects to have family prayers, and to induce and persuade his family to join in, has lost one of the great elements which operate and secure for him and his, domestic salvation.

Well, now, there are some who attend to all these duties; but still there are a great many other principles that require to be observed. A man, for instance, has got the wife of his youth and a little family growing up, yet there is a principle in the Church of Christ called patriarchal marriage, and many a woman in regard to this will say to her husband, “Now let us be satisfied to leave well enough alone. If your family circle is enlarged, you will increase your responsibility, and there is great risk connected with the introduction of a foreign element in your family. It is true there may be peace, but it is far more likely that there will be contention or division.” Now, is there any advantage in the practice of the patriarchal order? That is the question. If there is—and I know there is, in spite of any difficulty connected therewith—how can you expect to enjoy any benefit which accrues from the practice of this eternal principle and yet remain in neglect or disobedience of that principle. It cannot be done. A great many think that it can, and they will employ all manner of subterfuge to back up their position. They will read the revelation on the subject, and they will construe and misconstrue all that it says, in order to justify themselves in the position which they have assumed; but every man and every woman may rest satisfied that the blessings which flow from this order of the Church of Christ cannot be secured by any other process than the one pointed out by Divine authority. “But,” says one, “I have known in my experience where difficulties have originated through the practice of this principle.” Very true. Have you never known of difficulties originating in any other direction or arising from the practice of any other principle? Were there no difficulties set before you when you were baptized? Were there no difficulties presented before you when you thought of gathering? Were there no difficulties in your way when you endeavored to make your feet fast in the valleys of the mountains? Is it not difficulties that make the man? Is it not difficulties that make the woman? Is it not those circumstances and changes of life that call forth every energy and arouse us to continued action so that we may ensure success? In the common walks of life we are accustomed to notice men and women who pride themselves in the assurance that where others have failed they have brought forth success. The same idea is applicable to many in the direction of the patriarchal order. Where a man has failed in one or some other given direction, that failure should be an impetus to his neighbor, requiring and stirring him to use all his ability so as to secure success.

Now when I was in the old world I met a great many of the brethren there who were engaged like myself in the work of the ministry, and whenever I met a man of the character I have described I invariably found that he was shorn of power, that he did not carry with him that full influence which a missionary of the Gospel should carry; at all events he had not that influence which practice and experience gives in this direction and I have imagined a case to myself sometimes. In going into any small town or country village, into the midst of those peculiar influences which exist in England, you will find an audience congregated on the village green or elsewhere listening to the missionary. After he is through with his discourse a man steps up and says, I have heard the remarks you have made; I believe in the principles that you advocate; but I am at the mercy of the squire, or of the ‘Lord of the Manor’ here, or the owner of this coal pit, or the one who runs this factory, and if I should embrace the doctrine that you preach I should be turned out of my cottage; I should lose the opportunity of earning my bread, my boys and girls would be thrown out of employment, and I should soon be all astray in a financial and industrial sense.” What does the elder say in a case of that kind? He says, “My friend I hear all your argument. It is very good, that is so far as it goes, but the Lord has promised to take care of his Saints; he has promised that when one door shuts another shall open; and he has declared by revelation that it is his business to provide for his Saints; and now if you will go down in humility and be baptized and associate yourselves with the church and kingdom of God upon the earth your way will be opened before you.” The elder believes what he is advocating. The man goes down and is baptized, and sure enough directly it comes to his employer’s ears, he receives a week’s notice to quit his work, or quit his cottage, as the case may be. He pulls a long face when the elder comes round again, but the elder says, “never mind, all will come out right; exercise your faith; trust in Providence; do what is right and let the consequence follow.” Soon after this the man gets a good situation and an advance of a few shillings per week probably; the Lord has blessed him, he has opened up his way before him, and the words of the servant of God have been fulfilled. By and by through this increase he gets to Zion, and arriving there he goes to visit the house of this missionary and be introduced to his family. After awhile he takes the elder to one side and says, “How long have you been in Utah?” And the answer is ten, fifteen, or twenty years, as the case may be. “You are pretty comfortable, nice little house well furnished.” “Oh yes, first rate.” “Is this all the family you have got?” “Yes, this is all I have got; never had but one wife; I could not maintain any more families.” “But,” says the man, “did you not tell me when I got baptized to keep all the commandments of God; did you not tell me it was the Lord’s business to provide for the Saints; did you not make the assertion that the path of duty was the path of safety?” “Yes,” says the elder, “that may do very well for Babylon, but it won’t do here in Zion.” Now there is something not right here; there is surely a weak point somewhere. If the principle is good in the midst of the nations, it is good at home, and if men are honest and honorable in the practice of that which they know to be right in the valleys of the mountains, the path of success will as surely open before them as it did to the man who received the Gospel in a foreign land. A great many of the brethren think they cannot afford to keep any more families. I remember when I was a lad I used to think and say I should not be able to keep myself, and on remarking this to my landlady she replied: “I have often found that a man who thinks he cannot keep himself can keep a wife and five or six children.” Why? Because the responsibility called forth his energies; he became speculative and energetic in order to secure success. There is a blessing, there is an element of salvation, there is something which tends to progress in the obedience to every principle that has been received, so far, in connection with the church and kingdom of God, and every man and every woman will receive only that amount of salvation for which they work. Our measure of salvation, then, consists in the absorption of the truth we hear. Truth neglected, truth unemployed, truth unappropriated, is as valueless as the snows of ten winters ago are for the irrigation of our fields in the coming summer. But where the spirit of life is, where the spirit of vitality exists, where throughout the whole organization of a man there burns the spirit of intelligence, the spirit of advancement, he will lead out continually in the right direction, and his wives and children will follow after him, they will catch his spirit, his neighbors will feel his influence, the ward to which he belongs will feel after and emulate his example, and society generally will be the better for his presence; but when this coldness, this indifference, this negligence comes in, why, the blessings that belong to obedience will not be received any more than the blessings that belong to our attending meeting on a Sunday can be received if we stay at home. I recollect a person saying to me once, “Well, who preached today?” “Oh brother so and so.” “Well, I know all he can say; and besides when such and such persons preach I can stay at home and read the Bible”—and not much of that I think—“I can read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, DESERET NEWS, and any of the books published by the Church and I enjoy myself better than I do in going to meeting.” Now is that a fact? A man may think so; but is it a fact that a man can increase in the knowledge of the things of God if he absents himself from the services of the sanctuary as established by divine appointment? I say, no. The meetinghouse is the place where the table is spread, where the food is prepared by the eternal spirit, and when we go there and hear men speak to us under the influence of that spirit, and we are in possession of the same spirit—we are fed, we grow and increase, and the roots and fibers of our being run deeper, and so enable us to “bring forth more fruit.”

I presume the time is exhausted. I desire to continue faithful to the appropriation of truth, wheresoever it may originate: no matter where, for all truth is divine. It is my privilege to enjoy the spirit of inspiration, to feel the flow of revelation from above; and that God may grant us peace and wisdom and save us in his kingdom is my prayer, through Jesus Christ. Amen.